Yorktown-class aircraft carrier

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USS Enterprise
Class overview
Builders	Newport News Shipbuilding
Operators	United States Navy
Preceded by	USS Ranger
Succeeded by	USS Wasp
Built	21 May 1934 - 20 October 1941
In commission	30 September 1937 – 17 February 1947
Completed	3
Lost	2
Retired	1
General characteristics
Type	Aircraft carrier
Displacement	19,800 long tons (20,100 t) standard 25,500 long tons (25,900 t)) full load
Length	770 ft (230 m) waterline at design draft 809 ft 9 in (246.81 m) length of main hull 824 ft 9 in (251.38 m) overall length 802 ft (244 m) flight deck
Beam	83 ft (25 m) at waterline 109 ft 6 in (33.38 m) width at flight deck
Draft	26 ft (7.9 m) (24 ft 4 in (7.42 m) design draft)
Propulsion	9 Babcock & Wilcox boilers 4-shaft Parsons geared turbines 120,000 shp (89 MW)
Speed	32.5 kn (60.2 km/h; 37.4 mph)
Range	12,500 nmi (23,200 km)
Complement	2,217
Sensors and processing systems	SC radar
Armament	8 × 5 in/38 caliber guns 4 × quad 1.1 in/75 caliber guns (Enterprise upgraded to 40 mm Bofors guns) 24 × .50 Cal machine guns (all of the ships upgraded to 20 mm Oerlikon cannons)
Armor	Belt: 2.5–4 in (6.4–10.2 cm) Tower: 4 inches (10 cm)
Aircraft carried	90
Aviation facilities	2 flight deck catapults 1 hangar catapult 3 aircraft elevators

The Yorktown class was a class of three aircraft carriers built for the United States Navy and completed shortly before World War II, the Yorktown (CV-5), Enterprise (CV-6), and Hornet (CV-8). They immediately followed Ranger, the first U.S. aircraft carrier built as such, and benefited in design from experience with Ranger and the earlier Lexington class, which were conversions into carriers of two battlecruisers that were to be scrapped to comply with the Washington Naval Treaty, an arms limitation accord.

These ships bore the brunt of the fighting in the Pacific during 1942, and two of the three were lost: Yorktown, sunk at the Battle of Midway, and Hornet, sunk in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands.

Enterprise, the sole survivor of the class, was the most decorated ship of the U.S. Navy in the Second World War. After efforts to save her as a museum ship failed, she was scrapped in 1958.^[1][2]