Recent content by MFH

Another good book by John Lundstrom covering Coral Sea (and Midway) is Black Shoe Carrier Admiral. It does a good job of conveying just how bad Allied logistics and communications were at that time. Supposedly the 1990 printing of The First Team has a reworked Coral Sea chapter, if you can...

Great pics! I've never seen these before. I'm being hopeful, but those could be off USS Essex! I see some at least one early F6F-3 (white 30) with the fairing over the inboard 0.50s, and I don't see the prominent black stripe that USS Yorktown (CV-10) had on her flight deck: The SBDs have...

Where's Felix?! Shouldn't he be on there? Other than that, it looks great.

All in all, that seems correct (as far as the fleet carrier squadron changes) to me, as it seems to generally match the data found here: Index for Naval Aeronautical Organization, Fiscal Year 1923 through Fiscal Year 1952. However, I think this is not quite accurate: Authorized...

Does no one know this exists?

No, I don't have any pilot or crew listings. I did find here that VT-19's CO was LCDR F. C. Perry, but I don't have anything else. VF-19 would be a different story, but I got nothing on the torpron. And I don't have much on the Leyte campaigns. VMFs on the CVs in early '45 is a different...

I'm glad the info helped. Yes, in late November 1944, Air Group 20 left Enterprise and shifted over to Lexington to replace Air Group 19, and Enterprise converted to a night carrier, and Night Air Group 90 went aboard in late December 1944. You can find the exact dates here. One air group...

Actually, you're interpreting that order of battle incorrectly. At this stage in the war, US carrier air groups were comprised of VF (fighting), VB (bombing) VT (torpedo) squadrons, and all the squadrons carried the same number as the parent air group. So, you can see for TG 38.4, Franklin...

Not to be rude, but to clarify, what unit are you going to mark this Avenger as a part of? VT-19 was serving on USS Lexington (CV-16) at Leyte Gulf, USS Enterprise was carrying VT-20, and USS Essex was carrying VT-15. As to the model itself, it's looking good.

Njaco, Nope it wasn't me! I got 'em from my late uncle who was a radar opreator on board the Mighty E from Christmas Eve '43 until '46. Thankfully, he gave me a lot of neat stuff from the ship, too, and I've held on to it all over the years. kk89, thanks for the info on the D4Y3. When...

P.S. Exactly what kind of aircraft crashed into CV-9? Was there a "radial engined Judy"? Here's a bigger version: Tail number is 17, and it appears the flaps are slightly down.

It's clearly not a good photo, but the three pieces in the middle are from the plane to the left. The two outside pieces have threads. The left piece feels heavier, and the right two pieces are significantly lighter. Of course, the date was 25 November, 1944, the location off the...

Note: USN Pacific Fleet units only; dates are approximate; not all carriers carried these exact compliments, esp. early in the war and due to combat losses. CAG birds not listed. Errors are due to my memory (or lack thereof). For fleet carrier air groups (CVGs; this is mostly from memory...

I hope this works. My scanner is dead, but my digital camera does have a macro function, so I tried to take a picture of some of my uncle's drawings he did on the Essex in WW II that show the unofficial "plane designations" (pre-G-symbols). It's not perfect, either. I know San Jacinto's...

What do you mean by "middle of the war"? The PDF of the G-symbols is only vaild from late January 1945 (depending on when ship's crews could repaint the tails) to late July 1945. The letter symbols went from July 28 to the end of hostilities, though at least CVG-10 on Intrepid kept theirs...