Got this in my in-box today. Good read for Warbird buffs.

The Great Lakes provided vital support for the war effort in WWII, from
building 28 fleet subs in Manitowoc , WI to providing the bulk of US
industrial output, we could not have won the war if not for the benefits of
the Great Lakes and their related industry.
However there was another benefit of the lakes that is often overlooked.
Japan quickly lost the war because, among many other things, its navy could
not replace its carrier pilot losses.

We could. But how did we train so many pilots in both comfort (calm seas)
and safety (no enemy subs)?
We took two old side-wheel Great Lakes passenger steamers and turned them
into training carriers on Lake Michigan!
Virtually every carrier pilot trained in the war got his landing training on
these amazing ships! Sadly nothing but these great photos and the wrecks of
the aircraft that ditched alongside them remain to tell their fascinating
story!

Check this out! USS Sable and USS Wolverine . Be sure to scroll all the
way to the end!!!


Warbird Information Exchange • View topic - USS Sable and USS Wolverine ...

Now and then divers find remains of some the aircraft that crashed during training.

There is an area between Arlington and Mansfield, Texas, that is now filled in with houses. But during the construction of these homes the builders kept finding flour sacks. They found thousands of them.

They were left over from when the area was used for target practice by bombers during WW2. A flour sack would burst when it hit the ground and leave a big white spot the pilot could see so when they came in for another pass they could correct their aim. Since this was all farmland at the time no one worried about it. There was nothing there to hit except for the stray rabbit.

Cool! I never heard of this before. Absolutely makes sense though.

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Tom,

One of the links in that thread shows RC Torpedo plane testing:

No computers, no satellites. Just rotary phones and radio signals. High Tech circa 1943. Amazing what the country did in WW2.
@1:10 "Hello Operator? Operator."
@5:30: Don't stall. Don't stall. Don't stall!!
RC PLANES (1943) - TDN-1 , Torpedo Drone , UCAV 27430 - YouTube

Here's film of field testing torpedo drones on an old Japanese freighter beached on Guadalcanal. TV cameras attached to the drones. Amazing.
2 hits out of 4 drones! Pretty damned good in my opinion.

SERVICE TEST IN FIELD OF TDR1 - WWII , Torpedo Drone 30770 - YouTube

Today, 70 years later, the Navy is still at it with the X47-B. Almost there.

X-47B First Aircraft Carrier Launch - YouTube
US Navy - X-47B UCAS First Touch & Go Landing Tests On USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) [1080p] - YouTube

FLY Navy

The naval museum in Manitowoc is really excellent to see. My girlfriend is from Newton Wi, which is near Manitowoc. Kind of a neat old town.
~Nate

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The area would get 'erased' every time it rained, but the fabric flour sacks, which could barely be seen from the air, just kept piling up until they blew away or were stomped into the ground by cows.

Very cool, I never heard of these ships before.

Its a shame they are not better known considering the vital role they played in keeping the Pacific Carrier fleet supplied with pilots.

As the war dragged on their role became crucial because the Japanese while they had the aircraft and ships, and for a time the fuel, just did not have the trained pilots to make good on their losses. Japanese Navel air power of say 1944-45 was but a shadow of itself from 3 years earlier, they had guys that could kind of fly, but not the skilled combat pilots that they needed. If they could have maintained what they had in 1941 I doubt we could have taken the islands so quickly.


One could argue that those two old ships played probably one of the most vital roles in the war at sea, lots of production is useless without the guys to make it work.

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I once talked to a guy who was a radio inspector at an aircraft plant in the Philly area. He said aircraft were rolling out of the plant at the rate of about one every two minutes. If they worked they were an aircraft and if they did not they were loaded up and shipped out as a bunch of spare parts that looked like an airplane.

But this allowed Pilots, like President H. W. Bush, to get back in the air quickly after they recovered from being shot down. Rescue of Pilots was not only an important thing from a life standpoint but from a combat standpoint as well.

Japan never did rescue like the US. One story I read was of a Japanese aircraft carrier running for its' life and leaving its' Pilots to crash into the sea since they were left with no place to land.

But dying for the Emperor was a great thing, so maybe on an individual basis they didn't have a problem with it. On a national scale, when you are fighting a war, dying for the glory of dying might not make the most sense.

They didn't fight like a modern war. The Germans even with their great losses did better than them in the pilot department.

Dying for the glory of the Emperor was great and all, but being saved, flying again, and shooting down more Americans would probably help him out a bit more.

Luckily they never figured that out!



So checkmate...

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