Hiryū’s survival preserved a chance to strike back. While the other Japanese carriers struggled with fires, she launched a force recorded as eighteen dive bombers and six fighters. A later wave combined ten torpedo aircraft and six fighters, including aircraft from Akagi and Kaga. These were successive efforts from the remaining operational carrier, not a restored four-carrier striking force. M14
Their target was Yorktown. The American success that morning had not removed the need to detect incoming aircraft, intercept them and keep a damaged ship functioning.
The bombers arrive
Yorktown’s damage report records a radar warning at 1359 in its own chronology. Refuelling stopped. Aviation-fuel lines were drained and filled with carbon dioxide to reduce the danger of fire. These precautions were taken before the bombs arrived. M18
The report places three bomb hits at 1414. One opened a hole about twelve feet across in the flight deck, behind the second aircraft elevator. Fragments started fires in aircraft on the hangar deck below. Sprinklers and water curtains extinguished those fires, while repair crews patched the deck opening in about twenty-five minutes. M18
Another bomb struck the uptakes—the passages carrying exhaust from the boilers. The resulting damage interrupted steam production. Yorktown slowed sharply and, by 1440 in the report, her engines had stopped. A third hit started fires forward, near spaces containing aviation stores and above fuel storage. The nearby magazine group was flooded as a precaution. M18
Three hits had produced several different emergencies. A usable flight deck alone could not restore the carrier: she also needed steam, electrical power and control of the fires below.
Getting Yorktown moving
Repair parties worked on the damaged exhaust passages while engineers brought boilers back into service. At 1550, the engine room reported that the ship could make twenty knots or slightly better. She had recovered a substantial part of her mobility after stopping altogether. M18
That recovery was extraordinary, but incomplete. Some machinery remained damaged, and smouldering material in the forward rag stowage persisted beyond the afternoon. “Under control” did not mean every fire was out or every system restored. M18
It also makes the Japanese claims difficult to read without comparison. Their report describes attacks on an Enterprise-type carrier and gives damage estimates that cannot be accepted as confirmed ship identities or losses. The American damage record shows the same Yorktown suffering both the bombing and the later torpedo attack. M14 M18
The torpedoes strike
When another attack approached, the crew again interrupted refuelling and secured the aviation-fuel system. Yorktown manoeuvred to evade torpedoes, but two struck her port side. Steam and electrical power failed, the rudder jammed and the ship stopped. Flooding produced an increasing list. M18
The available reports disagree about the exact time. Captain Elliott Buckmaster’s action report puts the hits at about 1620; the technical damage report gives 1645. They also differ over the list at abandonment. Both rely on reconstructed recollections, and the technical account draws on the captain’s submissions. These are not two independent clocks that can simply be averaged. M04 M18
The essential damage sequence is clearer. The emergency diesel started, but electrical distribution could not be restored. Without power, the crew could not correct the worsening list. Buckmaster ordered abandonment because he feared the ship would soon capsize. Wounded men were lowered into rafts and boats from the escorting ships. M18 M04
Yorktown nevertheless remained afloat. The second attack had disabled her and forced her crew off; it had not yet sunk her. That distinction left room for a later attempt to save the ship.
Among the rescuers was Hammann, which recovered Yorktown personnel including Captain Buckmaster. The destroyer’s report traces his transfer to Astoria and the subsequent preparation of a salvage party. The escorts were already becoming the means by which men could return to the carrier as well as leave her. M44
Hiryū becomes the target
The remaining Japanese carrier was also exposed to attack. In the afternoon, American dive bombers found her. Bombing Squadron Six’s report describes fighters engaging before the dive began, the loss of one of its aircraft, and antiaircraft fire during the dive and withdrawal. The conditions differed from the opening experienced by the squadron during its morning attack. M17
The report records aircraft from Scouting Six, Bombing Three and Bombing Six diving on the carrier. Its precise hit claims remain claims, but its description of a burning carrier agrees with the Japanese report’s account of Hiryū’s emergency. Richard Best subsequently saw the carrier still burning and moving with the fleet. Being hit, losing the ability to operate aircraft and finally sinking were separate stages. M17 M14
Hiryū’s crew tried to escape the battle area and contain the fires. The Japanese account describes engine-room personnel continuing their work as heat and fire killed men below. The ship eventually lost propulsion. A period of hope that the fire could be controlled ended with another internal explosion. M14
The English edition records the evacuation to Kazagumo and Makigumo, with the carrier’s captain and Rear-Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi remaining aboard. It is the Japanese command report’s account, transmitted through a postwar translation, rather than an independently verified transcript of their final words. M06
Hiryū had inflicted a serious loss of American fighting power, but could not restore Japan’s carrier position. Yorktown lay abandoned yet afloat; the last Japanese flight deck was out of action. The fighting, rescue and salvage still to come would determine who survived and which ships could be brought home.