Carrier operations.....

[Lucky13]

Thanks Rich, appreciated as always....

[trackend]

Interesting images Rich poor old Columbia took a whacking I see according to Wiki that she survived more than one hit and despite heavy casualties even carried on her bombardment duties. All credit to her crew

[renrich]

Thank you Rich, I tried to find Swope in Lundstrom, "Guadalcanal Campaign" but he must have been slightly after the period that Lundstom covered in that book. Wish Lundstrom would write another covering the balance of the Guadalcanal campaign. Perhaps you will fill the gap? I knew Swope briefly in the mid eighties in connection to trying to get a microscopic gold recovery operation going in western CO and eastern Utah in the Mancos shale. He seemed very nice and because I was reluctant to pry I did not ask as many questions as I should have about his experiences. I remember he and I went out to the Grand Junction airport one day to see an abandoned stripped F10F and he told me a little of what he knew about that AC. He was not fond of McNamara and his whiz kids.

[Cub Driver]

Thanks for the photos. The one of Franklin listing to starboard made me wonder: are all the sailors lined up to port stationed there to (hopefully) prevent its rolling over?

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

[Mike64]

Originally Posted by Cub Driver

Thanks for the photos. The one of Franklin listing to starboard made me wonder: are all the sailors lined up to port stationed there to (hopefully) prevent its rolling over?

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

"Cubby" - good question.

Every Navy ship has an "Abandon Ship" procedure, and everyone is aware of their assigned muster point. It is practiced, usually along with "General Quarters" drills. From a basic mustering point, specifics of exactly how and where an actual Abandon Ship order would be exercised would depend on the situation - the CO would make the ultimate decision based on advice and information from his leadership chain in engineering, operations, navigation, etc.

The counterweight of the personnel on the port side of the Flight Deck would not amount to a hill of beans. They have likely been ordered to break from their specific GQ stations, and sent there for standby assignments - especially to augment firefighting teams, as needed.

The ship has at least some way on - normally, unessential personnel are cleared out from the listing side, in case the deck "digs in". My guess is that there are engineering guys and deck Boatswains to handle lines and coordinate with the (assumed) DD or DE alongside. Apparently they are passing firefighting equipment / other important stuff via "high line" - a contradictory term in this picture - they are at least temporarily sagging into the water.

The ship is VERY unstable in roll response in the pictured condition, and several factors could easily cause her to roll even more to starboard, perhaps even capsize. They would only keep essential personnel on the port side in such conditions.

[syscom3]

I think the reason the USS Franklin was listing was the huge number of gallons of water used in the firefighting efforts, and had yet to drain out.

[machine shop tom]

Originally Posted by blu3y4

gee it would be fun to be in the middle with a few kamikazees flying at ya.

good times...........................

My dad didn't think it was a whole lot of fun....

tom

[machine shop tom]

Originally Posted by SlickDriver

My question is that several CVs, CVLs, and CVEs were used at various times as aircraft ferries.

Does anybody know how many aircraft they could carry? Norman Friedman's Aircraft Carrier book has a chart with the capacity of planned conversions of liners, but not of the carriers themselves.

Thanks in advance for any information.

Lots of P47s and A20s on the Fanny Bee (CVE 70) in this pic:

http://www.bosamar.com/images/cve/cve70.jpeg

tom

[R Leonard]

Originally Posted by renrich

Thank you Rich, I tried to find Swope in Lundstrom, "Guadalcanal Campaign" but he must have been slightly after the period that Lundstom covered in that book. Wish Lundstrom would write another covering the balance of the Guadalcanal campaign. Perhaps you will fill the gap? I knew Swope briefly in the mid eighties in connection to trying to get a microscopic gold recovery operation going in western CO and eastern Utah in the Mancos shale. He seemed very nice and because I was reluctant to pry I did not ask as many questions as I should have about his experiences. I remember he and I went out to the Grand Junction airport one day to see an abandoned stripped F10F and he told me a little of what he knew about that AC. He was not fond of McNamara and his whiz kids.

Swope wouldn't be in First Team/Guadalcanal as, I believe, John ends it at the traditional end of the campaign in February 43. VF-11 did not get there until mid-April 43 and did most of their mischief to the north, although one of their biggest furballs, in mid June, was between Savo and Knucklehead.

Oddly enough, I've been making one of my periodic forays through the files and found a letter from a third party to my father which mentions, in the course of an update on the whereabouts of various Sun Downers, that Swope was gold mining in Colorado. Letter was dated November 1982. Sound about right?

Rich

[Cub Driver]

A friend of mine was in the navy in the 1950s, assigned to an aircraft carrier. Midway through his tour, he realized that it was dangerous up there. From then until his (honorable) discharge, he refused to go on the flight deck. Apparently this was not so unusual that the officers were ready to discipline him for it.

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

[renrich]

When I knew Swope would have been in about 85-86 and I remember that he had been trying to get this venture going for some time. I don't think he ever got it off the ground. The homebuilding business was beginning to go tits up during that time period(which was what I had been doing for many years) and it is amazing what a discussion about mining for gold will do to one's imagination. There is no question that a quantity of microscopic gold exists in the Mancos Shale but the question is the process to extract it and whether it is economic. This would have been a strip mining proposition.

[renrich]

Would VF11 still be operating Wildcats in April 43 or would they have switched to Corsairs(assuming they were operating from land bases)? I did ask Swope whether the carrier landing was more difficult in a Wildcat than in a modern jet of the 80s. He said it was much more difficult in the 40s.

[R Leonard]

VF-11 was one of the last VF's to take the F4F into action. The other was VF-21. Both operated out of Cactus I. The word was that they had plenty of airplanes because no one else was using them. VF-11 had 45 F4Fs at one point and, towards the end of its tour, VF-21 had something like 54. Not sure how many pilots VF-21 had, but VF-11 had as many as 40.

VF-11 had so many airplanes that its pilots generally flew their assigned airplanes rather than simply what was available, a rarity in naval aviation. For example, between 26 April and 12 July 43 my father flew 46 of 49 missions in b/n 11895, the other three were in b/n 12080. Of the three in 12080, one was on 10 May and two were on 19 June. 140.5 hours total combat flying, 132 of them in the same plane.

Again, I can't tell what was going on in VF-21, but in VF-11 they were well aware that the Marines were much better off in their F4U-1s. And, from all sources, they did not want to share. The VF-11 types were exposed to the F6F when they staged back through Espiritu Santo on their way home and ran into VF-33 on its way out. At least some of them got some time in with the Hellcats. The first F6F in my father's log appears during this time. The first F4U does not show up until 3 November 1943 when he takes up b/n 17551 while assigned as Fighter Training Officer at ComFAirWest out of North Island.

VF-11 rotated back state-side in mid-July 43, VF-21 in late August. They were the last F4F VF squadrons to face enemy aircraft.

Other F4Fs went out in VC squadrons aboard CVEs in the Tarawa operation, but that was their last combat fling and they had no air-to-air action. By the end October 43, even on the CVEs, F4Fs had been replaced as an active service aircraft by FM-1s which, in turn would be gradually replaced by the FM-2.

Regards.

Rich

[Lucky13]

Thanks a bunch Rich....

[Udet]

Sea Control Ships = Lots of small Aircraft Carriers