They retrofit Yorktown in 3 days instead of 3 months. The Japanese thought Yorktown was a different aircraft carrier-they could not imagine such a fast retrofit.
Your own citation says that the original estimate was at least 2 weeks, and further looks found that important components were undamaged, and most of the damage was easily patchable, like the flight deck and hull. Her damaged boilers were not fully repaired and she was not able to make full speed.
This isn't that abnormal for 20th century warships. They were designed to be mostly flooded and still floating, had significant redundancy, and especially in the USA, massive efforts and training and resources were spent on damage control and management.
The USS New Orleans Cruiser in WW2 had 150ft of it's front entirely blown off by an ammo detonation. One quarter of the ship just gone.
The spent about 11 days on a crippled boat, patching things up and putting out fires, and then she sailed backwards to a friendly port, and was eventually fully refurbished and refit.
This wasn't some era of magical American super productivity. It's what these ships were designed to do in some way. They were built to be hit by rather large weapons after all, and attempt to survive. Look at what efforts it took to finally sink the Bismarck and the Japanese super battleships.
It was 2 days, and they thought it was a different ship because they thought the Yorktown was sunk in the previous battle, not because they didn't think it could be repaired that fast (although that's probably also true).
mrguyorama|3 days ago
This isn't that abnormal for 20th century warships. They were designed to be mostly flooded and still floating, had significant redundancy, and especially in the USA, massive efforts and training and resources were spent on damage control and management.
The USS New Orleans Cruiser in WW2 had 150ft of it's front entirely blown off by an ammo detonation. One quarter of the ship just gone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_New_Orleans_(CA-32)#Battle... (look at those pictures!)
The spent about 11 days on a crippled boat, patching things up and putting out fires, and then she sailed backwards to a friendly port, and was eventually fully refurbished and refit.
This wasn't some era of magical American super productivity. It's what these ships were designed to do in some way. They were built to be hit by rather large weapons after all, and attempt to survive. Look at what efforts it took to finally sink the Bismarck and the Japanese super battleships.
vrosas|4 days ago