Aircraft carriers played a crucial role in the Pacific Campaign during World War Two in the United States Navy's fight against the Japanese. The portrayal of one carrier, the USS Yorktown, in December 1944's "The Fighting Lady," won the Academy Awards' Best Documentary Feature.
Edward Steichen, a giant in photography, directed "The Fighting Lady," with his spellbinding visuals dominating this one hour documentary. Steichen artistically captured in Technicolor both the daily life of a floating city within the carrier as well as unique naval war footage of the aerial and sea battles taking place. As head of the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit, Steichen, a World War One veteran and called "the greatest photographer that ever lived," hand-picked his cameramen to capture the action on the USS Yorktown. Much of the clips from "The Fighting Lady" are used in a number of WW2 documentaries about the Pacific front.
Although "The Fighting Lady" concentrated on the daily life of its personnel, the documentary captured fighting in three battlefronts in the Pacific. Not to be confused with the earlier carrier USS Yorktown, which sank in June 1942 after the Battle of Midway, the newer version passed through the Panama Canal after leaving its home port in Norfolk, Virginia, arriving at the Marcus Island in 1943, then Kwajalein Island in early 1944, and finally near the Philippines. It was during the Battle of the Philippine Sea the carrier's aviators participated in the 'Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.' The American fighter pilots were far more experienced than their Japanese counterparts, as well as flying more advanced planes. The battle footage is breathtaking because Steichen had modified Technicolor 16mm 'gun' cameras mounted on the wings of the American fighter planes, placing viewers in the front seat of all the action.
Robert Taylor, enlisting in the United States Naval Air Corps as a flight instructor, narrated "The Fighting Lady." One poignant sequence towards the end of the documentary shows a number of servicemen's body bags draped in the American flag buried at sea. Pilot Lt. Elisha 'Smokey' Stover is portrayed recovering from his wounds and returning to his fighter squadron. He was shot down in the Battle of Truk, landing in the ocean. Stover was captured in his rubber dinghy as the wind carried him to the Japanese-occupied island of Truk. After he and six other captured pilots were beaten and tortured, they were led onto the beach after the Americans abandoned its objective, beheaded by sword and thrown into the sea.
The USS Yorktown continued its service in the Navy through the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and was used in 1970's WW2 movie "Tora! Tora! Tora!" Decommissioned in 1970, the carrier was brought to Mount Pleasant, outside of Charleston, South Carolina, and is open to the public as a museum ship.
