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USS Yorktown (CV-10) was laid down at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company on December 1, 1941. After the outbreak of the war, work on USS Yorktown was accelerated and she was launched on January 21, 1943 and was commissioned on April 15, 1943. USS Yorktown was to have been named USS Bon Homme Richard but soon after the Battle of Midway, in which the old USS Yorktown (CV-5) was sunk, the navy announced that CV-10 would be renamed USS Yorktown. Another Essex class carrier (CV-31) was later named USS Bon Homme Richard.
USS Yorktown was the second Essex class carrier to be laid down by the United States. The Essex class was a half-way design. Carriers of that class were developed after the end of the Washington Naval Treaty and were thus considerably larger than comparable ships designed earlier. However, the outbreak of the war and the need to rush ships into action meant that they would be developed from earlier treaty-bound designs. The Essex class was essentially an enlarged improved version of the previous Yorktown class featuring added antiaircraft armament, new high pressure boilers, new en echelon machinery arrangement, better underwater protection, more powerful catapults, and a second armoured deck on the hangar level.
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