Lake Michigan Aircraft Carriers

An Interesting part of Naval history. We could not have won WWII if not for the benefits of the Great Lakes and their related industrial production centers ... steel, etc.

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 but we could.

But how did we train so many pilots in both comfort (calm seas) and safety (with 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!
Poke Here

That is interesting, it must put a lot of strain on the airplane when landing and the cable stops the plane.

They still stop them the same way

I had seen that site before but it's been a while so thanks for posting it here.
George Bush Sr. trained on one or the other of those fresh water carriers - along with thousands of other pilots.
Yes, Japan couldn't replace their pilot losses like we could so when they had used up their elite cadre of pilots they were in trouble.
Towards the end of the war they couldn't even send their training carriers out to train pilots as American subs were everywhere - even through the Bungo Straits and into their Inland Sea.

While I was serving on the JFK one of the 4 cable rooms blew up. One of my best friends at the time just missed getting hit when it happened. One of the cable pistons some how came undone from it mount and the plane that hit that cable jerked the piston off it mount and it in turn flew into the passageway my friend was walking threw. It blew up just before he got to that point. Missed him by less then 10 feet. He came back to where had been white as a ghost and shacking like crazy.
By the way just as the plane is about to hit one of those cables they throttle up to max so if they miss they have enough speed and power to keep from falling off the ship

Yea verily, and not stealing your thunder, but Col. Jimmy Doolittle trained the B-25 "bomber" not fighter pilots that made the carrier Hornet's take-off (twin engine bombers loaded with fuel and a few incendiary bombs) for the "30 Seconds over Tokyo" raid, early in 1942 as a morale booster for those of us in the USA, down at Eglin AFB, Florida.

The pilots were required to do a takeoff roll in an extremely short distance, marked on the runway. Obviously secrecy kept them from knowing their fate. Course the difference in this training and reality, other than the early launch which was disastrous, was that the carrier was steaming at roughly 30 knots into a 30+ mph wind. With a "rotation" speed of just over 100 mph this took a lot of pain out of the fantastic feat.....taking Army twin engine bombers off the deck of a carrier when half the deck was filled with aircraft.

As history writes, Adm. Bull Halsey was in command of the Hornet and associated task force. Personally, after reviewing this decision of his to launch early and later mis-directed (opinion) operations in Lete Gulf just to name a couple, I personally question his qualifications. But who am I to judge. Well I am a 9 year veteran and repeatedly questioned the rationale of decisions made by my commanders that had/could have had a significant impact on my life and my later ability to function. One reason I bailed out after 9 years of service to my country.

Actually what happened with pilot training is that we did several things. One was to shorten the training time from 1 year to 6 months. 2nd was to rotate combat veteran pilots back to the states to head up new squadrons and about 6 months to work up the new pilots before deployment. Japan on the other hand had a 2 year flight training program. Then only abbreviated right at the end of the war for those who were going to fly the Kamikaze planes. Carrier quals were a small part of combat training.

Another interesting little fact was that the F4U Corsair almost didn't get into the fight. They landed "hot" (fast) and took a good deal of training for pilots to land without blowing tires or damaging the gear. The first group deployed was told that if they couldn't master carrier landings that the Navy was looking at dumping the F4U.

Rick

It was Halsey's decision, not Doolittle's, to launch early?

Fingerlakes too. Sampson Naval Base/Seneca Army Depot.

Quite interesting thanks for sharing. Kind of like some of the small air bases that were here in nebraska but on water.

Much to my amazement, this was a part of American Naval Air history that I was not aware of. Thanks for posting

(quoted from post at 13:48:54 02/01/15) Yea verily, and not stealing your thunder, but Col. Jimmy Doolittle trained the B-25 "bomber" not fighter pilots that made the carrier Hornet's take-off (twin engine bombers loaded with fuel and a few incendiary bombs) for the "30 Seconds over Tokyo" raid, early in 1942 as a morale booster for those of us in the USA, down at Eglin AFB, Florida.

The pilots were required to do a takeoff roll in an extremely short distance, marked on the runway. Obviously secrecy kept them from knowing their fate. Course the difference in this training and reality, other than the early launch which was disastrous, was that the carrier was steaming at roughly 30 knots into a 30+ mph wind. With a "rotation" speed of just over 100 mph this took a lot of pain out of the fantastic feat.....taking Army twin engine bombers off the deck of a carrier when half the deck was filled with aircraft.

As history writes, Adm. Bull Halsey was in command of the Hornet and associated task force. Personally, after reviewing this decision of his to launch early and later mis-directed (opinion) operations in Lete Gulf just to name a couple, I personally question his qualifications. But who am I to judge. Well I am a 9 year veteran and repeatedly questioned the rationale of decisions made by my commanders that had/could have had a significant impact on my life and my later ability to function. One reason I bailed out after 9 years of service to my country.

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One big difference between Doolittles pilots, they didn't have to learn how to land on the carriers.

Gene

The Admiral had to look to the protection of his squadron. They were sighted on their way in by Japanese fishing boats that radioed Japan the location of a pair of aircraft carriers.

Sending the B25s in early was an easy decision. Halsey would have rightfully lost his command (if he survivied) had he kept heading west after the Japanese were alerted. Risking two carriers in April 1942 for a raid that he and Doolittle knew would cause little damage would have been a foolhardy mistake.

OK we know after the fact that Halsey cased down a bunch of decoy ships. What some people don't look at was the fact that he nor anyone else in the allied side knew they were decoys. We had no spy network in Japan and had no idea what their status was. He was the commander on site and he made a decision based on knowledge before japan surrendered. IMO he should have stayed where he was and continued the mission. What the Navy did know was that Japan had several apparently strong fleets. We didn't know that the carriers were devoid of aircraft. They did know that there had been very little surface action so therefore battle ships and cruisers were not deem a huge threat. Do I think Halsey was after the glory of destroying the Japanese carriers? Sure! But he was going after what he considered the biggest threat too. Knowing that he had retreating battle ships on one side and a carrier force on the other was part of that decision. Kinda hard to fault him without having been there in his position. IMO he should have followed orders. That was his error. But on the other hand our military allows and did allow senior commanders some latitude on that so they could respond to new threats or drastically changed situations.

Rick

Rick

Well said Rick.
Halsey still catches a lot of flak for his decision to go after Ozawa and his carriers.
But ultimately, a year after they had time to scrutinize his actions at Leyte in depth, the American people still gave Halsey his 5th star.
That wouldn't have happened if he had screwed up too badly.

We are speculating here on assumptions which probably will never be verified. Even if the early detection ship saw the fleet and was able to radio the fact back to Tokyo, what became of it? Apparently nothing as there was no resistance over the area. They just ran out of gas trying to get to China and safety.

He had the command. It was his call.

Reading the book "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" years ago shed some additional light on the subject. The locals in Tokyo didn't recognize our insignia and it was reported that some rural citizens even waved at the planes helping me to feel that even if early detected they might have gotten away with it anyway.

My compassion was for the crew. The fleet didn't seem to have any justifiable enemy except for the weather.

(quoted from post at 08:36:25 02/02/15) We are speculating here on assumptions which probably will never be verified. Even if the early detection ship saw the fleet and was able to radio the fact back to Tokyo, what became of it? Apparently nothing as there was no resistance over the area. They just ran out of gas trying to get to China and safety.

He had the command. It was his call.

Reading the book "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" years ago shed some additional light on the subject. The locals in Tokyo didn't recognize our insignia and it was reported that some rural citizens even waved at the planes helping me to feel that even if early detected they might have gotten away with it anyway.

My compassion was for the crew. The fleet didn't seem to have any justifiable enemy except for the weather.

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Mark the thing of it was they had to decide between aborting the mission completely, launching early and risk loosing easily replaceable B25's or risk the carriers that were not easily replaced. They were building ships like mad but they took a long time to replace. They didn't know for sure if any message got through but at the time they really couldn't risk the carriers on publicity stunts to make the civilian population happy. To my understanding the crews, even at the last minute were given the option of going or not, knowing the risks and they went. Americans in general were out for revenge and none more so than our men and women in uniform. They were able to hit their targets and attempt to get to friendly areas. Bottom line was they couldn't risk the possibility that a message had gotten through. As far as no resistance in the air? Simple. The Japanese, if they got the warning, knew that US carrier based planes didn't have to range from where the picket boat was at to even reach the home island so there was no threat. They never dreamed that we would be crazy enough to try launching twin engine land based bombers from a carrier. Kinda like the battle ship senior brass never dreaming that the Japanese could inflict the damage they did at Pearl Harbor. Ignorance went both ways in WWII. Hitler thought that 1. the US couldn't fight a 2 fronted war and 2. citizen soldiers could never stand up to his "professional" army. Roosevelt thought in late Dec 41 and early 42 that we could do no more than hold the line in the Pacific while we dealt with Germany first. The fact that we could go on the offensive on both fronts by 43 was amazing. Guadalcanal was part of the holding action, not the march (swim really) to Japan.

Rick

Rick