![]() ![]() ![]() USAAC ground crew talking to pilot on a A-24, October 1941Ĭapt. SBD Dauntless of the VB-41 on the flight deck of USS Ranger (CV-4) USMC pilot Charles Fink of VMSB-244 after 55th combat missionĭamaged SBD-3 white 15 of the VMSB-132, February 1943 SBD Dauntless on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Saratoga (CV-3) in late 1941 SBD Dauntless landing on aircraft carrier during Battle of Midway SBD on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) – April 1942 SBD-5 from VB-10 fly in formation near their carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) 1944 SBD-5 from USS Lexington (CV-16) flies over inavsion craft off Saipan SBDs S12, S11 scout bombers en route to Rekata Bay SBD-3 at Safi Morocco during Operation Torch in November 1942 SBD-5s white 21, 8 of the VB-10 pass over USS Enterprise prior to recovery aboard the carrier following strikes against Palau SBD-5 white 10, 15, 25 of the VB-9 USS Essex during raid on Tarawa 1943 SBD-2 Dauntless white 6 BuNo 2106 at Midway with over 200 holes in it SBD Dauntless of the VB-6 crashes on USS Enterprise 1942 SBD-2 white 6 BuNo 2106 at Midway in June 1942 Japan’s navy never regained the upper hand.SBD-5 Dauntless flying over USS Enterprise (CV-6) enroute to Emirau 1944 In the space of eight minutes, Dauntless pilots dropped bombs that fatally damaged three of the four Japanese carriers. It was the dive-bombers coming in.” While Wildcats and Devastators had kept the Zeros busy, Dauntlesses from the Yorktown and Enterprise had gotten through. And then I saw a glint in the sun that looked like a beautiful silver waterfall. I was utterly convinced that we weren’t any of us coming back because there were still so many Zeros. In an oral history recorded years later, Wildcat pilot Jimmy Thach recalled trying, with five other pilots, to hold off the Zeros: “The air was just like a beehive. bomb or torpedo had hit a Japanese ship, despite eight separate attacks by a total of 94 airplanes. In the first three hours of the battle, not a single U.S. Of 41 Devastators launched, four made it back to their ships. The Wildcats did what they could against Japanese Zeros, but they were outnumbered, and their opponents’ climb rate was three times greater. The Devastators were particularly easy prey, since they dropped their torpedoes while skimming as low as 100 feet over the water. Others got lost and had to return to the carrier without even sighting the enemy. Whole squadrons of Wildcats wasted most of their fuel waiting for the slower airplanes to take off. ![]() But timing the departures of these airplanes, with their different speeds and cruising altitudes, proved difficult. carriers, Grumman F4F Wildcats flew escort for the slower Douglas Devastator torpedo bombers and Douglas Dauntless dive-bombers, which would attack the Japanese ships. Not a single Devastator is on display today, though several have been located on the ocean floor, one off the coast of San Diego.įrom three U.S. After six months of combat, the Devastator was withdrawn from service. In the May 1942 Battle of the Coral Sea, Devastators teamed up with Dauntless dive bombers to sink a Japanese carrier, but Devastators dropped their torpedoes at an altitude under 1,000 feet, and the slow bombers were vulnerable to Japanese fighters. ★ TBD Devastator ★ Torpedo bombers were built to sink ships, and the Douglas TBD Devastator sank a few in the early rounds of the Pacific war. ![]()
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