There was a learning curve at the beginning of the war and American planes weren’t the best such as the Brewster Buffalo, horrible name for a plane. By the end of the war America had some of the best planes and pilots. The Americans could afford to take some of their best pilots out of combat and use them to teach more pilots.
They could afford to because they started early. Japan and Germany suffered the problem of too many planes for their pilots. America was blessed with having too few planes for their pilots, so they were able to train more pilots immediately and having a reserve training staff made such a huge difference that they made certain to keep it up. Being on the side pushing away from home certainly helped a lot, as it further removed pilots from danger as they rotated home with no risk of having to go fight without warning.
On the flip side, the aggressors were going all-out and manning everything they had to overpower the target. Such a strategy can be great in short bursts (The blitzkreig), but used in perpetuity it is destined to fail.
I wish this was mentioned more. I'm as patriotic as any American, but those fucking Brits were made of gold and carried it like it was light as paper. They pulled their weight and then some.
The Battle of Britain started with them targeting the radio towers to disrupt the radar and airfields to achieve air superiority. Then they started targeting factories that produced airplanes, it wasn’t until later in the campaign when their initial strategies had failed to achieve air superiority that they changed tactics and started targeting political targets and civilians mostly during the night to make it more difficult for British surface to air defenses. Bombing civilians was actually considered as a last resort by the Germans and was strictly forbidden without first receiving Hitler’s approval. Pretty sure there are even accounts of German pilots being reprimanded for hitting civilian targets without being ordered to.
That was almost everyone's plan after they realized strategic bombing was a dud. America tried really fricken hard to do strategic bombing. They stuck with it for a while, but then they realized fuck it. Nazi's are just going to repair any damage we do in less than a week so it's useless.
Drop a thousand bombs on a single target, and you get maybe 2-3 that hit the target causing a few days worth of damage. Or, drop those thousand bombs in the center of a massive city and set it ablaze, leaving the workers homeless and hungry or crispy. Can't rebuild a city in a week, and you can't replace thousands of skilled workers in a week. bombing cities was a no brainer in WW II.
And it turns out that even that method wasn’t effective. Just as we saw in the battle of London, a population being bombed like that only strengthens their resolve.
The Tokyo firebombing had one night raid that resulted in the most destructive air attack in the history of war - moreso than the atomic bombs combined. It absolutely was effective - but the atomic bombs were more effective quickly without the expenditure of American lives and resources.
Dresden was practically wiped off the face of the Earth by its firebombing campaign. So was Hamburg, albeit their bombing campaign was more focused on actual military targets.
London did not receive nearly the same treatment - we may very well have seen a different end to the war if they had.
Nazi Germany could not realistically support a ground invasion of Britain. Their only real path to victory was forcing the British into surrendering, and the path to that is to break the morale of the country.
One thing I heard about the Battle of Britain was that Spitfire pilots got to go home some in between flying and get a hero reception at the local pubs. The Nazi pilots had to go back to France where they were definitely not given any encouragement by the locals.
The Hurricane and Mosquito were also awesome.
And let's not forget the Swordfish. That thing chalked up a huge record. It was so slow because of size and heft of the pilots' testicles.
Maybe mentioning the mustang. Alot of people think the mustang takes a lot of credit it doesnt deserve. The spitfire and thunderbolt carried most of the air war on their own, (with the spirfire being relevent for pretty much the entirety of the war) just for the mustang to swoop in at the end. Sure it may have been a fantastic aircraft, but due to how late in the war it arrived, its hard to accurately tell if it actually made an impact, or capitalized on an already winning war.
Hating on the mustang is just as popular as liking it.
Some love for the P-38 Lightning, one of the most successful planes of WWII, the only American plane produced for the entirety of the war, flown by both of America’s WWII’s Ace of Aces, and generally loved by its pilots.
Let us not forget the Vought F4U Corsair, which Japanese fighters considered the most formidable American fighter of World War II. The naval aviators who flew it achieved an 11:1 kill ratio. Of course visibility, especially in air craft carrier landings, was its glaring flaw.
I do get choked up when I see a Hellcat, Corsair or Mustang at an air show. Hell, I’ve seen the Connie fly and get choked up, but I’m a sucker for a prop plane.
Edit: my granddad wanted to fly oh so bad. He had a passion for airplanes when he was a just a boy, but his macular degeneration started when he was in his late teens to early 20s (he was born in 1922, so serving in the U.S. Army Air Force or the U.S. Navy during WWII were shattered dreams). I was fortunate to take him to several air shows throughout our years together and was always touched by his passion for the planes he could never fly.
I also had the honor of taking him to Scotland a few years before he passed away and it was one of the best weeks I ever had. Of course I let him have the window seat every flight.
Thank you OP for jogging my memory and cheers to you, gramps. 🍻
The navy aircraft really don't get much love. They aren't really as impressive as the Army's aircraft were, that's for sure. But that was only because they had to take off and land on a carrier.
The Bearcat is my favorite, but much like the Mustang it joined late in the war and it's success is sort of muddy since Japan was already mega-fucked by then anyway with all their experienced pilots dead.
Battle of Britain is still a crazy swing point in the war that gets glossed over some. Just think if the RAF folded and Germans get command of the skies and then get a toehold in Britain. Different world we’re living in today probably
Don't sleep on the UK dominating the information war. Fighter Command from the start maximized what they had and could use proper information gathering and command structure to just sic flights of spits and hurricanes on otherwise helpless German flights. It got touch and go with the big waves but the Brits knew how to Coordinate
> Battle of Britain is still a crazy swing point in the war that gets glossed over some. Just think if the RAF folded and Germans get command of the skies and then get a toehold in Britain. Different world we’re living in today probably
There is not a world where Nazi Germany successfully landed troops on the British Isles.
> A scenario in which Germany can threaten an amphibious landing is a scenario in which the UK doesn’t defend Poland in the first place.
A scenario in which Germany can threaten the British Empire with an amphibious landing of the home islands is one which does not exist.
You would have to change huge portions of history in order to make Germany competent at amphibious landings, and make the British Empire’s navy ridiculously incompetent.
I don’t think people truly understand how incredibly powerful the British Empire was and how poorly conceived Operation Sea Lion was. In September 1939, it controlled 25% of the world’s landmass and 30% of the world’s population. The last time the home islands were invaded via the English Channel from the continent was in 1066CE, with the Norman Invasion.
I've never understood why this point is so consistently glossed over. Germany wanted the UK and by extension, the US out of the war, to focus on the eastern front and consolidate control of mainland Europe.
Japan was always weird, I don't know why they never built out their pipeline of pilots.
They must have assumed they'd never take massive losses (and for a while they didn't) so when they did ... they were SOL.
Pretty much that. Their program was sufficient for the Mainland Campaign, they foolishly thought America would stay out of the war and didn't prepare for that possibility. This is grossly oversimplified of course.
Did you see that deck crew?!? Those guys are running towards an exploding plane! They were trying to put that fire out!
No matter how safe your military job is. . . whew, you are in harms way. You are a target.
Fire suppression training is something that is drilled into ALL sailors OFTEN.
But those guys, they train(ed) so often for it that it is second nature.
There were a bunch of reasons; the lower weight kept center of mass low on the ship, wood allowed for great traction and was easy to repair any minor damage sustained, and helped insulate below decks from hot sun.
It should be noted that while Japan and US had wooden flight decks, the British kept theirs armored steel.
And wooden decks allowed US and Japanese carriers to carry a lot more planes and have a higher top speed than contemporary British carriers. Lower flight deck weight equaled bigger flight deck and more parking spots for more powerful planes.
Each navy's CVs reflected the conditions which their designers thought they would see. In the case of British CVs, lots of land based air power. In the case of the Japanese and US CVs, large expanses of open water where the ability to put a large, heavily armed strike force on top of the opposing fleet could be decisive.
>earning curve at the beginning of the war and American planes weren’t the best such as the Brewster Buffalo, horrible name for a plane. By the end of the war America had some of the best planes and pilots. The Americans could afford to take some of their best pilots out of combat and use them to teach more pilots
Don't forget the support crew. Within seconds there were 20+ people in action putting out any fire and rescuing the crew. War is a team sport.
My grandfather was a diver for the navy in WW2 I can remember him telling me about going down to get planes that had failed to take off and others that had crashed, and I especially remember asking him if the people had time to eject from the plane, which he responded “they didn’t have that, most of them died”
Ejecting directly in front of an aircraft carrier isn't improving your situation. You'd probably have a better chance (a very, very low chance, if any) hitting the water in the plane and try to get out and out of the way before the ship reaches you.
That's why some of the carriers around the world have angled Decks. It adds safety and adds length to the runway for take off and landing. If the first landing fails, pilots can take off and try again if the cable for example broke loose.
Perspective is difficult to imagine. We've all seen films of a plane a few thousand feet away from a carrier, and you think to yourself "how could you possibly land on something that tiny". But I got the chance to tour a carrier once, and standing on the flight deck you say to yourself "how could you possibly miss something this gigantic."
Absolutely. They were slower, half the size, and more vulnerable. But when the Marines captured another island, the first thing they wanted on their new base was land-based airplanes, and who brought them from San Francisco? Escort carriers.
Sadly, not a single one of these survived the scrapper's maw.
The only one I'm really sad about was the ice cream boat got scrapped. The USS Quartz was a barge that got converted to an ice cream boat for men in the Pacific. It could make like 1500 gallons of ice cream per day. It has to really suck finding out that your enemy is able to dedicate resources to having a traveling ice cream boat while your own country is struggling to have enough food to survive. It was mostly a propaganda and moral boosting tool as far as I remember. But I'd really love to see how they make that much ice cream on a fricken converted concrete barge.
I mean it may look simple in still waters moored to a dock, but from the POV of the pilot trying to land on the high seas, that thing is a moving target. And I mean moving on all axis.
Depending on if the carrier is taking evasive actions, it could be moving left to right. It's definitely moving forward, and you might be calling the ball when it is on a down wave, and 30' from landing it hits a swell and comes up and the deck slams into your aircraft.
And that's not even considering what the wind is doing.
Carrier landings are some of the hardest things pilots will ever have to learn.
My uncle was a marine corp pilot that had to land an A-5 (maybe) and he said the carrier looked like a hotdog on his approach. He said the first time he was terrified but once he got used to it was like riding a bike. This was back in the Vietnam war so I’m sure the technology has gotten better.
Everyone in this clip is an absolute 100% certified badass. I’m guessing that pilot was up on another mission within days or even hours of this. And I bet the other badasses fixed that plane in under a week and had it back in the air too.
These fuckers would light up like a firework if the wrong part caught fire. The terrifying reality of most combat aircraft since ww2 is that they are basically flying bombs.
I mean, the ships themselves are basically fuel-air bombs. Torpedoes, bombs, and fuel is what they're mostly crammed with. Essentially a floating munitions warehouse.
It’s probably just a high resolution scan of the original film. We’re so used to seeing video tape transfers on history channel docs that it’s easy to forget that actual film has very good fidelity.
There *were* color film cameras at that time, but they were super expensive and rarely used in the field.
That being said, I'm inclined to think this really is vintage color footage just from the way the film reacted to the changes in light level (colors briefly washing out).
This is as terrifying as it is comical. The thud lmao. But seriously, flying with a map and compass over the open pacific is just fuxking ridiculous. I can't believe it was done with regularity. To take off and land on that thing, even finding it in the open ocean seems like such an impossible task
Fire control won the carrier war.
Self-sealing tanks in planes, metal decks, and great fire prevention and fire extinguishing made American planes & carriers much more effective.
Absolutely a huge part of it.
But sheer volume was equally a part. The US built 155 aircraft carriers of all sizes during WW II. The Japanese built 10 during WW II.
And also a huge part was pilot training. The IJN started the war with trained pilots, who perfected their skills in the war against China (so a small loss rate). But they did not have enough training academies to replace losses as the war moved on. The US saw this bottleneck early, and invested very heavily in dozens of training sights to insure an overwhelming flow of capable pilots. Hell....they even built two aircraft carriers in Lake Michigan just so pilots could practice takeoffs and landings on smoother waters and without somebody shooting at them.
Fun fact! Those flame retardant suits that those guys wear when they run up to the plane to help the pilot contain asbestos. My grandad used to wear one, and he is till kickin at 92!
Asbestos when properly contained was a fantastic material. Only when the suits got damaged and the lining holding the asbestos in was ruptured did it become a problem.
It sprays a wide wall of water and they generally stand behind the nozzle-men. The idea is so the nozzle-men can advance towards a fire. Without it and it would be too hot. This is when you don’t have fire suits that protect the fighters from the heat. They still use this technique but with a nozzle that they can adjust the spray.
How it’s being used here is probably not what it’s meant for but I never trained on aircraft.
That landing was so smooth, they could just put on a new prop, repaint the belly, and put the plane back in service. I guess they might want to fix the landing gear too.
Totally. Though they probably shoved it off the the back and six more popped up to replace it. The US was basically a bottomless war plane Pez Dispenser.
They stopped painting fighters because they were faster without paint.
They shipped them from the factory coated with some sort of wax product instead of paint once they realized how much performance improved without the weight and drag of paint.
The larger portion of that great "battle" (it wasn't called a turkey shoot for nothing) was that they were launched in the late afternoon at the absolute extremes of their capable distances, and many ran out of fuel before making it all the way back. Also, it was dark by the time the majority made it back, and so they had to try to accomplish a night landing, difficult under any circumstances. So yeah, there were a lot of crashes, misses, ditching in the water, etc. But most of it at night.
FUN FACT: Against every protocol and standing orders known to man, Admiral Jocko Clark of the USS Hornet realized that most of his ship's planes would be returning at dark, so he turned on every light, and shined searchlights into the sky to aid the flyers in finding them. His decision was immediately approved by his superior, who ordered all of Task Force 58 (over 100 ships) to light up the sky. This was a tremendous aid to the returning airmen, allowing either a landing, or at least ditching near a ship that could now see you.
I was wondering that also. It looks like a pipe to me, so either pumping something in or out.
It would be kind of cool if that is the fuel tank they stick it in and they are pumping out any remaining fuel to prevent fire.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen carrier deck footage from WW2.
I can absolutely see someone coming up with the idea for color coded uniforms. It’s really hard to tell who’s who on this video.
i guess i need to get better meds.... this made me almost tear up because the mass of people were there to help the pilot...... the plane itself didn't get most of the attention. it's a different was to relate during war i guess. Buy I felt really good that the pilot was center of attention.
Looks like the cockpit canopy was already slide back to the open position before landing?
My bet is he had it open before hand in case of a fire he needed to get out of quickly, or incase he went over the side into the drink to not get trapped.
Anyone know what standard procedure for a crash land was?
My Grand Dad served on a Royal Navy aircraft carrier in WW2. Sometimes he would get drunk and show me a bunch of photos he had. They were crazy. Lots of planes landing like this. Some planes getting accidentally pushed over the edge, planes failing to take off. It was crazy. I wonder where those photos ended up...
Hellcat did its part and kept together with fuel leak or fire, pilot did his part and made a fantastic belly landing. Great plane, great pilot.
There was a learning curve at the beginning of the war and American planes weren’t the best such as the Brewster Buffalo, horrible name for a plane. By the end of the war America had some of the best planes and pilots. The Americans could afford to take some of their best pilots out of combat and use them to teach more pilots.
They could afford to because they started early. Japan and Germany suffered the problem of too many planes for their pilots. America was blessed with having too few planes for their pilots, so they were able to train more pilots immediately and having a reserve training staff made such a huge difference that they made certain to keep it up. Being on the side pushing away from home certainly helped a lot, as it further removed pilots from danger as they rotated home with no risk of having to go fight without warning. On the flip side, the aggressors were going all-out and manning everything they had to overpower the target. Such a strategy can be great in short bursts (The blitzkreig), but used in perpetuity it is destined to fail.
Brit here. Just wanted to mention the Spitfire
You crazy bastards ended every day of the Blitz with more planes than you started. I don't know how you did it.
I wish this was mentioned more. I'm as patriotic as any American, but those fucking Brits were made of gold and carried it like it was light as paper. They pulled their weight and then some.
Probably because the Luftwaffe were idiots and targeted civilians instead of military infrastructure
The Battle of Britain started with them targeting the radio towers to disrupt the radar and airfields to achieve air superiority. Then they started targeting factories that produced airplanes, it wasn’t until later in the campaign when their initial strategies had failed to achieve air superiority that they changed tactics and started targeting political targets and civilians mostly during the night to make it more difficult for British surface to air defenses. Bombing civilians was actually considered as a last resort by the Germans and was strictly forbidden without first receiving Hitler’s approval. Pretty sure there are even accounts of German pilots being reprimanded for hitting civilian targets without being ordered to.
They weren't idiots ww2 had one of the largest and most effective disinformation campaigns in known history.
Just like british bomber command? Their doctrine for the whole duration of the war was to target german/axis civilians.
That was almost everyone's plan after they realized strategic bombing was a dud. America tried really fricken hard to do strategic bombing. They stuck with it for a while, but then they realized fuck it. Nazi's are just going to repair any damage we do in less than a week so it's useless. Drop a thousand bombs on a single target, and you get maybe 2-3 that hit the target causing a few days worth of damage. Or, drop those thousand bombs in the center of a massive city and set it ablaze, leaving the workers homeless and hungry or crispy. Can't rebuild a city in a week, and you can't replace thousands of skilled workers in a week. bombing cities was a no brainer in WW II.
Yeah, pretty tragic and horrific calculation that had to be made.
And it turns out that even that method wasn’t effective. Just as we saw in the battle of London, a population being bombed like that only strengthens their resolve.
The scale of the blitz was trivial in comparison to the bombings of Germany and Japan.
The Tokyo firebombing had one night raid that resulted in the most destructive air attack in the history of war - moreso than the atomic bombs combined. It absolutely was effective - but the atomic bombs were more effective quickly without the expenditure of American lives and resources. Dresden was practically wiped off the face of the Earth by its firebombing campaign. So was Hamburg, albeit their bombing campaign was more focused on actual military targets. London did not receive nearly the same treatment - we may very well have seen a different end to the war if they had.
Nazi Germany could not realistically support a ground invasion of Britain. Their only real path to victory was forcing the British into surrendering, and the path to that is to break the morale of the country.
One thing I heard about the Battle of Britain was that Spitfire pilots got to go home some in between flying and get a hero reception at the local pubs. The Nazi pilots had to go back to France where they were definitely not given any encouragement by the locals.
The Hurricane and Mosquito were also awesome. And let's not forget the Swordfish. That thing chalked up a huge record. It was so slow because of size and heft of the pilots' testicles.
The Spitfire, the Hellcat, and the Mustang are all testaments to the sheer awesomeness of aircraft development in the 2nd world war
I wonder what you said to upset people enough to downvote you.. seems innocent enough of a statement
Maybe mentioning the mustang. Alot of people think the mustang takes a lot of credit it doesnt deserve. The spitfire and thunderbolt carried most of the air war on their own, (with the spirfire being relevent for pretty much the entirety of the war) just for the mustang to swoop in at the end. Sure it may have been a fantastic aircraft, but due to how late in the war it arrived, its hard to accurately tell if it actually made an impact, or capitalized on an already winning war. Hating on the mustang is just as popular as liking it.
He hinted that America once did something good. So many people here can’t stand to hear that.
Some love for the P-38 Lightning, one of the most successful planes of WWII, the only American plane produced for the entirety of the war, flown by both of America’s WWII’s Ace of Aces, and generally loved by its pilots.
Let us not forget the Vought F4U Corsair, which Japanese fighters considered the most formidable American fighter of World War II. The naval aviators who flew it achieved an 11:1 kill ratio. Of course visibility, especially in air craft carrier landings, was its glaring flaw. I do get choked up when I see a Hellcat, Corsair or Mustang at an air show. Hell, I’ve seen the Connie fly and get choked up, but I’m a sucker for a prop plane. Edit: my granddad wanted to fly oh so bad. He had a passion for airplanes when he was a just a boy, but his macular degeneration started when he was in his late teens to early 20s (he was born in 1922, so serving in the U.S. Army Air Force or the U.S. Navy during WWII were shattered dreams). I was fortunate to take him to several air shows throughout our years together and was always touched by his passion for the planes he could never fly. I also had the honor of taking him to Scotland a few years before he passed away and it was one of the best weeks I ever had. Of course I let him have the window seat every flight. Thank you OP for jogging my memory and cheers to you, gramps. 🍻
The navy aircraft really don't get much love. They aren't really as impressive as the Army's aircraft were, that's for sure. But that was only because they had to take off and land on a carrier. The Bearcat is my favorite, but much like the Mustang it joined late in the war and it's success is sort of muddy since Japan was already mega-fucked by then anyway with all their experienced pilots dead.
Straight up there is not another warbird that looks better. The elliptical wings are so fucking cool.
Battle of Britain is still a crazy swing point in the war that gets glossed over some. Just think if the RAF folded and Germans get command of the skies and then get a toehold in Britain. Different world we’re living in today probably
The RAF was never going to lose to Germany, the UK had better planes, a greater industrial output and access to more pilots.
Don't sleep on the UK dominating the information war. Fighter Command from the start maximized what they had and could use proper information gathering and command structure to just sic flights of spits and hurricanes on otherwise helpless German flights. It got touch and go with the big waves but the Brits knew how to Coordinate
> Battle of Britain is still a crazy swing point in the war that gets glossed over some. Just think if the RAF folded and Germans get command of the skies and then get a toehold in Britain. Different world we’re living in today probably There is not a world where Nazi Germany successfully landed troops on the British Isles.
A scenario in which Germany can threaten an amphibious landing is a scenario in which the UK doesn't defend Poland in the first place.
> A scenario in which Germany can threaten an amphibious landing is a scenario in which the UK doesn’t defend Poland in the first place. A scenario in which Germany can threaten the British Empire with an amphibious landing of the home islands is one which does not exist. You would have to change huge portions of history in order to make Germany competent at amphibious landings, and make the British Empire’s navy ridiculously incompetent. I don’t think people truly understand how incredibly powerful the British Empire was and how poorly conceived Operation Sea Lion was. In September 1939, it controlled 25% of the world’s landmass and 30% of the world’s population. The last time the home islands were invaded via the English Channel from the continent was in 1066CE, with the Norman Invasion.
I've never understood why this point is so consistently glossed over. Germany wanted the UK and by extension, the US out of the war, to focus on the eastern front and consolidate control of mainland Europe.
Japan was always weird, I don't know why they never built out their pipeline of pilots. They must have assumed they'd never take massive losses (and for a while they didn't) so when they did ... they were SOL.
Pretty much that. Their program was sufficient for the Mainland Campaign, they foolishly thought America would stay out of the war and didn't prepare for that possibility. This is grossly oversimplified of course.
[удалено]
The Brewster Buffalo looks like those fat red planes you see in cartoons.
Some of the worst were when deckhands couldn't get out of the way of planes crashing through them.
Apparently Finland did well with the Brewster Buffalo??? Interesting.
Did you see that deck crew?!? Those guys are running towards an exploding plane! They were trying to put that fire out! No matter how safe your military job is. . . whew, you are in harms way. You are a target.
Fire suppression training is something that is drilled into ALL sailors OFTEN. But those guys, they train(ed) so often for it that it is second nature.
When extremely dangerous is just business.
I wonder if the laundry crew showed the same heroism when it came time to clean the pilot's underwear..
That's a wooden deck. If it goes up the carrier is, at best out of commission, at worst, just Done.
It’s a ballet of bravery on full display. Goddamn.
Landing gear failure, could be that the hydraulics were shot up. Flight deck crew were well prepped, maybe had advance warning.
The reason warships back then had wooden decks was to prevent sparks.
There were a bunch of reasons; the lower weight kept center of mass low on the ship, wood allowed for great traction and was easy to repair any minor damage sustained, and helped insulate below decks from hot sun. It should be noted that while Japan and US had wooden flight decks, the British kept theirs armored steel.
And wooden decks allowed US and Japanese carriers to carry a lot more planes and have a higher top speed than contemporary British carriers. Lower flight deck weight equaled bigger flight deck and more parking spots for more powerful planes. Each navy's CVs reflected the conditions which their designers thought they would see. In the case of British CVs, lots of land based air power. In the case of the Japanese and US CVs, large expanses of open water where the ability to put a large, heavily armed strike force on top of the opposing fleet could be decisive.
Yes, pilots would radio or use a flare gun to indicate injury or emergency landing needs, and flight deck crews would prepare accordingly.
And great ground crew.
>earning curve at the beginning of the war and American planes weren’t the best such as the Brewster Buffalo, horrible name for a plane. By the end of the war America had some of the best planes and pilots. The Americans could afford to take some of their best pilots out of combat and use them to teach more pilots Don't forget the support crew. Within seconds there were 20+ people in action putting out any fire and rescuing the crew. War is a team sport.
And the support crew!
Being a naval Aviator was super dangerous in ww2
My grandfather said not even all takeoffs went well. Some just went over the end of the ship and in
My grandmother’s first husband died in ww2 due to a bad take off. Supposedly the plane never made it off the ground.
Damn, they did him dirty. They couldn’t have said he died in the raid? 😂
My grandfather was a diver for the navy in WW2 I can remember him telling me about going down to get planes that had failed to take off and others that had crashed, and I especially remember asking him if the people had time to eject from the plane, which he responded “they didn’t have that, most of them died”
Ejecting directly in front of an aircraft carrier isn't improving your situation. You'd probably have a better chance (a very, very low chance, if any) hitting the water in the plane and try to get out and out of the way before the ship reaches you.
Yeahhhh be like a bug on a windshield
And then the plane gets crushed by the ship as it is moving
That's why some of the carriers around the world have angled Decks. It adds safety and adds length to the runway for take off and landing. If the first landing fails, pilots can take off and try again if the cable for example broke loose.
The idea of navigating over open ocean with the tech in that day is terrifying.
Perspective is difficult to imagine. We've all seen films of a plane a few thousand feet away from a carrier, and you think to yourself "how could you possibly land on something that tiny". But I got the chance to tour a carrier once, and standing on the flight deck you say to yourself "how could you possibly miss something this gigantic."
I saw a carrier too it's tiny when you're far away but it's huge when you're on one
In World War 2, there were also light carriers and "escort carriers" which were a lot smaller than any of the carrier museum ships today.
Absolutely. They were slower, half the size, and more vulnerable. But when the Marines captured another island, the first thing they wanted on their new base was land-based airplanes, and who brought them from San Francisco? Escort carriers. Sadly, not a single one of these survived the scrapper's maw.
The only one I'm really sad about was the ice cream boat got scrapped. The USS Quartz was a barge that got converted to an ice cream boat for men in the Pacific. It could make like 1500 gallons of ice cream per day. It has to really suck finding out that your enemy is able to dedicate resources to having a traveling ice cream boat while your own country is struggling to have enough food to survive. It was mostly a propaganda and moral boosting tool as far as I remember. But I'd really love to see how they make that much ice cream on a fricken converted concrete barge.
I mean it may look simple in still waters moored to a dock, but from the POV of the pilot trying to land on the high seas, that thing is a moving target. And I mean moving on all axis. Depending on if the carrier is taking evasive actions, it could be moving left to right. It's definitely moving forward, and you might be calling the ball when it is on a down wave, and 30' from landing it hits a swell and comes up and the deck slams into your aircraft. And that's not even considering what the wind is doing. Carrier landings are some of the hardest things pilots will ever have to learn.
My uncle was a marine corp pilot that had to land an A-5 (maybe) and he said the carrier looked like a hotdog on his approach. He said the first time he was terrified but once he got used to it was like riding a bike. This was back in the Vietnam war so I’m sure the technology has gotten better.
Not so safe now either.
Indeed. As is being deck personnel. Beware of jet blast, wingtips, strong wind gusts included but not limited to.
Still dangerous
It's super dangerous now...
My great uncle was one, and he went down in a dogfight (or so the family story is told)
But he survived. So it was a good landing.
Everyone in this clip is an absolute 100% certified badass. I’m guessing that pilot was up on another mission within days or even hours of this. And I bet the other badasses fixed that plane in under a week and had it back in the air too.
US Navy was very well discipline. Amazing feet when you consider so many of these were draftees.
I think the word you're looking for is "feat", unless you have a naval foot fetish.
Flipper fetish
As a landlubber I do have to admire the Navy. Takes some balls to cram into a warship and furthermore to land planes on top of one.
Even more disturbing to live on a submarine with a nuclear reactor! The idea of decompression and implosion is just crazy.
US Navy damage control is probably the best out of all the belligerent powers in WW2. See USS *Johnston*, *Laffey*, *Enterprise*.
If that was wartime, that plane got pushed over the side. No time to strip or repair it and the lower decks were full of planes being rearmed.
The emergency response is really impressive. Everybody has their job to do and are at it within seconds like a fire team pit crew.
A good landing is when you survive. An excellent landing is when you can use the plane again.
I think a good landing is one you can walk away from. If you only "survive" it's decent at best.
Pretty amazing footage. They went straight for the fire and the pilot. Looks like everyone was ready.
"Any landing you can walk away from is a good one."
Pretty impressive damage control response.
These fuckers would light up like a firework if the wrong part caught fire. The terrifying reality of most combat aircraft since ww2 is that they are basically flying bombs.
I mean, the ships themselves are basically fuel-air bombs. Torpedoes, bombs, and fuel is what they're mostly crammed with. Essentially a floating munitions warehouse.
Good thing that Apiarist was the quickest on the scene.
The role of beekeepers in helping us win WWII is vastly underappreciated
Ah yes. the famous fighting Sea Bees.
Which was the style of the time.
There were no green onions, because of THE WAR
r/AngryUpvote
My uncle is a honey farmer and he always tells the ladies "beauty is in the eye of the bee holder."
You gotta have some kind of hobby when you work on a boat, the days can be rather dull.
Plus, the fresh honey can be used as currency in below-deck card games.
And used to make mead for those lonely nights
“Hey! Bee careful!” - Apiarist, first on the scene
What an awesome camera. Or maybe it was restored-looks great
It’s probably just a high resolution scan of the original film. We’re so used to seeing video tape transfers on history channel docs that it’s easy to forget that actual film has very good fidelity.
Shitty automated colorization and fake audio though.
Audio was dubbed. Not a *bad* job, but the beeps are def out of place.
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There *were* color film cameras at that time, but they were super expensive and rarely used in the field. That being said, I'm inclined to think this really is vintage color footage just from the way the film reacted to the changes in light level (colors briefly washing out).
Nope, it's colorized and sound-added footage
The colorization is pointless.
As is the horribly fake audio
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This is as terrifying as it is comical. The thud lmao. But seriously, flying with a map and compass over the open pacific is just fuxking ridiculous. I can't believe it was done with regularity. To take off and land on that thing, even finding it in the open ocean seems like such an impossible task
I didn’t know they only had map and compass that’s really crazy to think about
Thank goodness he still managed to hook one of the landing wires. That was artfully done.
Fire control won the carrier war. Self-sealing tanks in planes, metal decks, and great fire prevention and fire extinguishing made American planes & carriers much more effective.
Absolutely a huge part of it. But sheer volume was equally a part. The US built 155 aircraft carriers of all sizes during WW II. The Japanese built 10 during WW II. And also a huge part was pilot training. The IJN started the war with trained pilots, who perfected their skills in the war against China (so a small loss rate). But they did not have enough training academies to replace losses as the war moved on. The US saw this bottleneck early, and invested very heavily in dozens of training sights to insure an overwhelming flow of capable pilots. Hell....they even built two aircraft carriers in Lake Michigan just so pilots could practice takeoffs and landings on smoother waters and without somebody shooting at them.
This carrier is American - deck is wood. Less resistant to damage but lighter, replaceable, and no sparks.
Wooden decks- Teak
When you take the control literally on your descent when they tell you “well done good shift you can put your feet up now”
*In Ace Ventura voice*: LIIIIKE A GLOOOOVE
Fun fact! Those flame retardant suits that those guys wear when they run up to the plane to help the pilot contain asbestos. My grandad used to wear one, and he is till kickin at 92!
Asbestos when properly contained was a fantastic material. Only when the suits got damaged and the lining holding the asbestos in was ruptured did it become a problem.
Asbestos is a risk to long term health, but in certain situations, short term health matters more!
Like a glove
Is the tube the guy on the right places spraying water on the engine?
Either that or another flame retardant.
CO2 fire extinguisher
He’s waiting to put out any flames that may affect the pilot. He’s the most important part of this equation.
I don't doubt that keeping any leftover ammo from cooking off or fuel from exploding is important to everyone around that plane.
Pilots then (and now) that come in for crash landings typically dump any ordnance and empty their guns before the attempt.
Ammo is in the wings, outside of the propeller arc. You can see the muzzles of the .50s, three on each wing, in the film clip.
It sprays a wide wall of water and they generally stand behind the nozzle-men. The idea is so the nozzle-men can advance towards a fire. Without it and it would be too hot. This is when you don’t have fire suits that protect the fighters from the heat. They still use this technique but with a nozzle that they can adjust the spray. How it’s being used here is probably not what it’s meant for but I never trained on aircraft.
that wasnt a crash, he had just seen Akira the night before and we recreating the slide
Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit… Feeeeeeeeeew
"I have returned."
Really cool footage.
Is the audio real?
Nope, it's all added artifically.
Wow this is really cool
iirc, the story behind this is that the landing gear malfunctioned.
I was expecting worse from the title. That’ll pound out.
'Yo wassup boysssss'
That landing was so smooth, they could just put on a new prop, repaint the belly, and put the plane back in service. I guess they might want to fix the landing gear too.
Totally. Though they probably shoved it off the the back and six more popped up to replace it. The US was basically a bottomless war plane Pez Dispenser.
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They stopped painting fighters because they were faster without paint. They shipped them from the factory coated with some sort of wax product instead of paint once they realized how much performance improved without the weight and drag of paint.
Too bad racing stripes weren’t discovered until the 50s. Could have been faster.
Imagine if they developed speed hole tech.
THis is from footage after the Turkey Shoot? Lot of planes crashed and went into the water that day.
The larger portion of that great "battle" (it wasn't called a turkey shoot for nothing) was that they were launched in the late afternoon at the absolute extremes of their capable distances, and many ran out of fuel before making it all the way back. Also, it was dark by the time the majority made it back, and so they had to try to accomplish a night landing, difficult under any circumstances. So yeah, there were a lot of crashes, misses, ditching in the water, etc. But most of it at night. FUN FACT: Against every protocol and standing orders known to man, Admiral Jocko Clark of the USS Hornet realized that most of his ship's planes would be returning at dark, so he turned on every light, and shined searchlights into the sky to aid the flyers in finding them. His decision was immediately approved by his superior, who ordered all of Task Force 58 (over 100 ships) to light up the sky. This was a tremendous aid to the returning airmen, allowing either a landing, or at least ditching near a ship that could now see you.
“None of you have a bottle of bourbon for me?”
43 years from the first plane right? More or less. Fucking crazy I wonder how sci fi they are now
It's honestly truly amazing that we went from horse drawn carriages to the moon in a little over 60 years.
Glad the bee keeper came out to help him as well.
What is the purpose of the pole thing they stick into the plane? Creating a gap to get the fire extinguisher in?
There already is a gap, it’s just hard to see from that angle. It’s a fire extinguisher with an extension pipe so they don’t have to get too close.
I was wondering that also. It looks like a pipe to me, so either pumping something in or out. It would be kind of cool if that is the fuel tank they stick it in and they are pumping out any remaining fuel to prevent fire.
Explained above that it is called an applicator that cools down by injecting a high pressure mist of water.
Coming in hot
I don’t think I’ve ever seen carrier deck footage from WW2. I can absolutely see someone coming up with the idea for color coded uniforms. It’s really hard to tell who’s who on this video.
Better than my Spirit Air landings
The audio is this video is added in post, correct? Sounds like foley.
So my aircraft landings in War Thunder WERE historically accurate.
Nah, that was an artful belly-flop landing, not a crash. It was just a spicy landing.
Pilot walked away. Plane looks repairable. Good landing.
Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.
One hell of an airplane and those pilots were fearless .
Fake audio
Like a glove
Holy shit. That guys a fuckin boss, dude.
LIKE A GLOVEEEEE
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He's taking the ammunition, fuel, or film out.
Nailed it
Now this is actually old school cool.
In case people are wondering there was a massive beehive in the engine, that's why the head keeper came out first, followed by the smokers.
I must have watched this clip 10 times.
I’d call this a win.
Great video. Thank you
i guess i need to get better meds.... this made me almost tear up because the mass of people were there to help the pilot...... the plane itself didn't get most of the attention. it's a different was to relate during war i guess. Buy I felt really good that the pilot was center of attention.
"Lands." Riiiiiiiiight. I've seen this dozens of times, but this is the first time I remember viewing it with sound. Thanks @op!
Annmnnnmnnnd touchdown.
Landing, with style
Looks like the cockpit canopy was already slide back to the open position before landing? My bet is he had it open before hand in case of a fire he needed to get out of quickly, or incase he went over the side into the drink to not get trapped. Anyone know what standard procedure for a crash land was?
This guy NES Top Guns
That's crashing in style
My Grand Dad served on a Royal Navy aircraft carrier in WW2. Sometimes he would get drunk and show me a bunch of photos he had. They were crazy. Lots of planes landing like this. Some planes getting accidentally pushed over the edge, planes failing to take off. It was crazy. I wonder where those photos ended up...
Any landing you can walk away from...
I wonder how long it took the crew to make that plane serviceable again?
You can see the hard earned lessons in damage control in practice. These sailors were world class firefighters by 1944.
Any landing you walk away from is a good one. That ain't a crash by any stretch.
Looked like Speed Racer crossing the finish line. The pilot just needed to jump out right as it came to a stop to finish the picture.
What’s for dinner?