Naval Legends: History of the US Carrier-borne Aviation. Part 2 | World of Warships

On December 7, 1941, the United States entered World War II. And it was on that day that numerous critics of aircraft carrier tactics within U.S. Navy command realized the degree of their error. Together with the line warships of the Pacific Fleet, the flames of Pearl Harbor burnt down the very doctrine of absolute domination of heavy artillery ships in naval war. In an instant, all books on the art of naval warfare became obsolete. And there was no time to write new ones. The enemy had to be repelled, and they had to be struck with their own weapon. On December 7, the Navy had three carriers in the Pacific Ocean. We only had three carriers there. We only had a total of seven carriers. Japan had 14 carriers. So the first thing we needed was more carriers. But the problem with that is that it takes two years to build a carrier. The second problem was that the main fighter aircraft of the U.S. Navy, the F-4F Wildcat, was inferior to the Japanese Zero in all respects. The Mitsubishi A6M Zeke, commonly known as the Zero. This was arguably the premier fighter in the Pacific theater until about 1943. It had a number of advantages. Firstly, it's lightweight. It had an aluminum-magnesium alloy frame, and this meant it was highly maneuverable. It had excellent firepower. It had both cannon and machine gun. It had excellent vision from its high-mounted canopy. The only drawback was it was a tad fragile. But first, you had to hit it. Zero was much faster. It could out-climb, out-dive, and out-turn a Wildcat. How did we use this old airplane and manage to make it work so well? The first thing I already mentioned, it was very, very rugged, very difficult to shoot down. The fuel tank had a self-sealing bladder in it, so when a bullet went through it, it sealed itself up. You didn't lose your gas, which was important when you're 100 miles, 150 kilometers from your carrier. The pilot sat in an armored tub, basically, like a bathtub. He had a steel plate all around him. So the plane was very survivable. The other thing you had to do if you're a Wildcat pilot, you had to do formation flying. You had to be with another Wildcat to protect each other. So if one Wildcat got jumped, he could maneuver and try to pull the Zero in front of the other Wildcat. Three days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, American carrier aviation achieved its first victory. The author of this victory flew the SBD Dauntless. Dauntless was responsible for the first kill by U.S. naval aviation on an enemy combatant. The Dauntless was flown by Lieutenant Dickinson, who was assigned to the Enterprise Air Group, and he had survived being jumped at Pearl Harbor with the loss of his rear seater. On December 10th, it sighted the Japanese submarine I-70 and attacked and sank her. Features of the aircraft related to the wing include the very large and visible dive brakes required for its roll. Less visible is the fact that the wing has no internal spars. This makes it lighter, but a significant drawback is the fact that you cannot fold this aircraft's wing. Despite this, Dauntless entered service with the U.S. Navy's fleet. Aircraft specifications for the SBD Dauntless. Length—10 m. Wingspan—12.6 m. Maximum takeoff weight—4,587 kg. Engine—R1820-32. Power—950 hp. Maximum speed—405 km per hour. Service ceiling—7,680 m. Armament—two 12.7 mm Browning M2 machine guns and two 7.62 mm machine guns in rear. Bomb payload—725 kg. Crew—two persons. So, the Dauntless was designed expressly for one thing and one thing only, and that was sinking ships, and it was very good at what it did. The Battle of Midway was probably the definitive battle where everyone knew that air power was going to be the only way you were going to win the Pacific. So, at the Battle of Midway, which we're probably all familiar with, three U.S. Navy carriers—the Enterprise, the Yorktown, and the Hornet— up against four Japanese carriers. The Japanese had a huge force with them, including several large battleships. They had over 100 fighting ships, and then they had an invasion force. The Navy had three carriers and about 20 other ships, not one battleship, because they'd all been damaged or sunk at Pearl Harbor. Early in the morning of June 4, about 45 Dauntlesses attacked the Japanese task force. The lightning-fast strike of the American dive bombers ended in a sweeping victory. In just a few hours, the Dauntlesses destroyed almost half the carriers of the Japanese Imperial Navy, thus turning the tide of the Pacific War. This battle was also notable because it was here that the Avenger torpedo bomber made its debut. Grumman Avenger was the largest aircraft that we operated off carriers in World War II. It replaced the Douglas Devastator torpedo bomber, which was obsolete in 1941. Aircraft specifications for the TBM Avenger. Length—12.5 meters. Wingspan—16.5 meters. Takeoff weight—7,876 kg. Engine—Wright R-2600-8, power—1,700 hp. Maximum speed—415 km per hour. Service ceiling—7,193 m. Armament—three 12.7-mm machine guns and one 7.62-mm machine gun under the fuselage. Eight 127-mm HVAR rockets. The aircraft could carry up to 907 kg of bombs or one Mark XIII torpedo. Crew—three persons. Early on, they could do torpedo runs or they could be used as a dive bomber. So, if you were attacking an airfield, the Avengers could be dive bombers. They could come back to the carrier and if somebody saw Japanese ships were sighted, they could load them with torpedoes and go out on a torpedo run. By the end of 1942, the Avengers had distinguished themselves by sinking Japanese carrier Ryujo during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons and battleship Hiei in the first battles for Guadalcanal. However, the finest hour of these torpedo bombers was yet to come, when in 1942 the Avengers joined the Dauntlesses and Wildcats, which had borne the weight of the initial phase of the air war against Japan. Meanwhile, US industry prepared replacements for the battle-battered aircraft fleet. The F6F Hellcat, known as the Ace Maker, arguably the most significant carrier-borne aircraft of World War II, and was responsible for some 75% of the Navy's kills. 12,274 were built by Grumman, one an hour, every hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It was simple, it was reliable, it was rugged. It acclaimed 5,157 enemy kills for a loss of only 270. Another nickname it earned was the Aluminum Tank, and it earned for the manufacturer the moniker Grumman Iron Works. Indeed, some pilots spoke of returning home with battle damage so significant that more air was passing through the aircraft than around it. Aircraft specifications for F6F Hellcat. Length, more than 10 m. Wingspan, 13 m. Take-off weight, 6,754 kg. Engine, Pratt & Whitney R2800-10W Double Wasp. Power, 2,135 hp. Maximum speed, 629 km per hour. Service ceiling, 11,278 m. Armament, six 12.7 mm Colt Browning M2 machine guns, six 127 mm HVAR rockets. Bomb payload, up to 907 kg. Crew, one person. When it was all said and done at the end of the war, the Hellcat had a 19 to 1 kill ratio, which meant for every Hellcat shot down air-to-air, Hellcat shot down 19 Japanese aircraft, which at that point in the war, many of them were fighters. In 1943, the US Pacific Fleet began to put heavy strike aircraft carriers from the Essex-class into service, each of which could carry up to 100 planes on board. The war had reached a stage where the success of combat operations was defined by the economic power of the warring parties. So it was a huge, huge advantage that we had that the Japanese did not have. They did not have anywhere near the capability to match us in production. So by mid-1944, pretty much everywhere we went, we had a huge carrier force to back up whatever was happening. In 1943, Grumman, the main manufacturer of fighters for the US Navy, had to make room for another company. New aircraft carriers boasted 4FU Corsairs produced by Vought on their flight decks. However, this machine did not become a competitor for Grumman's Hellcats. The Corsair had other purposes. Corsair's introduction into service hit some snags for carrier qualifications. It exhibited some really nasty low-speed stall characteristics, the landing gear wasn't suitable, and it also had such a powerful engine that the torque caused roll as well as yaw due to P-factor. Finally, the long nose meant that on final approach you couldn't actually see the carrier you were trying to land on. Although the solution for that was a long curve, which kept your eyes on the target. As a result, Corsair entered service as a land-based aircraft with the Marines in early 1943. Aircraft specifications for the F4U Corsair. Length—more than 10 meters. Wingspan—12.5 meters. Takeoff weight—6,654 kg. Engine—Pratt & Whitney R2800-18W. Power—2,380 hp. Maximum speed—718 km per hour. Service ceiling—12,802 meters. Armament—six 12.7-mm Colt Browning M2 machine guns. Eight 127-mm HVAR rockets. Bomb payload—up to 907 kg. Crew—one person. The Marines used it heavily. It was more of a Marine aircraft than World War II. The Navy primarily flew the Hellcat. Corsair first flew in 1940. It was extremely advanced for its day. It was the first U.S. Navy fighter that could go 400 miles an hour straight and level. It has a very odd wing arrangement. It's got a gull wing, and the reason for that is because of the size of the propeller. If you had a regular wing, the landing gear would be so long that you'd have to have a huge wing for the landing gear to fold up into, so the Vogt engineers came up with that very unusual design. In 1943, on the basis that the war was going to continue a while longer, work was started on the development of a successor to the F6F Hellcat. The result was known as the engine with a saddle on it. It was the F8F Bearcat. An interesting design feature at the time was the addition of exploding wingtips. The idea was that if the maneuvers were so hard that there was risk of a complete structural failure of the wing, the outer meter or so of each wing would detach. Never really worked in practice, though. Either one tip would detach and not the other, or just simply at different times. The solution was to add explosive charges. However, it never worked according to plan, and indeed, an accident with an explosion killed a Navy technician. So, production aircraft soon had that idea removed. Aircraft specifications for the F8F Bearcat. Length, almost 8.5 meters. Wingspan, almost 11 meters. Takeoff weight, 6,105 kilograms. Engine, Pratt & Whitney R2800-30W, double wasp. Power, 2,250 HP. Maximum speed, 737 kilometers per hour. Service ceiling, 11,247 meters. Armament, four 20-millimeter cannons. Four 127-millimeter HVAR rockets. Bomb payload, up to 1,700 kilograms. Crew, one person. By the time the F8F Bearcat was mass-produced, the Hellcats and Corsairs were already dominating the skies over the Pacific Ocean, while the Helldivers and Avengers were finishing off the remnants of the Japanese Navy. In October 1944, the Americans sank 27 Japanese ships in the Leyte Gulf, including four aircraft carriers and three battleships. The following year, in April, 227 planes from nine American carriers destroyed the flagship of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the mighty Yamato. When U.S. troops began landing at Okinawa, aircraft carrier USS Midway was launched back home in the USA. She would become a symbol of the American Navy's power for many years to come. In the early 1940s, the Bureau of Aeronautics learned about the developments of jet engine technology in England and Germany and asked Westinghouse and Alice Chalmers to make American versions. The initial responses, though, were not positive. These early jets had low power at low speed, they were unreliable, and they had high fuel consumption. Add to that the requirements for swept wings, which seemed necessary for maneuverability, and it became unsuitable for carrier use. After the war, though, with the development of the threat from the Soviet Union and their jet program, it became obvious that the Navy could no longer avoid the technology. In 1947, the FH-1 Phantom entered fleet service, and with that, the age of naval aviation jets began.