U.S. naval attaché J. C. Hunsaker reported that HMS Furious had trouble clearing boiler smoke without proper funnels. His report shows how British operating experience reached American designers through the naval attaché system. Combined with demands for larger air groups and anti-aircraft batteries, that evidence forced the Bureau of Aeronautics to abandon its preferred flush-deck arrangement for Yorktown. The island was part of a wider compromise involving exhaust control, flight operations, aircraft capacity, and defence. Later island-free strategic-bomber-carrier proposals show that the design debate was postponed rather than permanently settled.
Notable Point · 20:33-21:32
Why Yorktown retained an island
Experience with exhaust smoke, larger air groups, and anti-aircraft requirements helped push the Yorktown design away from an entirely flush-deck carrier.