--Originally Posted 12/13/08

In November, 2007, when I visited the USS Yorktown Museum ship at Patriot's Point, SC, I took the opportunity to photograph her extensively. The ship being docked starboard side to the pier (as these ships were specifically designed to do - particularly after additon of the angled flight decks), the best photography, save from a boat on the river, is by far facilitated for the starboard side:


Click on Image to EnlargeAt left is a long-range - and therefore most orthogonal; showing all features closest to their true proportions - photo of the starboard side of the island. I also moved in to take numerous closeups which, through the magic of PhotoShop®, I blended into a seamless mosaic, shown at right (and displayable at high-resolution). Although excellent for resolving small features, relative sizes and angles are highly distorted in this type of mosaic; composed of shots from relatively close-in.

The closer-in the pics, the more severe the distortion - which is exactly the case for the port side of the island:


Click on Image to EnlargeHere again, small features are clearly recognizeable for what they actually are - however, because one can only back away by the width of the flight deck - again, unless you have a boat to shoot pics from out on the river - the distortion in the mosaic is extreme.

Accordingly, my second least-distorted pics are of the island ends, for which it was possible to back away (about half) the length of the flight deck:


Click on Image to EnlargeNote the substantial asymmetry of the island components - particularly at the forward end.

Yorktown-II ended her service as a training carrier (ATV), before which she was an ASW carrier (CVS); if specific details of the SCB-125 Essex islands followed any systematic trends, I would guess the above represents either the ATV, or CVS (or both) fits - with much stripped off, of course. For example, radars and radomes are clearly missing.

However, for basic structural components of these islands - plus quite a bit of piping- and railing detail, etc. - these pics will, it is hoped, be useful.

Cheers,

-Matty