U.S. Navy aircraft in Europe during WW2…?

I know it’s off the main topic again but didn’t Nelson have something to do with skip bombing by firing his cannon balls off the water to bounce up to hit the enemy?? – Just catching up post weekend. Sorry.

I must excuse myself…….I should have said P-40 pilots AND crews. Without the maintenance guys no airplane would ever fly and it’s obviously only right to give them some credit too.

Indeed Phantom II, I have spoken with many of the Kiwis who were up in the Pacific, and read many books by others, and the conditions the groundcrews were under was simply awful compared with those fighting in Europe. In the daytime the aircraft would heat up so much in the sun that to touch the aluminium surface would burn the skin so bad it would come off apparently, and you couldn’t leave your tools out of the shade or they were also too hot to pick up. And they were expected to maintain full squadrons of aircraft for readiness each day. At night they were bombed so often by ‘Washing Machine Charlie’ they spent more time out of bed than in, running to the slit trenches. The food was disgusting, the living conditions rancid with rats and snakes and insects in the tents, etc. Trying to eat with the insects round was near impossible. One guy told me he was eating a can of bullybeef when he accidentally swallowed a fly. He began to throw up, and due to the poor health state most were in including him, he couldn’t stop vomiting and he became so dehydrated he had to be hospitalised. I could see as he told me he really thought he was a gonner – he began to cry as he told me, 60 years later. That upset him more than anything else he told me about. Amazing.

And then there was the disease and constant threat of it – and the medication needed such as salt tablets and anti-malaria pills which turned the skin bright yellow: this colour apparently leached from the skin for years later and after they’d return from the Pacific for some time they always found their white sheets had turned yellow overnight – another legacy of the Pacific war.

There was the lack of recreation too (except swimming with sea snakes or if brave, sightseeing amongst the Jap-sniper riddled jungles.

It amazes me how these chaps managed to do such a valiant job. All those who served, the US Navy and Marines, the RAAF, even the Japanese were under similar conditions. I dear say even the RAF chaps in the SEAC area had similar problems to deal with. But I especially admire the kiwis in the Pacific.

In a very short space of time against huge odds the New Zealanders shot down 100 enemy aircraft confirmed with their P40’s, for a much smaller loss ratio themselves (a few of which were shot down by Allies by mistake). And the groundcrews kept them flying, using all the skills could muster, and by scavaging from dumped US P40 airframes, etc. To make matters worse the US Government didn’t want the New Zealanders there, but the NZ Govt insisted so there was also politics going on behind it all. On the ground however many US units helped the kiwis out very generously, even if their Govt didn’t want them there.

Our bomber crews in the Hudsons and later Venturas also carried out extraordinary duties and they were doing work that no-one else was doing.

I would love to see your B25 film someday Corsair, and also one about the P40’s, whether US, RAAF or Kiwi. Personally I hope to make something about an RNZAF Hudson crew, maybe based around the tagedy that was survived by only Flight Sgt Trevor Ganley, who came from my home town. Now that’s a story and a half of survival.

PS – sorry for straying so far from the topic of this thread which I am also finding fascinating.

I must excuse myself…….I should have said P-40 pilots AND crews. Without the maintenance guys no airplane would ever fly and it’s obviously only right to give them some credit too.

The Stringbag was operated by the U.S. Navy??

And if any new movie needs to be made it should be one about P-40 pilots in the Pacific. The 23rd FG, or perhaps the Kiwi chaps and their Warhawks…….either way it needs to be done. 🙂

Forgot to answer MMitch’s question about the Coast Guardsmen buried in his country ….being ex-Coast Guard myself (USCGC Evergreen), I do know that the Coast Guard fell under the Department of the Navy in time of war and so many men wound up on Navy ships….not to mention the CG had many cutters of their own (basically like destroyer escorts) and they battled the Germans in many ways, so there are lots of ways Coast Guardsmen could wind up in a cemetary in England.

Mark

Hmmm…did’nt know they decorated British aircraft with american markings to keep them from being shot at…VERY interesting! Learn something new every day…

Yeah, the procedure, as I’m told, was to fly the B-25’s at 200 mph over the water at 200 feet of altitude and drop the hard cased bombs, which would then ‘skip’ into the sides of the jap ships and were equipped with a 5 second or longer fuse to allow the bombers to get away…(it also served to let the bomb reach full penetration of the ship and do more interior damage)…on one mission I seem to recall 37 bombs were dropped and 28 direct hits were scored…pretty damn good percentage.

I’m considering writing a movie script called ‘The 5th’ on the exploits of these boys in the pacific…the B-25’s are available, one (Barbie 2) even has a 75mm gun in its nose already…

Mark

Following on from my original reply regarding US Navy operated Spitfires during the D-Day landings, below is a link to an interesting photograph:

http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/g300000/g302108c.htm

Regards,

Paul

Too late!

Below:
An Albacore of 820NAS (BF653) on HMS Formidable wearing US stars and US Navy instead of Royal Navy on the rear fuselage. (Pic from Fleet Air Arm in Camera [Sutton] – from FAAM)
Sea Hurricane IIc (Canadian built JS327) of 804NAS on the beach at St Leu, Algeria. It has Royal Navy on the rear fuselage. (Pic from Aircraft in Profile Vol1 part2 [Profile Doubleday] – although is in various other publications with various different captions).

A long search has not turned up any Swordfish pix, although I do remember one; not any Walrus – also remembered.
Would be interested in seeing any FAA aircraft in Torch or any other special markings/colour schemes though.

Flood.™

From memory: Just ordinary, “hard-cased”, bombs. I don’t know the inventor – or which country/service? To digress a bit more, one of the US nuclear bombs had a “cookie-cutter” on the front to prevent it from skipping!
Best regards

Cheers ATC Pal, yes that was the film I had a vague memory of. And interesting to see the skip bombing technique. Was this a developement of Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bomb or a totally independently thought-up technique?

Flood – so did the USN fly all those FAA types in US schemes then? Maybe the photo I recall seeing of Wildcats were actually Royal Navy Martlets in US markings? Could be an interesting area for the modellers.

Also. did the French shoot at them?

Dave H. Here is a nice painting of B-25’s skip bombing ships:
http://www.oldgloryprints.com/B-25’s%20Skip%20Bombing%20Wewak.htm

Best regards

“Forever Young” ?, where Mel was frozen until “present time” (not too bad). “Skip bombing” is just that – to skip like a stone on water. Could also be used on suitable land surfaces. Was practiced by F-84G’s f.ex. postwar.
( http://www.fabulousrocketeers.com/Photo_Gunnery2.htm )
Best regards

Need to be very careful since the US navy apparently operated Albacore, Fulmar, Sea Hurricane, and maybe Swordfish, amongst other Fleet Air Arm types for Operation Torch – it was thought (hoped!) that the French wouldn’t shoot at American aircraft…

Flood.™

The USN operated from Dunkeswell Devon during WW2
good site to visit here :http://www.usn-dunkeswell.info/

I think there were a few rallies of F4F and Fw200s of KG40 over the Atlantic. Got to look that up.

And at “Torch” there were also some F4F from CV-4 USS Ranger, which was the USN’s only large carrier in the Atlantic. Ranger was also busy in early 1943 off the coast of Norway where F4Fs (escorting Dauntlesses and Avengers) shot down *some* German aircraft.

There is an article in the D-Day 60th anniversary special (Flypast/Key publication) regarding the US Navy’s only Spitfire unit, VCS-7.
These USN pilots were employed in naval gunfire support spotting operations, in the days immediately following the landings.
Also, the article features colour artwork of one of the unit’s Spitfire IX’s (incidentally, in British markings), showing full circumferential D-Day stripes, and the codes ‘4G’ just forward of the cockpit access door.

Regards,

Paul

On the wall of names at the US Cemetery at Madingley, Cambridge, UK there are some of the US Coast Guard. Would they have been on Air Sea Rescue?
Perhaps around the D Day period?
mmitch.

I’m sure I have seen a coloured photo of US Navy Wildcats on a carrier somewhere in the Meditearanean conflict, but I don’t know where. Maybe around the time of Anzio, Sicily or Operation Torch?

What’s this about Americans skipping bombs along the water to sink Jap ships? Is this true or just a fantasy of yours Corsair? (not meant as a jibe, I’m simply curious, as I have not heard of this sort of thing before). I agree it is high time a decent Pacific film was made too – all those made so far include either Lee Marvin, a lot of girls and gay sailors singing and dancing or even worse nonsence as in the case of *#$%@ Windtalkers, which was bordering on worse than Pearl Harbor for cheesiness and a waste of a big budget.

The Thin Red Line was good, but a bit wacked out for the average viewer. The best Pacific film’sTV shows have all been from a non-US angle, and include the BBC’s ‘Tenko’, Auusie’s mini-series ‘Heroes’ and ‘A Town Like Alice’ and the more recent mini-series ‘Changi’, which was superb. The Aussies film war stories very well. And of course the Aussie drama series The Sullivans was very very good for its time and managed to include both the Pacific, and Europe, and the home front as well. I wish they’d repeat that series here. I’s like to see a film or mini-series on the NZ efforts in the Pacific, which are as important to us as as these others to their respective countries. Maybe I will do it someday.

Oh yeah, hasn’t Mel (never mind the truth) Gibson already done a film where he flew B25s?

I know Wildcats of the US Navy encountered Vichy French Hawk 75’s (or P-36’s) and basically fought them to a draw (Commander Tommy Blackburn, later of VF-17 in the Pacific, was shot down during this conflict)…I know the FAA employed a mixed bag of British and American fighters and bombers to inflict damage on the Tirpitz in the fjords of Norway, keeping her there until Lancs of 617 squadron sank her with ‘Tallboy’ bombs…American Naval aircraft operating against the krauts would make for a good book…but I bet it has been done already…I just can’t tell you a title…

Wish someone would do a movie on the 5th air force in the southwest pacific, the guys with 75mm cannons in their B-25’s dropping parafrag bombs at treetop level and skipping bombs off the water like rocks into the sides of Jap ships…THAT would make a good movie! Mel Gibson might be available…

Mark

I don’t really recall the Navy being involved in the Med (aside from using U.S. carriers to launch P-40’s for Operation Torch) or the Atlantic. I know that U.S. naval aircraft were involved, but under the colors of the FAA. Aircraft such as the Wildcat (i.e. Martlet), and the Avenger being involved.