Yorktown-class aircraft carrier

The Yorktown class was a class of three aircraft carriers built for the United States Navy and completed shortly before World War II: Yorktown (CV-5), Enterprise (CV-6) and Hornet (CV-8). They followed Ranger, the first American carrier designed as such, but their design drew more on the converted Lexington-class carriers and the early experimental carrier Langley. All three ships were built at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Virginia, and each was driven by nine Babcock and Wilcox boilers feeding four geared steam turbines. The class carried much of the Pacific fighting in 1942. Yorktown was sunk after the Battle of Midway and Hornet was lost after the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, while Enterprise survived the war as the most decorated ship of the U.S. Navy in the Second World War and was scrapped in 1958.