Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: earl1937 on September 18, 2013, 02:24:24 PM
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:airplane: One of the great naval aircraft of the second world war was the TBF, produced by Gruman aircraft, but was also produced by General Motors and was designated the TBM. On the afternoon of 7 December 1941, Grumman held a ceremony to open a new manufacturing plant and display the new TBF to the public. Coincidentally, on that day, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Pearl Harbor, as Grumman soon found out. After the ceremony was over, the plant was quickly sealed off to guard against possible sabotage. By early June 1942, a shipment of more than 100 aircraft was sent to the Navy, ironically arriving only a few hours after the three carriers quickly departed from Pearl Harbor, so most of them were too late to participate in the pivotal Battle of Midway.Six TBF-1s were present on Midway Island—as part of VT-8 (Torpedo Squadron 8)—while the rest of the squadron flew Devastators from the Hornet. Unfortunately, both types of torpedo bombers suffered heavy casualties. Out of the six Avengers, five were shot down and the other returning heavily damaged with one of its gunners killed, and the other gunner and the pilot injured. Nonetheless, the US torpedo bombers were credited with drawing away the Japanese combat air patrols so the American dive bombers could successfully hit the Japanese carriers.
(http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p684/earl1937/tbm-3_zpsf1d0a40e.jpg) A restored TBM-3, with I think Marine Aviation colors.
On 24 August 1942, the next major naval battle occurred at the Eastern Solomons. Based on the carriers Saratoga and Enterprise, the 24 TBFs present were able to sink the Japanese light carrier Ryūjō and claim one dive bomber, at the cost of seven aircraft.The first major "prize" for the TBFs (which had been assigned the name "Avenger" in October 1941, before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor) was at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942, when Marine Corps and Navy Avengers helped sink the battleship Hiei, which had already been crippled the night before.
(http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p684/earl1937/Avenger_tbf_No53_preserved_USA_zps18d6caae.jpg) A restored Navy TBF
Besides the traditional surface role (torpedoing surface ships), Avengers claimed about 30 submarine kills, including the cargo submarine I-52. They were one of the most effective sub-killers in the Pacific theatre, as well as in the Atlantic, when escort carriers were finally available to escort Allied convoys. There, the Avengers contributed to the warding off of German U-Boats while providing air cover for the convoys.
After the "Marianas Turkey Shoot", in which more than 250 Japanese aircraft were downed, Admiral Marc Mitscher ordered a 220-aircraft mission to find the Japanese task force. At the extreme end of their range (300 nmi (560 km) out), the group of Hellcats, TBF/TBMs, and dive bombers took many casualties. However, Avengers from the Independence-class light aircraft carrier USS Belleau Wood (CVL-24) torpedoed the light carrier Hiyō as their only major prize. Mitscher's gamble did not pay off as well as he had hoped.
In June 1943, future-President George H.W. Bush became the youngest naval aviator at the time. While flying a TBM with VT-51 (from the USS San Jacinto (CVL-30)), his TBM was shot down on 2 September 1944 over the Pacific island of Chichi Jima. Both of his crewmates died. However, he released his payload and hit the target before being forced to bail out; he received the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Another famous Avenger aviator was Paul Newman, who flew as a rear gunner. He had hoped to be accepted for pilot training, but did not qualify because of being color blind. Newman was on board the escort carrier Hollandia roughly 500 mi (800 km) from Japan when the Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
The Avenger was the type of torpedo bomber used during the sinking of the two Japanese "super battleships": the Musashi and the Yamato.
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Love the Tbm. Fun plane to dive into fur Al's and duke it out in
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The top pic is the Atlantic paint scheme, and the bottom one is a post war paint scheme, or at least the insignia is post war.
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The Avenger was a terror to German U-Boats in the Atlantic flying off of escort carriers. US and Brit Avengers sank a bunch of U-Boats using bombs, rockets, depth charges, and the secret FIDO torpedo. This was a great air plane.
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I always thought it was the b25 that was "the" u-boat killer
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I always thought it was the b25 that was "the" u-boat killer
You mean B-24, right?
B-24s and Sunderlands also played a large role in winning the Battle of the Atlantic.
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Another important role of the TBM was pioneering night-fighter tactics. During the Battle of Guadalcanal some TBMs were equipped with radar mounted in their torpedo bays, which they used as a sort of primitive AWACS to direct fighters towards potential threats.
One such mission unfortunately ended in the death of Butch O'Hare as a result of friendly fire.
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Another important role of the TBM was pioneering night-fighter tactics. During the Battle of Guadalcanal some TBMs were equipped with radar mounted in their torpedo bays, which they used as a sort of primitive AWACS to direct fighters towards potential threats.
The only reason why the Avenger was used in that role was that the radar used at the time was too big to fight on the Wildcat.
ack-ack
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The only reason why the Avenger was used in that role was that the radar used at the time was too big to fight on the Wildcat.
ack-ack
That's beside the point. The radar-equipped TBMs provided a valuable learning experience for how to utilize the later radar-equipped fighters like the F4U-2 and F6F-5N.
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You mean B-24, right?
B-24s and Sunderlands also played a large role in winning the Battle of the Atlantic.
Yeah. Something like 100 uboats if I remember correctly.
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The escort carriers, with Avengers, left the U-Boats with nowhere to hide. Once they had good hunting with no worries when out of range of land based air craft. The escort carrier hunter/killer groups took that away from them. Also the escort CVs and Avengers sunk all the German "Milk Cow" submarines which severely impacted U-Boat operations by not allowing their replenishment at sea.
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The former site of the Eastern Aircraft Division of General Motors, where the TBM was built, is on the banks of the Hudson River just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge
41.08450 N , 73.870919 W
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The escort carriers, with Avengers, left the U-Boats with nowhere to hide. Once they had good hunting with no worries when out of range of land based air craft. The escort carrier hunter/killer groups took that away from them. Also the escort CVs and Avengers sunk all the German "Milk Cow" submarines which severely impacted U-Boat operations by not allowing their replenishment at sea.
IF you add up all the kills by the TBF, Wildcat & Swordfish they don't come near the total reached by just the PBY & the B24.
According to uboat.net (http://uboat.net/index.html)
| Plane | u-boat loss |
| tbv avenger | 35 |
| f4f wildcat | 21 |
| fairy Swordfish | 21 |
| Short Sunderland | 27 |
| PBY Catalina | 36 |
| Handley Page Halifax | 9 |
| Boeing B-17 | 11 |
| Convair B-24 | 75 |
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IF you add up all the kills by the TBF, Wildcat & Swordfish they don't come near the total reached by just the PBY & the B24.
According to uboat.net (http://uboat.net/index.html)
| Plane | u-boat loss |
| tbv avenger | 35 |
| f4f wildcat | 21 |
| fairy Swordfish | 21 |
| Short Sunderland | 27 |
| PBY Catalina | 36 |
| Handley Page Halifax | 9 |
| Boeing B-17 | 11 |
| Boeing B-24 | 75 |
:headscratch: Boeing B-24???. Convair (Consolidated merged with Vultee in 1941 to form Convair) set up an additional factory in Fort Worth, Texas, and 30,000 workers built 3,034 additional Liberators there. Additionally, Douglas Aircraft Corporation built about 964 B-24s in its factory in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and North American Aviation built about 966 in Dallas, Texas. The largest Liberator factory was Ford's huge new factory built at Willow Run, Michigan, which turned out 6,792 completed aircraft and 1,893 disassembled, crated airframes for final assembly elsewhere. In 1944, the Willow Run factory alone turned out 92,000,000 pounds (42,000,000 kg) of airframes, nearly equaling the production of the entire Japanese aircraft industry that year, or almost half of the entire German output. Peak production by all factories produced a B-24 every 55 minutes. These factories and several major depots also performed many conversions, often of hundreds of aircraft. This lead to more than sixty different designations for variations of the B-24 airframe. There were bomber, patrol bomber, reconnaissance, cargo, tanker, trainer, experimental, civil, and other variants.
The Liberator contributed heavily in the Atlantic battles. According to one author, RAF Coastal Command Liberators sank, or assisted in sinking, 70 U-boats, starting with U-597 sunk off Iceland 12 October, 1942 by No. 120 Squadron. Four of these kills were made by Czech pilots of RAF No. 311 Squadron. Some of No. 311 Squadron's Liberators were equipped with four 5-inch rockets on airfoil-shaped mounts forward of the bomb bays, and such rockets were used in sinking one U-boat.The RCAF's No 10 Squadron sank or helped in sinking 2 U-boats ( U-341 and U-520. The latter boat was not sunk by a Liberator though).USAAF Liberators participated in sinking 10 U-boats, while US Navy Liberators added 13 more.
Liberators were also operated by the RAAF (in the Pacific), the South African Air Force (over Southern Europe), the Dutch Air Force (in the Pacific), and by India and France post-war.
More on the B-24J at a later time.
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:headscratch: Boeing B-24???. Convair (Consolidated merged with Vultee in 1941 to form Convair) set up an additional factory in Fort Worth, Texas, and 30,000 workers built 3,034 additional Liberators there. Additionally, Douglas Aircraft Corporation built about 964 B-24s in its factory in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and North American Aviation built about 966 in Dallas, Texas. The largest Liberator factory was Ford's huge new factory built at Willow Run, Michigan, which turned out 6,792 completed aircraft and 1,893 disassembled, crated airframes for final assembly elsewhere. In 1944, the Willow Run factory alone turned out 92,000,000 pounds (42,000,000 kg) of airframes, nearly equaling the production of the entire Japanese aircraft industry that year, or almost half of the entire German output. Peak production by all factories produced a B-24 every 55 minutes. These factories and several major depots also performed many conversions, often of hundreds of aircraft. This lead to more than sixty different designations for variations of the B-24 airframe. There were bomber, patrol bomber, reconnaissance, cargo, tanker, trainer, experimental, civil, and other variants.
The Liberator contributed heavily in the Atlantic battles. According to one author, RAF Coastal Command Liberators sank, or assisted in sinking, 70 U-boats, starting with U-597 sunk off Iceland 12 October, 1942 by No. 120 Squadron. Four of these kills were made by Czech pilots of RAF No. 311 Squadron. Some of No. 311 Squadron's Liberators were equipped with four 5-inch rockets on airfoil-shaped mounts forward of the bomb bays, and such rockets were used in sinking one U-boat.The RCAF's No 10 Squadron sank or helped in sinking 2 U-boats ( U-341 and U-520. The latter boat was not sunk by a Liberator though).USAAF Liberators participated in sinking 10 U-boats, while US Navy Liberators added 13 more.
Liberators were also operated by the RAAF (in the Pacific), the South African Air Force (over Southern Europe), the Dutch Air Force (in the Pacific), and by India and France post-war.
More on the B-24J at a later time.
you are correct, I miss typed Boeing because I copied the forum table bracket formatting stuff from the previous line... my bad. (I'll edit my post).
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Maybe I missed something somewheres but where did anyone compare Avenger Kills to B24 kills? Or say Avengers killed more?
Theres little doubt B24s were extremely lethal to U-boats. They killed the 2nd "Happy Time" off the American coast and were the last thing a U-boat Capt. wanted to see. Even if the boat dived the bomber usually had some type of advanced radar the Germans couldnt beat or even MAD gear. Their loiter times were so long they could easily call in other B-24s/surface assets and a boat could only stay submerged for so long. They could be easily resupplied from supply boats and just hang out there like vultures. There were over 200 convoy routes in the war.
But the one thing they kept, even after the channel and coasts were taken away from them, was the mid-Atlantic where they could still ambush convoys and fight on the surface. The very long range air craft and the hunter/killer escort CVs took this last sanctuary away
IF you add up all the kills by the TBF, Wildcat & Swordfish they don't come near the total reached by just the PBY & the B24.
According to uboat.net (http://uboat.net/index.html)
| Plane | u-boat loss |
| tbv avenger | 35 |
| f4f wildcat | 21 |
| fairy Swordfish | 21 |
| Short Sunderland | 27 |
| PBY Catalina | 36 |
| Handley Page Halifax | 9 |
| Boeing B-17 | 11 |
| Convair B-24 | 75 |
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Maybe I missed something somewheres but where did anyone compare Avenger Kills to B24 kills? Or say Avengers killed more?
Theres little doubt B24s were extremely lethal to U-boats. They killed the 2nd "Happy Time" off the American coast and were the last thing a U-boat Capt. wanted to see. Even if the boat dived the bomber usually had some type of advanced radar the Germans couldnt beat or even MAD gear. Their loiter times were so long they could easily call in other B-24s/surface assets and a boat could only stay submerged for so long. They could be easily resupplied from supply boats and just hang out there like vultures. There were over 200 convoy routes in the war.
But the one thing they kept, even after the channel and coasts were taken away from them, was the mid-Atlantic where they could still ambush convoys and fight on the surface. The very long range air craft and the hunter/killer escort CVs took this last sanctuary away
:airplane: Check reply #13
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Maybe I missed something somewheres but where did anyone compare Avenger Kills to B24 kills? Or say Avengers killed more?
Theres little doubt B24s were extremely lethal to U-boats. They killed the 2nd "Happy Time" off the American coast and were the last thing a U-boat Capt. wanted to see. Even if the boat dived the bomber usually had some type of advanced radar the Germans couldnt beat or even MAD gear. Their loiter times were so long they could easily call in other B-24s/surface assets and a boat could only stay submerged for so long. They could be easily resupplied from supply boats and just hang out there like vultures. There were over 200 convoy routes in the war.
But the one thing they kept, even after the channel and coasts were taken away from them, was the mid-Atlantic where they could still ambush convoys and fight on the surface. The very long range air craft and the hunter/killer escort CVs took this last sanctuary away
sorry wasn't trying to call you out like that, was just trying to show that b-24s were "the" killers... in reference to my earlier post except with 'facts' (not sure how accurate uboat.net is). :salute
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sorry wasn't trying to call you out like that, was just trying to show that b-24s were "the" killers... in reference to my earlier post except with 'facts' (not sure how accurate uboat.net is). :salute
:airplane: The B-24 had the ability to carry "depth" charges and or 1,000 lb bombs, both of whom would kill a U-boat if it wasn't over about 20 feet deep, which I think coincides with the depth which was used by the U-boats for periscope viewing. I would think a 1,000 lb bomb or a 500 lb depth charge would collapse the pressure hull of a WW2 sub! I know I have seen several subs just off the Florida coast, just below the surface and they look like a whale, but much larger and longer.
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The former site of the Eastern Aircraft Division of General Motors, where the TBM was built, is on the banks of the Hudson River just north of the Tappan Zee Bridge
41.08450 N , 73.870919 W
I remember reading about Linden airport in NJ. A GM plant across the street was converted to
manufacture FM-1s and 2s. They then built a small field directly across the street to fly off their
products. Did GM have another plant that close?
Well at least Wiki agrees with me..for all the good that does :lol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linden_Airport (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linden_Airport)
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I remember reading about Linden airport in NJ. A GM plant across the street was converted to
manufacture FM-1s and 2s. They then built a small field directly across the street to fly off their
products. Did GM have another plant that close?
Well at least Wiki agrees with me..for all the good that does :lol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linden_Airport (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linden_Airport)
According to an article originally published in the July-August 1995 issue of Naval Aviation News, during the war Eastern Aircraft Division had factories in Bloomfield NJ, Linden NJ, Trenton NJ, Baltimore MD, and Tarrytown NY. This article says the Avenger was manufactured as sub-assemblies, with final assembly in Trenton, which info I had not seen before. As far as I can tell from a quick look around the i-net, the original Mercer Airport site (now the Mountain View Golf Club, just north-west of the current KTTN) was expanded specifically to accommodate EAD's Avenger production.
And of course, EAD also made Wildcats.
(2.5 MB PDF file from history.navy.mil)
www.history.navy.mil/download/ww2-37.pdf (http://www.history.navy.mil/download/ww2-37.pdf)
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The Germans lost a total of 720 U-boats during the war, so the surface escorts were still their primary enemy. The aircraft were a constant hazard however, and forced the U-boats to dive often, thus reducing their range and effectiveness.
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Also more than 700 aircraft were lost in action against U-boats.
This list compiled by the folks at uboat.net shows 119 aircraft shot down by 97 individual U-boats for the loss of 31 U-boats either sunk during the attack or due to being located by other forces shortly afterwards and sunk.
http://www.uboat.net/history/aircraft_losses.htm
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Six TBF-1s were present on Midway Island—as part of VT-8 (Torpedo Squadron 8)—while the rest of the squadron flew Devastators from the Hornet. Unfortunately, both types of torpedo bombers suffered heavy casualties. Out of the six Avengers, five were shot down and the other returning heavily damaged with one of its gunners killed, and the other gunner and the pilot injured.
I got to meet Harry Ferrier once, who was the radioman/gunner on the TBM that made it back to Midway.
His plane back at Midway:
(http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2649/4013582810_15bd1fae03_z.jpg)
An excellent book on TBM's, torpedo bombing, and VT-8 (covering Midway and the Cactus Airforce days) is "A Dawn Like Thunder", by Mrazek.