USS Yorktown

USS Yorktown (CV/CVA/CVS-10) is one of 24 s built during World War II for the United States Navy. Initially to have been named Bonhomme Richard, she was renamed Yorktown while still under construction, after the , which was sunk at the Battle of Midway. She is the fourth U.S. Navy ship to bear the name, though the previous ships were named for 1781 Battle of Yorktown. Yorktown was commissioned in April 1943, and participated in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, earning 11 battle stars and the Presidential Unit Citation. Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she was modernized and recommissioned in February 1953 as an attack carrier (CVA), and served with distinction during the Korean War. The ship was later modernized again with a canted deck, eventually becoming an anti-submarine carrier (CVS) and served for many years in the Pacific, including duty in the Vietnam War, during which she earned five battle stars. The carrier served as a recovery ship for the December, 1968, Apollo 8 space mission, the first crewed ship to reach and orbit the Moon, and was used in the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora!, which recreated the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and in the 1984 science fiction film The Philadelphia Experiment. Yorktown was decommissioned in 1970 and in 1975 became a museum ship at Patriots Point, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, where she was designated a National Historic Landmark. Construction and commissioning Work was begun on Bonhomme Richard when her keel was laid down on 1 December 1941 at Newport News, Virginia, by the Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Company, six days before the Attack on Pearl Harbor. She was renamed on 26 September 1942 as USS Yorktown to commemorate the loss of during the Battle of Midway in June 1942, and launched on 21 January 1943, sponsored by Eleanor Roosevelt. Yorktown was commissioned on 15 April 1943, with Captain Joseph J. Clark in command.