General History: USS Hornet (CV-8) - The Unluckiest Yorktown 

Hornet might not have served for anywhere as long as her sisters, but her contributions definitely made an impact during the desperate days early in the war.

No American carrier was particularly lucky until after Santa Cruz. The Big E being the exception. Yorktown sank on her second major battle, Lexington on her first, Saratoga kept getting torpedoed and Wasp went down in 1942 also. What little the Hornet did, she did spectacularly and the Japanese paid dearly.

Thank you for this video, nice job! My father was a crew member on USS Hornet. He joined the ship just after sea trials and abandoned ship with the rest of the crew. He was 17 years old.

Actually, Torpedo 8 did something very very important at Midway. Torpedo bombers were considered the greater threat over dive bombers. Add to that the Japanese did not have effective aerial battle coordination of their fighter cover, and what ended up happening is Torpedo 8 drew the entire Japanese fighter element down to attack them. This left the skies over the Japanese carriers completely clear for the Dive Bombers to have clean (and highly effective) runs at the Japanese carriers. So, yes, Hornet's participation was integral, even critical to the success of the U.S. air attack, in spite of how dis-jointed the whole thing was.

An underappreciated aspect of the Doolittle Raid was the motherlode of cypher and radio traffic for USN codebreakers to work with. Many of the transmissions were duplicates, some using the previous month's code book, some even uncoded, all sent in a panicked frenzy: If the Americans can bomb Tokyo, they can harm the Emperor. This intel windfall helped Naval Intelligence identify Midway as the target of the IJN's next offensive, and enabled the ambush that sank 4 carriers. THAT was USS HORNET's contribution to the victory at Midway.

15:40. I can give you an idea on how that would go down. Enterprise, barely survives. TF16’s main disadvantage in that battle was a relatively green air group, with exceptions of some pilots who fought at the Coral Sea. Including one Stanley “Swede” Vejtasa. Also her fighter director at Santa Cruz was new and he kept misleading the combat air patrol. However, Enterprise herself had a minor refit which included having all but one of her 1.1 inch guns replaced with quad Bofors. Her AA Crew were highly trained and experienced and her damage control crew was highly experienced as well. Finally, despite it being Captain Osborne B Hardison’s first assignment, he was helped by an excellent bridge crew. Who were able to accurately track the incoming Torpedo Bombers and helped steer the ship through their torpedo spreads. But the deciding factor is the screen around TF16 was bigger than TF17. It was made up of the Battleship USS South Dakota, which was also fitted with Bofors. The Atlanta-Class Cruiser USS San Juan. The heavy cruiser USS Portland and 8 Destroyers. 11 ships compared to the 10 of TF17. But had more AA guns. So with this in mind. Enterprise would still be damaged even if she was caught in the open instead of Hornet. She would probably take even more damage than she originally did. But with with an experienced crew, more AA guns and larger screen. She would have survived the first attack compared to Hornet.

To make matters worse at Santa Cruz. She was supposed to have USS North Carolina as her own battleship escort. But it was caught in the same torpedo attack that sank Wasp. I suspect that had that not been the case. The extra firepower from North Carolina would have been enough to save Hornet albeit not unscathed. Also one of Hornet’s gunnery officers during the first attack had rammed some of her 5-inch/38 Guns into their stoppers and jammed them there. Taking away 1/4 of her heavy AA batteries.

I think the most important thing Hornet’s torpedo squadron did - in their paralytically slow “Devastators” - was to draw the Japanese combat air patrol Zeros down to low altitude. The dive bombers had been separated off through that series of direction blinders. But it must be said that Nagumo had also changed course radically, which is why the bombers got lost. In any case, all the Zeros had come down to attack the Devastators, so that, when the Dauntless dive bombers showed up, they had almost free reign on the Japanese carriers. The other important point is that the Devastators’ attack had also distracted the Japanese from their rearming process, switching from land ordnance to sea, leaving all those bombs lying around. So I firmly believe that Hornet’s air crew set the stage for the stunning defeat of the Japanese at Midway and this the key turning point of the war.

This was great, thanks. Taught me a lot. I work on the Hornet CV12, so this will be very helpful for me.

Friend of mine welded on all three sisters and while Yorktown and Enterprise were the same so to speak Hornet was more compartmentalized.They did many things differently on the inside.

Some American ships of the interwar period, while pretty much obsolete when the war broke out, stubbornly refused to die. Hornet is a great example. You have DDs that lose their bows but still sail back to Cali. Nevada put up one heck of a fight on 7 Dec even though she didn’t have any ammo. She survived a nuclear bombing and hours of target practice by the newer battleships in the fleet afterwards as a target ship. Some of the carriers in the Yorktown class were the best though. Refused to sink even when there wasn’t any damage control left aboard fighting for them. We had to send them beneath the waves ourselves.

3 torpedoes. 5 bomb hits And 2 val dive bomber kamikaze hits. I like to think that the commander Lt murata intentionally crashed in the hornets bow flight deck.

Santa Cruz needs its own dedicated film, ASAP.

Yeah. One of the things about _Yorktown_ was that not only was she CV-5 - but her air group - taken from the _Saratoga_ was Air Group 3. Thus - Yorktown had a little more experience than than the other two and her Air Group also had the most experience of any that was left. .

Most people actually think CV8 before the Essex class. There were so many Essex's that most are lost in their history plus in reality the pacific war was effectively over by 1943 when the Essex's arrived.

Uss hornet was a great aircraft carrier and serves a great roll in world two until 1943

Nicely done video. much to learn from this. thank you

Hornet and the enterprise and the Yorktown were the best aircraft carriers in my opinion

The Yorktown class ❤

In the end, Hornet died doing what she was built to do, fight the Japanese. The Enterprise died by the same hands that killed the Nevada, her own ungrateful country!

Great work Skynea. Thanks for the quality uploads!

The Japanese dive bomber that crashed into HORNET's stack and island in the first attack on the morning of October 26, 1942 in the battle of Santa Cruz spewed flaming gasoline onto Hornet's signal bridge, severely degrading her signaling capabilities for the rest of the battle. This likely contributed to the miscommunication that sent USS JUNEAU (with her large antiaircraft battery) over to the ENTERPRISE group. The signal "Go to ENTERPRISE" that JUNEAU followed was meant for HORNET's returning aircraft, not her escorting ships. The absence of JUNEAU left the propulsion-less HORNET that much more vulnerable to the follow-up strike carried out by the Japanese JUNYO's torpedo bombers which killed any hope of HORNET's escape from the oncoming Japanese fleet.

My great grandpa survived the sinking of the USS Hornet.

They should raise the hornet as the only Yorktown class carrier to survive the war was the enterprise but she was scrapped they say she’s a war grave but there’s a catch all the dead and her crew were taken off the ship before she sank so she’s not a war grave

I wouldn’t say “unlucky” but “did her best”

Plus Hornet would have carried around half of her regular aircraft below deck which could have been used after the B-25's were launched.

Did no Japanese board the Hornet to get any possible intelligence info?

I'd like to think the multiple signals the IJN Guard got off weren't garbled at all. It was just pants shitting screams from a crew derping into two USN Carriers in their own pool in the front yard. All HQ heard was AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! (Not high pitched that one meme sounding aaaaaAAAAAAHHHH!)

Interesting photo starting at 11:40. Any idea which of the Atlanta Class Cruisers this is?

It's too bad they haven't used her name on a new carrier instead of president's names.

Wouldn’t the USS Yorktown be more unlucky since she survived only two battles.

Oddly enough with the poor showing at midway,which mitcher played a hugh part, he gets promoted to admiral instead of being relieved of command. With top navy brass making these kinds of decisions its a miracle we won the war in the pacific.

Uss hornet the menace of Tokyo

I wouldn't call her unlucky she made almost all the way to Japan and back when no other navy ship was in the fight in the Pacific at the time.

it’s a small thing, but Mitscher was Naval Aviator #33, not 31.

She wasn't a Yorktown. Weren't Horent and Wasp lighter as a result of treaty tonnage limits prewar?

imagine if the japanese took hornet and used it

👍 Si vis pacem, para bellum

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