EwenS

One of the well known series of photos of FL927/G (the G indicated it should be guarded while on the ground) taken on 16 July 1943. This aircraft was built as a GR.III and arrived in Britain in Aug 1942. After modification it spent its entire life from April 1943 with the A&AEE as a trials aircraft for Coastal Command modifications, in between trips to SAL for more modifications. It became a Ground Instructional airframe in Jun 1944. At the time the Dumbo nose radar radome, as fitted to the early GR.V version, was a dummy having just been fitted. The revised CC instructions for Liberator weapon and other equipment fits issued in Nov 1943 clearly stated that where Leigh Lights were fitted the RP installation, where fitted to an airfraft, was to be removed. If the RP were to be carried, only the fixed fittings for the Leigh Light should remain and not the pod itself. At that point the retractable bomb bay rocket installation was still in development. Once the U-boat fleet gained Schnorkels to allow them to remain underwater at all times, the RP ceased to be an effective weapon, and RP installations were removed from Liberators. The reason for not carrying both RP and Leigh Light was that the attack profiles using these devices were different. So FL927 became a unique aircraft so far as I have been able to determine.

Well this is exceptionally difficult to answer. Firstly weapon fit depended on which squadron it was allocated to, when, and where it was operating from. In May 1943 Coastal Command HQ issued new instructions for the intended armament fits of squadrons in 15 Group (based in Northern Ireland & Iceland) and 19 Group (operating over the Bay of Biscay). These took time to apply in full with aircraft requiring to be rotated through Scottish Aviation Ltd at Prestwick for some modifications to be made. Then new orders were issued in Nov 1943 and it was all change again. So for 53 squadron operating GR.V over the Bay in Oct 1943 there were 3 possible configurations depending on the configuration of the main fuel tanks (see below). I've amnaged to narrow this down for you. Aircraft history:- BZ778 GR.V ex 42-40698 delivered from Dorval in Canada arriving Prestwick 5 June 1943. Underwent Coastal mods at SAL from then until delivered to 224 Squadron on 16 July. To 53 Squadron as FH-G (? given the marking policy at the time) on 4 Oct 1943 then back to SAL on 29 Oct 1943 for more mods (which included the fitting of a Leigh Light). Then to 224 Squadron on on 25 Nov. It then went back to 53 Squadron again on 2 Feb 1944 as I-M and was lost on 7 June 1944. I have a photo and piece of artwork of BZ778 as she appeared in Feb 1944, by which time 53 was mostly Leigh Light equipped for night AS work. Piecing things together, I believe that the following are certain. Nose with a single ASV.II radar aerial. Belly radome for ASG.3 radar. Boulton Paul tail turret with 4x0.303"MG. MId-upper turret fitted. Nose and beam guns fitted. So pretty much as BZ779 above. There are clues in the brief ORB report for 14 Oct 1943 as well. This was a daylight sortie (so no Leigh Light). The aircraft dropped 10 DC (initial 8 then the remaining 2). That was the standard load for an aircraft in Sub-class B(iii) as defined in the May 1943 CC instructions. That meant it was a GR.V from which the self sealing had not been removed from the main wing tanks and which had the servicable auxiliary wing tanks fitted. It would also have carried a single bomb bay fuel tank of 335 gals in the forward bomb bay. The question of rockets is much more difficult. Most of the Liberator squadrons in 19 Group in late summer 1943 (the first installations were made around June 1943) seem to have had some aircraft fitted with rockets. This would have been the early external mount as fitted to BZ779. But it was by no means a universal fit. And they would have been removed as aircraft were fitted with Leigh Lights. By early 1944 the external mounts were being replaced by an internal trapeze mounting in the aft bomb bay for those squadrons operating by day, like 311. There is no mention of rockets in the ORB report, but then again the attack was made on a submerged U-boat, and rockets were only effective on surfaced targets. 224 Squadron which BZ778 came to 53 squadron from, was operating some RP equipped aircraft from June 1943. BZ777 arrived at SAL from Canada on 11 June 1943 and was delivered to 53 Sqn on 11 Aug and was then handed over to 311 on 4 Oct where it is recorded as having the external RP fit. Other aircraft from around this serial batch with 311 at this time include, BZ774 & BZ786 which got the external RP fit, BZ775 & 776 are marked "No?" while BZ773, BZ780, 782, 784,785 & 789 didn't get the external RP fit. It would be worth trawling the ORB for the period 4-29 Oct 1943 to check on other missions flown by BZ778 while with 53 squadron to see if there is any mention of it, or any other of the squadron's aircraft, making RP attacks by any crew. Data culled from "The Liberator in Royal Air Force And Commonwealth Service" "B-24 Liberator in RAF Coastal Command Service with focus on Aircraft of No.311 (Czechoslovak) Squadron RAF" Edit - it would also be worth checking 224 squadron ORB for clues about the RP fit.

The 25lb rocket head was not a "shaped charge" weapon. It was made from hardened steel with no explosive filler designed simply to punch through steel plate. Details here. https://www.bulletpicker.com/rocket_-3-inch-aircraft.html Details of the various installations can be found here. It starts with the Mossie. https://www.bulletpicker.com/pdf/AP 2802 Vol 1, Aircraft Rocket Installations, Sighting, and Ammunition.pdf

This link will take you to the US Office of Naval Intelligence booklet from March 1945 setting out the various standard Japanese merchant ship types. From the USN & USAAF strike photos I’ve seen from 1944/45 most of the shipping being hit in and around the DEI / Philippines area were smaller vessels often referred to as “Sugar Dog” type freighters or simply “barges”. See p56 of the ONI document for examples. Large 8,000-10,000 tons merchantmen became much a rarity as the war went on. http://www.mystiwot.nl/myst/upload/archive/4992211104135817.pdf

Roma was built with a different main deck hull line leading to a higher bow for improved sea keeping than Littorio or VV. Roma https://laststandonzombieisland.com/2016/03/02/warship-wednesday-march-2-2016-fritz-and-the-short-career-of-an-italian-battlewagon/battleship-roma-corazzata-roma-italian-navy-3/ Littorio https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vittorio_Veneto_and_Littorio._La_Spezia,_March_1943.jpg

1936 Programme (5 ships) - completed as 5 turret ships Naiad, Euryalus & Sirius (last not completed till May 1942). Dido & Phoebe completed with a 4” star shell gun in Q position. Dido lost B turret to a bomb hit off Crete. New B & Q turrets were fitted in the resulting repairs in the USA. Had the war gone on she was scheduled for a refit like Argonaut & Euryalus beginning around Oct 1945 (see below). Phoebe had the 4” gun replaced with a quad Pom Pom in a US refit in 1941/42. Torpedoed again in late 1942, A turret was removed before repair in the USA, to be refitted on return to U.K. in 1943. The US refit saw the 3 Pom Pom replaced with 3 quad Bofors. 1937 Programme (2 ships) - Hermione completed with 5 turrets. Bonaventure, the very first Dido to complete, had a 4” star shell gun in X position, with no replacement before her sinking. 1938 Programme (3 ships) - Cleopatra completed with 5 turrets. In a 1943-45 repair & refit she lost Q turret and the 2 Pom Pom, gaining 3 quad Bofors in their place. Charybdis & Scylla became the “Toothless Terrors” with a main armament of 4 Twin 4.5” mounts like those fitted to Ark Royal. 1939 War Programme (6 ships) - Argonaut completed as a 5 turret ship. The other 5 ordered at the same time were suspended in 1940 and became the Modified Dido Group with 4 turrets and a completely different appearance. After that there are only the myriad light AA and radar changes to worry about!!! In 1943/44 Argonaut & Euryalus were refitted in preparation for service in the Far East. Both lost Q turret in exchange for an extra quad Pom Pom on a bandstand (the style of which was different for each ship). More info and photos here https://www.world-war.co.uk/index.php

The changeover to white undersides began in early 1957. Some Sea Hawks had been repainted by mid-year but it probably took some time for everything in the Fleet to be repainted. @Paul Lucas probably has more information

After Suez, Eagle did not return to the UK until 4 Jan 1957. She then had a short refit and did not embark aircraft again until 2 Aug 1957. Her air group then comprised:- 894 Sea Venom FAW.22 803 Sea Hawk FGA. 806 Sea Hawk FB.5 (replaced with FGA.6 in April 1958) 813 Wyvern S.4 814 Gannet AS.4 701 A Flight Dragonfly HR.5 rescue helicopter (from 10/57 although she had 2 helicopters aboard from Aug) She maintained that air group until Spring 1958 when there was some reshuffling of squadrons and she lost the Wyverns altogether.

Further to Geoffrey's & RichG's posts, while it is true that Coastal Command had no remit in the Med, 201 (General Recconaissance) Group carried out the same functions from Sept 1939, initially controlling all RAF GR and disembarked FAA TSR aircraft in Egypt and on Malta. On 3 Oct 1941 it became 201 (Naval Co-operation) Group as by then its squadrons included a number of Hurricane fighter units used for convoy protection along the North African coast as well as squadrons tasked with GR and anti-shipping work. This Group eventually had 4 subsidiary Wings, seemingly with an ever changing composition both in terms of the squadrons involved and the aircraft they used. So their activities included all those referred to above. After the Syrian Campaign in June/July 1941, 203 squadron became part of 201 Group and operated throughout the Eastern Med, moving up and down the Egyptian / Libyan coast as the battle ebbed and flowed. It settled at the Berka 3 airfield near Benghazi on 4 March 1943, remaining there until moving back to Egypt in Nov 1943 and onwards to Santa Cruz, India (near Bombay) to operate over the Arabian Sea with Wellington XIII in view of the increasing U-boat threat in that area.

Eagle carried Gannets from the following squadrons in the 1950s. 826 - AS.1 from 1/55 to 11/55 812 - AS.1 from 4/56 to 8/56. This squadron flew ashore to Hal Far, Malta on 3 Aug to free up space for 2 squadrons of Sea Venoms for Operation Musketeer at Suez. 814 - AS.4 8/57 to 4/59 By the late 1950s the Gannet was being replaced in the anti submarine role by the WestlandWhirlwind HAS.7 helicopter. 824 briefly operated from Eagle with these in March 1959.

This was published nearly 20 years ago about the work of the RSU in the theatre. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bamboo-Workshop-R-S-Sansome/dp/0863036996/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3B883RL9OGN3U&keywords=The+bamboo+workshop&qid=1699347181&s=books&sprefix=the+bamboo+workshop%2Cstripbooks%2C175&sr=1-1

Details of her wartime movements here. https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-10DD-51Q-HMAS_Quickmatch.htm Footage of the seaplane carrier Albatross around the 11 minute mark. An R class battleship after 11.50. Cruiser Suffolk around 19.00. Battlecruiser Renown at 23.50.

For Taiho you need the two AJ Press volumes about her (Nos 39 & 40) if you haven't already.

Never? Not true. But there was a bigger picture and a lot depends on which carrier(s), when (firstly split the war into 1941-43 and then 1943-45) and the circumstances of each operation. The smaller light carriers generally only carried two types - fighters (generally A6M but in 1942 could be a mix of A6M/A5M) and B5N (& later B6N) attack aircraft. On 10 April 1941 the IJN reorganised its carrier forces and by late 1941 had 5 two ship carrier divisions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Air_Fleet The main striking power was contained in the 6 ships of CarDivs 1,2 & 5. During the first 6 months of the war these operated together for some of the time but separately at others, and when doing so each Cardiv must be looked at as a single entity. But generally in that period each carrier would only be operating about half its air group at a time for any strike, the other half being kept back to cope with other eventualities that might arise. The exceptions were Pearl Harbor and Darwin. But in those cases the aircraft were despatched in two waves. There was a limiting factor in the number of aircraft that could be ranged at one time allowing free take offs with heavily loaded aircraft (no catapults on WW2 era Japanese carriers). With multiple carriers available, some would launch attack aircraft (B5N) plus escorting fighters while other would launch dive bombers (D3A) plus escorting fighters. So for example for Pearl Harbor:- Wave 1 - Cardiv 1 (Akagi & Kaga) and Cardiv 2 (Soryu & Hiryu) launched 89 B5N (40 with torpedoes & 49 with 800kg bombs) for a first strike on the warships while Cardiv 5 (Shokaku & Zuikaku) launched 51 D3A dive bombers to target the airfields. All the carriers contributed to the fighter cover. Wave 2 (take off about 1 hr 15 mins later) - comprised the dive bombers from Cardivs 1 & 2 and the attack aircraft from Cardiv 5. Unusually on 9 April for the Trincomalee strike all the dive bombers on the 5 carriers were held back. But it meant that they were available to be sent out about 3 hours later to despatch the Hermes & Vampire etc. When a Cardiv was operating independently, then the early war practice was that one would launch dive bombers and the other attack aircraft with both contributing to the fighter cover e.g. Cardiv 1 and the attacks on Rabaul & Kavieng in Jan 1942. Then we have the issue of reconnaissance. IJN doctrine was that this was largely a function of the floatplanes on the battleships and cruisers accompanying the carriers but supplemented by B5N from the carriers. This way the maximum striking power could be applied without the distractions of the recce function. Early war experience revealed recce as an major IJN weakspot and over time more carrier aircraft would be devoted to it, and special dedicated recce aircraft assigned to the carriers. By way of early war experience, on 4 June 1942 at Midway, Akagi & Kaga each ranged a single B5N for reconnaissance alongside the the dive bombers for the first strike and fighters for both escort & CAP. So 3 types on deck that morning. Then we get to 1943. Although there were no carrier actions that year for the IJN, they undertook a major reorganisation of there carrier operating techniques and organisation (as did the USN) based on the experience of 1942. Each Cardiv now consisted of 3 carriers of a closely related type. And to each Cardiv was allocated a single air group with its aircraft intended to be divided equally between the 3 carrier in the division. This was how the IJN fought at Philippine Sea in June 1944. So for example the 601st Kokutai with a mix of fighters, dive bombers and attack aircraft was split more or less equally between the Taiho, Shokaku & Zuikaku. On 19 June each carrier contributed all 3 types of aircraft to the first strike of the day. Cardiv 3 composed wholly of light carriers Chitose, Chiyoda & Zuiho and its related 653 Kokutai, lacked the dive bombers. So not just as straightforward as perhaps you thought.

IIRC the only CVE that operated the SBD in the Atlantic were the 4 Sangamons for a short period in 1942/43 before they disappeared to the Pacific. On the following link you will find details of the locations of all USN/USMC squadrons and their equipment and bases every week or two for the whole war. 1942 is less accurate than the others. A trawl through these reports might yield some clues as to the existence of other units. https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/naval-aviation-history/involvement-by-conflict/world-war-ii/location-of-us-naval-aircraft-world-war-ii.html VMS-3 (VMO-9 until 1 July 1937) served at St Thomas, Virgin Islands from 1934 until decommissioned on 20 May 1944. It performed search, convoy escort and patrol missions. There were a number of other SBD units on the East Coast during WW2 as they formed & worked up there before moving to the Pacific. So it is a bit difficult to tell exactly what role each squadron had at a particular time.

The RAF decided post BoB and the experience gained then, that the P-38s they had on order courtesy of the French, needed the turbo-supercharged engines. Renegotiating the contract took until Aug 1941 with the first 143 to be built with non-turbo engines and the rest with turbo engines. Then the stories about its high speed handling with the prototypes came out in late summer 1941 at which point the RAF wanted to cancel the whole order but Lockheed wouldn’t let them. Then Pearl Harbor and the USAAF decided it needed every fighter it could get so took over everything - aircraft in build and to be built. The RAF only received 3 non turbo aircraft in March 1942 for trials.

This revelation first came out a few years back in an article in The Aviation Historian, which you can find now on the Whirlwind Project site Blog page https://www.whirlwindfp.org/blog/when-the-wind-won-t-whirl-or-the-real-reason-the-whirlwind-suffered-at-height

Forgot about London. The plan was for all the Counties to be taken in hand for modernisation / reconstruction from 1936 onwards starting with the Kent class. The RN Kent class were modernised between Feb 1935 & Nov 1938. The follow on with the London class was to be more extensive but never progressed beyond the name ship of the class due to the outbreak of WW2. London herself was taken in hand for this in March 1939 and completed in Jan 1941. The rest of the class were scheduled to follow in turn between March 1940 and Aug 1942 in the order Devonshire, Sussex, Shropshire, but that was never allowed to take place. With the exception of the forward & after shelter decks around B & X turrets she was stripped right down to the main deck and her superstructure rebuilt along the lines of the new Fiji class cruisers then under construction. It did not prove a very successful modernisation and further work had to be carried out in later refits to strengthen her hull. As I noted we have no idea of what was planned for the modernisation of York due in 1940. But look at Sussex. despite her extensive damage in Sept 1940 the effort was not put in to reconstructing her along the lines of London. Instead the work broadly left her superstructure unaltered. But her AA armament and radars were extensively modified. Sussex before https://heritagemachines.com/nostalgia/hms-sussex/ Sussex after Just repaired and sent back to sea even though it took nearly as long as London's reconstruction. Such were the demands on the shipyards at the time that everything took longer with ever changing priorities. When I look at her and the work carried out, and look at the damage done to York by comparison, I feel that no effort would have gone into chnaging her overall outline so leaving the forward superstructure pretty much of the same outward appearance.

There were more differences between York & Exeter than generally meets the eye. For example Exeter was given an extra foot of beam to offset her thicker armour and other unexpected weight increases (e.g. turrets) in both ships. So Exeter got a lower bridge in part compensation for that. And due to complaints from the Fleet about draughty bridges in the Counties and smoke being drawn into the bridges something had to be done and Exeter's build schedule provided the first opportunity for a redesign. (The trunking of the boiler uptakes into the forward funnel was an attempt to cure the smoke problem). As far as York's bridge is concerned Friedman in his British Cruisers book notes that yes in 1937 there was a proposal to reconstruct her bridge "presumably on the lines of HMS Exeter". But no drawings exist of the proposal but there was a paper rejecting with mention of vertical masts. It seems everything above B gundeck would have been replaced. The work, if it was to be carried out at all, was to take place around 1940 when she would have been due a "reconstruction" or mid-life update in today's terms. If she had been salvageable, it is hard to say what might have happened. The work might well have been done in the USA. Usually that we then limited to repairs in that timeframe. But such was the demand for cruisers that the work would have been carried out as quickly as possible. Given that all her damage was in the machinery spaces, why would the bridge be altered otherwisethan beyond what was absolutely necessary? 2 cruisers that underwent substantial repairs come to mind. Belfast mined in 1939 when repairs took until late 1942. Sussex bombed in Glasgow docks and gutted by fire in Sept 1940 with repairs taking until Aug 1942. In neither case were substantial changes made to their superstructure Despite the opportunity being there. The latter however might provide a good example of the work carried out.

The first British naval aircraft designed for tail down launching was the Seafire XV in 1944. The RN only began to look at tail down launching in 1942 with the arrival in numbers of aircraft from the USA under Lend Lease and the first US built escort carriers with their AH.II Accelerators. (As far as the RN was concerned they were accelerators on carriers and catapults on Battleships, Cruisers etc until post WW2.) At that point the British BH.III Accelerator was modified to allow tail down launching of US aircraft supplied under Lend Lease. The pre war trolley system was retained for British aircraft right through to the post war years. One of the modifications made to Martlet I/II was to fit the necessary catapult spools to make them compatible with the RN BH.III catapults with their collapsible trolley to carry the aircraft in a tail high launch attitude. For those British designed naval aircraft that had to operate either from carriers without accelerators (e.g. most British built escort carriers and Furious), or from US built escort carriers (e.g. Barracudas) then RATOG was developed to boost aircraft into the sky when necessary. The performance of British accelerators set up for trolley launch / tail up and those of the USN designed for tail down launch were not dissimilar. Both were constantly upgraded during the war as aircraft weights increased.

There was also the attempt in the XB-41 gunship version https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidated_XB-41_Liberator#/media/File%3AXB-41_Liberator_060713-F-1234S-039.jpg And a one off attempt with a much cleaner setup. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205368924

Joe Baugher has the first B-17F rolling off the production line on 30 May 1942. First use was by 8th AF on 27 Jan 1943 on a raid to Wilhelmshaven. https://www.joebaugher.com/usaf_bombers/b17_11.html IIRC in 1942 only 3 B-17 equipped BG arrived in Britain with one going to North Africa after Operation Torch. The big build up came in 1943/44 after the massive training programmes began to bear fruit.

Well you can’t have collections of what doesn’t exist! Much was done in Britain in WW2 to discourage photography for security purposes. By and large not even shipbuilders were photographing what went on in their yards. One exception was John Brown at Clydebank where there is a very large photo portfolio held in libraries in Glasgow which various authors have dipped into. But they were unusual in employing an in-house photographer to document work in the yard from long before WW2 right up until the late 1960s. There is one on line photo collection of RN warships culled from various sources and of varying qualities.Most have been published elsewhere over the years. But it doesn’t include landing ships and craft built in the US, instead referring back to Navsource. https://www.navyphotos.co.uk/Additional Webpages/index2.htm

2 B-24A were (to be?) converted in anticipation of making photo recce flights over the Japanese bases on Truk and Jaluit atolls. But these missions did not take place before the outbreak of the war in the Pacific. These aircraft had previously been used by Ferrying Command and had had much of their operational equipment removed. One of these aircraft, 40-2371, was destroyed on the ground at Hickam Field, Oahu, Hawaii during the PH raid with some of the crew being killed. https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/141674 There is a link on that page to a photo of its remains which might yield some clues. Bit more background here on the whole plan that was only conceived on 26 Nov 1941. https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2018/12/04/prologue-to-pearl-harbor-the-spy-flight-that-wasnt-part-i/ https://text-message.blogs.archives.gov/2018/12/06/prologue-to-pearl-harbor-the-spy-flight-that-wasnt-part-ii/ Part 2 notes that on arrival in Hawaii, the first aircraft was deemed inadequately equipped and armed to the mission was delayed pending additional kit arriving from the USA on the second aircraft. Armament was 1 x 0.3” (in the nose?) and 2 x 0.5” (presumably hand held) in the tail. The same photo of the wreck is at the bottom of Part 2. Another interesting little chapter in the lead up to the opening of hostilities in the Pacific and in B-24 history. Thanks for highlighting it.

The deck logs for the USS Texas for her time off Normandy are here. https://battleshiptexas.info/images/Documents/1944-06DeckLog/06-18.html While underway for some of the earlier shoots or to move to new firing locations, note how much time was spent at anchor in the period while providing fire support. There is also a reference to her using her engines to manoeuvre the ship onto the correct bearing to carry out a shoot while anchored (Thursday 8 June 12-1600) This shows the ammunition expenditure by the ships off Omaha beach on 6 June 1944 http://navsource.org/archives/01/035/013533j.jpg Any movement within the anchorage had to be at low speeds due to the danger of collision with other vessels or the risk of tripping a mine. Off Normandy the Luftwaffe put in a significant mining effort using magnetic, acoustic and pressure mines. The only cure at the time for the latter was minimal speed, dependent on water depth. Speed figures below are for water depths of 5/10/15/20 fathoms (30/60/90/120 feet) Battleships - 0/2.5/4/5-6 Destroyers - 3.5/7/11/14 Liberty ships - 0/4/6/9