USS Yorktown Struck by a Torpedo at Midway, 4 June 1942
Yorktown heeling to port after a Type 91 torpedo hit during the afternoon attack by aircraft from the carrier Hiryū, photographed from USS Pensacola on 4 June 1942. Official U.S. Navy photograph 80-G-414423, held by the National Archives.
Yorktown had arrived at Midway under repair, patched at Pearl Harbor in three days rather than the three months the yard estimated, and she was there because codebreakers had read enough of the Japanese naval cipher to place the target and the date. The battle turned on that reading and on a few minutes of dive-bombing that left three Japanese carriers burning. Hiryū's counterstrike, of which this photograph is part, cost the Americans Yorktown — and Hiryū herself was sunk hours later. See how codebreakers and dive bombers turned the Pacific war.
Public domain — source (Wikimedia Commons). Free to reuse under the stated licence.
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