Thursday, January 5, 2017

Squadron of American Douglas torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise CV-6 in flight near Diamond Head, Oahu - Hawaii, in 1941. (Carl Mydans—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)


6 comments:

  1. The first monoplane to enter US Navy service. It was most notable for having been so slow that it couldn't be escorted by the BIPLANE fighters of the day. 99 of them were still in service at the battle of Midway. They suffered 100% aircraft losses with only ONE crew survivor. Ens. G. Gay.----Ray

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  2. Vought SB2U Vindicator...a photo from before the war, but, frankly, they might as well have kept the yellow wings - as Anonymous suggests (above).

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  3. You gotta wonder how many of the guys in those planes were still alive after June 6th.

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  4. No LL that isn't the SB2U That is the TBD-1 "Devastator". The SB2U never qualified for carrier service and was only used for land based training in the US. All SB2U's were pulled after the USMC SB2U squadron was killed to a man at Midway. That was also the fate of the Brewster Buffalo USMC squadron at Midway. We may have seen that battle as a "victory" in 1943. But our losses were almost as bad as those of the Japanese.---Ray

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    1. The Shattered Sword (Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully) is an excellent book on the Battle of Midway from a Japanese perspective.

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