Peter Newberg saw a blonde man close to him and it turned out to be his friend. He was an electrician 3rd Class on the USS Yorktown [Annotator's Note: USS Yorktown (CV-5)]. He worked on the flight deck repair party. His crew was responsible for repairing the flight deck. During the Battle of Coral Sea [Annotator's Note: first naval battle to only use naval aviation, 4 to 8 May 1942], one of the five inch guns blew a fuse. They needed an electrician to fix the gun. The moment caught Newberg's attention because he needed to cross the deck during battle. Newberg was not able to get the gun working. The ships maneuvers were not much of a problem, but the machine guns and bombing were problems for Newberg. He was topside when he felt an explosion, but he did not realize the ship had been hit. When the attack was over, Newberg was sent to the mess hall for food. A bomb went off where Repair Team 2 was. It killed many men and their bodies were in the mess hall. Newberg never forgot that moment. He remembered how the bodies were stacked. That evening, the dead were buried. Newberg never forgot that moment either. The ship was leaking oil from the bomb hits. The bomb hit the armored deck, then went off. The explosion damaged the armored deck, but did not damage the engineer station. Newberg saw the Lexington [Annotator's Note: USS Lexington (CV-2)] on fire as his ship circled it. After the crew was removed, the Lexington was scuttled. After watching that ship go down, Newberg and the Yorktown sailed off. When the air attack was over, Newberg was on the search light. An electrician below deck called to see what was happening. They heard the Lexington was in bad shape. Newberg could see the ship smoking next to them, but keeping up. Throughout the day, the Lexington got slower and slower as the fires worsened. That afternoon, the ship was abandoned and scuttled. Newberg believed it was the fires that finished the ship.

While in Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii] after the battle [Annotator's Note: [Annotator’s Note: Battle of the Coral Sea, 4 to 8 May 1942], Peter Newberg went on liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time]. The place was covered in workmen. He helped repair the ship [Annotator's Note: USS Yorktown (CV-5)]. Newberg did not know there were workman on the ship when it set sail. They were working on the ship when it first set sail. When the Yorktown set off for Midway [Annotator's Note: Midway Atoll], she was separated from the rest of the task force. She met up with the Enterprise [Annotator's Note: USS Enterprise (CV-6)] and the Hornet [Annotator's Note: USS Hornet (CV-8)] later. When the Yorktown's planes returned, some of them landed in the water. Many of the torpedo bombers took a beating. The planes started returning sometime in the morning. The Japanese started attacking around mid-day [Annotator's Note: on 4 June 1942]. Newberg and his sidekick had just checked out an aircraft machine gun. The captain wanted everything used. Every other plane had a light machine gun. They managed to fire some rounds at the oncoming enemy planes, but Newberg does not think he hit anything. The dive bombers were high up. Newberg could not see them, but his sidekick saw them coming in. An explosion hit and wiped out everyone in that area. The machine guns were manned by recruits picked up in Norfolk at the start of the war. The Yorktown was hit by three or four bombs. The bombs knocked out power to the ship, leaving it dead in the water. A bomb hit a stack. Newberg helped patch holes in the flight deck. A bomb hit about 30 feet from Newberg. There was nothing electrical for Newberg to work on. They laid sheet metal across the hole. The boiler was repaired, but the top speed that the ship could make was 17 knots. That is when the Japanese torpedo bombers attacked. Newberg saw one of the fish [Annotator's Note: naval slang for a torpedo] in the water as it hit the ship. He saw two torpedoes hit side by side. When the torpedoes hit, the ship came to a dead stop and keeled over. There was no power. The generators and boilers were hit. Shortly after, the captain called for the men to abandon ship. Newberg looked to the island structure and it looked like it would keep going. He thought the ship was going to turn upside down.

Peter Newberg did not have much choice in abandoning ship [Annotator's Note: after the USS Yorktown (CV-5) was mortally damaged during the Battle of Midway]. After the torpedoes hit, the resulting wave washed him off the ship. Not long after, the order to abandon ship was given. Newberg did not see anyone in the water with him. It took him some time to get oriented. Many men had been burned during the Battle of Coral Sea. The Navy made some flash clothing, which was made to fit tightly to the body. It was difficult for Newberg to get the clothing off of himself without drowning. There was oil in the water. When he got his clothes off and could swim, he saw a fireman drowning. Another man was out there as well. Both men swam to the drowning man and saved him. The water had two or three inches of oil on top. Newberg overcame the fumes and got his clothes off. He managed to swim out of the oil patch. He then saw a rubber raft with a man in it. Newberg climbed onto the raft and floated for some time until they noticed a blonde kid in the water. All three men were from the same town. There were many more survivors trying to get into the raft. The original three men were pushed into the water. Newberg saw a destroyer, so the three men swam to the ship. The three men slept under the torpedo tubes of the ship, the Benham [Annotator's Note: USS Benham (DD-397)]. The deck was hot, but they were cold from the water. The following day, the three men were transferred to the Portland [Annotator's Note: USS Portland (CA-33)], then the Fulton [Annotator's Note: USS Fulton (AS-11)]. Newberg has a copy of that night's muster. He was surprised by how few men from his ship were lost. The transfer to the different ships were scary and took a long time. Newberg did not see the Yorktown sink. A salvage crew was put aboard and Newberg volunteered to go. He was not allowed to go because he did not have a high enough rank.

When Peter Newberg got back to Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: Pearl Harbor, Hawaii], he was sent to a Marine training camp in the hills. The engineering force was split in half and sent to the West Virginia [Annotator's Note: USS West Virginia (BB-48)] and the California [Annotator's Note: USS California (BB-44)]. Both ships had been sunk during the Pearl Harbor attack [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. The West Virginia was a mess, but the crew cleaned her up and got her out to sea. Newberg served on the West Virginia until the end of the war. At the end of his enlistment, Newberg was put on shore duty. He had enlisted for six years in 1940. He served on the Yorktown [Annotator's Note: USS Yorktown CV-5] for two years. Newberg feels lucky to be alive. He will never forget some of the things he saw. When he hears the "Star Spangled Banner," [Annotator's Note: national anthem of the United States] Newberg thinks about the men he buried after the Battle of the Coral Sea [Annotator's Note: first naval battle to only use naval aviation, 4 to 8 May 1942]. He is disappointed the Yorktown was never awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. Newberg is proud of his service on the Yorktown. He remembers the ship was happy. He never heard a complaint from a sailor. He heard unhappy people on other ships, but not the Yorktown.