Lieutenant Commander Roger W. Mehle

[oneslim]

Graeme,

Yes, You are correct. I failed to notice the 'Rudderlets', too busy looking at the Mast and Radar Fit.

Thanks
Bob W

[Njaco]

Sorry, Bob. Didn't realize those dead links. Will try harder!

[R Leonard]

My father relieved Roger Mehle at the Naval Safety Center in June 1970.

[oneslim]

R Leonard,

I have a combat loss report on the way from Guy Robbins;

INQUIRY NUMBER: G0404440613/CL/F6F/Mehle
DATE: 13 June 1944
AIRCRAFT: F6F

PILOT: ROGER W. MEHLE
CONTENTS OF COMBAT LOSS FORM: usually 1-2 pages and includes date, aircraft type, serial number, reason for loss; pilot name, rank & fate; unit, ship, mission, station; location for the combat loss (if known).

I'm hoping this will give me more detail of his F6F-3. He was shot down and recovered while making a low level attack on a four gun anti-aircraft battery on the Island of Tinian.

Source: 'Red Sun Setting' (The Battle of The Philippine Sea) By William T. Y'Blood.

Let me know if You could point me to a better source for his markings.

Thanks

Bob W

PS I'll be offline untill Monday

[R Leonard]

Regretfully, I have no particular source of the particular markings for any plane flown by Roger Mehle during the war.

Most of the type report you describe are the either the Aircraft Action Report (ACA) or the Aircraft Trouble Analysis (ATA) card. My bet would be that the very best you are going to get out of the ACA is a bureau number and, from most examples I’ve seen, around here and on the web, probably not even that (mostly because there is no requirement to report same), so I would not hold my breath. Side numbers and such usually did not make it into these reports; they simply were not important. Inventories and bureau numbers, gains and losses, and such were reported separately; side numbers were especially unimportant for reporting purposes, as they meant nothing outside the reporting unit.

The ATA card should provide a bureau number, cause of loss, perhaps a pilot name, and, maybe, a place, but scant else.

Another thing to consider is that, generally, in carrier operations flying the same aircraft in every sortie/mission/flight was the great, great exception, not the norm. Flight decks were spotted without regard to who was assigned which aircraft. The sole consideration was the order of launch, so it was “set up two F6F divisions followed by 2 TBF divisions, followed by . . .” Side numbers did not matter. It takes a lot of unnecessary effort to put a specific plane in a specific place in the spot when it is no different that the one before it or the one after. Pilots manned what was placed in their order of launch. For example, aboard Yorktown at the Battle of Midway, only 3 of 25 VF-3 pilots actually flew the aircraft they were nominally assigned during the entire action; everyone else, including squadron commander, Thach, flew “someone else’s” at one point or another.

So, the question you might want to ask yourself is: was Mehle flying his assigned plane or was he flying one from the inventory that was “his” for that mission? “His plane” can have, as you see, two entirely different meanings. I don’t know the answer to that question, but it is a good one to ask.

Here’s a couple re-creations of typical ACAs from VMB-613:
Aircraft Action Report 24
Aircraft Action Report 69

And another nice re-creation of an ACA from CVG-83:
http://www17.plala.or.jp/tokoma_higa...0REP%20ENG.pdf
even mentions aircraft from CVLG-34. A similar re-creation of the CVG-47 ACA for the same action:
http://www17.plala.or.jp/tokoma_higa...0REP%20ENG.pdf

This site has some good original examples, too:
American Missions Against Yap Island During WWII

such as the ACA recording the loss of an SB2C piloted by Johnny Beling
http://www.missingaircrew.com/pdf/26july44.pdf

In some cases it has the Aircraft Trouble Analysis card, such as for this loss
American Missions Against Yap, 28 July 1944
of an F6F piloted by ENS Edwin Free on 28 July 44
http://www.missingaircrew.com/pdf/usn/28july44.pdf

Trouble cards, all the way back to way back when before the war, oddly enough and last I checked, were on file at the Naval Safety Center in Norfolk. As you can see, ACAs have little reference to identifying numbers, side, bureau, or otherwise; and the ATAs generally are a terse format of aircraft type-bureau number-loss date-cause and if you are luck, the pilot name and location. Golly, I hope you didn’t pay somebody a lot of bucks for a copy of an ATA.

Rich

[oneslim]

Rich,

I considered the small $10 cost for this report as a research Fee. I have the report and it is just as You said, The only new info is the aircraft serial number.

Also in ' F6F Hellcat Detail and Scale' by Bert Kinzey, is a interview whith David McCampbell. He states that as CAG of Air Group 15 Essex CV9, he was the only one who had is own aircraft, and the same plane captian the entire time. Additionally he always launched first.

This was probaly not true on a much more crowded CVL.

If You think of any source let me know.

Many Thanks

Bob Wescott