One more -1A before I start working on -1D.
No one pilot was named with this aircraft but VMF-115 was noted as having the most colorful of any USM and USN Corsairs of WW2. Wish I could get pics of more but only one I had pics of and could find. As a squad they only had 6 kills but most of their time was spent providing support to ground operations in the Leyte Gulf and Philippines. Joe Foss was the 2nd CO and Charles Lindbergh flew 4 "bombing" missions with them while touring the South Pacific as a "noncombat" consultant. Describing one of these flights, he later wrote:
"Kavieng looked like an ant hill when I approached in my fighter-bomber ...I feel the stick's vibration in my hand,and the pedals against my feet. My thumb has the power of TNT and my finger controls six machine guns.... Minute circles on the ground warn of enemy antiaircraft cannon We have come to toss five-hundred pound bombs at humans down below .. .. We drop our dive brakes, purge our wing tanks, brighten gun sights....I pull into a wing-over putting the sun behind my back, and nose steeply to the dive.... My controls tighten, the altimeter needle touches ten thousand feet, air howls, wings tremble. Fifty-five hundred feet. NOW. My thumb presses, my arm pulls back, I kick right rudder toward the sea, reverse bank to throw off enemy ack-ack, reverse again, and look down to check my marksmanship."
Also of worthy note a unique mission occurred on 23 February. Major Eldon H. Railsback, executive officer of VMF-115; First Lieutenant Paul Chambers; Second Lieutenant Robert0. Bunce; and Second Lieutenant Charles B. Collin spotted two small Japanese submarines on the surface while on a bombing and strafing mission at Cebu City.Missing the submarines on their first attack, they returned to base and received permission to go back on a second try. Fully rearmed, they attacked in runs at a 20-25 foot altitude, skip-bombing their 1,000-pound bombs. One submarine was hit, "prob-ably first submarine sunk by Corsair", the squadron war diary noted.
image9 by
whitemanLS1, on Flickr
vmf-115 ref 001 by
whitemanLS1, on Flickr
vmf-115ref2 001 by
whitemanLS1, on Flickr
vmf115_2 by
whitemanLS1, on Flickr
vmf115_4 by
whitemanLS1, on Flickr
vmf115_5 by
whitemanLS1, on Flickr
vmf115_1 by
whitemanLS1, on Flickr
vmf115_3 by
whitemanLS1, on Flickr
