Ford went on to lead the photographic unit for the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, for the remainder of the war. B-17s (Flying Fortresses), appeared in The Battle of Midway, which won an Oscar for best documentary that year. Marines gave Ford first aid, but he “did not leave his station until he had completed his photographic mission.”įord’s footage of the battle, and particularly the activities of U.S. Naval Reserve, and was tasked with making documentary films for the Navy during World War II.Īt Admiral Nimitz’s request, the director was stationed on Midway during the battle, and suffered a “bomb concussion” and gunshot wound during the Japanese raid, according to now-declassified records. A celebrated Hollywood director shot footage of the battle.Ī film still shows a US Navy aircraft carrier, likely the USS Enterprise, during the Battle of Midway, from the John Ford-directed documentary 'The Battle of Midway,' 1942.īest known for his masterful Westerns, and his longtime collaboration with John Wayne, director John Ford was also an officer in the U.S. In 1998, the Yorktown was finally located some 16,650 feet under the surface of the Pacific, by a team led by Robert Ballard, the undersea explorer known for discovering another famous wreck: the Titanic. Japanese counterattacks from bombers and submarines sank the Yorktown on June 7, 1942, but not before it managed to play a key role in the Allied victory at Midway. More than 1,400 repairmen worked around the clock, patching the holes in the Yorktown with steel plates, in order to have it ready for Nimitz at Midway.Īfter barely 48 hours in Drydock Number One at the Pearl Harbor Navy Yard, the Yorktown steamed out to join the Hornet and Enterprise 325 miles north of Midway, at a predetermined meeting spot known as “Point Luck.” The Yorktown’s presence caught Japan by surprise they had thought they had disposed of the carrier in the Coral Sea. During the Battle of the Coral Sea, a 551-pound Japanese bomb had hit the Yorktown’s wooden flight deck, smashing through and exploding inside the ship.
On May 27, 1942, the USS Yorktown struggled into Pearl Harbor, after traveling 3,000 miles across the Pacific.
The aircraft carrier USS Yorktown is shown in dry dock at Pearl Harbor, as it is being readied for the Battle of Midway. carrier had undergone rush repairs just a week before the battle. Meanwhile, Yamamoto’s two most modern carriers, the Shokaku and Zuikaku, had been damaged in the earlier battle, and were unavailable for use at Midway.
James Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo in April 1942, and the Yorktown, which was damaged in the Coral Sea-to the central Pacific, laying a trap for the Japanese. Nimitz rushed three U.S carriers-the Enterprise and Hornet, which had participated in Col. The Battle of Midway confirmed the carrier’s emergence as the key naval vessel in World War II, displacing the battleship. The Battle of the Coral Sea, in which Allied forces turned back Japan’s invasion of Port Moresby in New Guinea, was the first naval battle in history in which the ships involved never sighted or fired directly at each other. This failure would come back to haunt the Japanese in May 1942, when the first major carrier battle took place in the South Pacific. aircraft carriers in the fleet at the time were at Pearl Harbor on Decemall were out to sea on maneuvers, and all escaped unscathed.
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