Grumman F4F Wildcat

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Don't forget... the Wildcats (and Avengers, etc) that went to the UK military were Lend/Lease equipment.

The UK was required to either return it to the US (at the UK's shipping expense), pay full price for it... or show that it had been "destroyed in service".

Therefore, it was cheaper and easier to just dump excess equipment/planes/etc overboard at sea (documented, of course) than to ship it back to the US - especially since the US had said "we don't want worn or obsolete equipment returned to us - we have enough of that crap to scrap ourselves"!

The CVEs were all returned - and most were then sold to civilian shipping firms and converted to merchant ships, with the remaining being placed in reserve (and scrapped in the 1950s & 60s).
 
GreenKnight121 said:
Don't forget... the Wildcats (and Avengers, etc) that went to the UK military were Lend/Lease equipment.
Click to expand...
The"Martlet / Wildcats" (from the Mk.IV ) were supplied under Lend Lease. But the earlier "Martlets" delivered 1940-42 (Mk.I, II & III) were not. The last surviving Mk.I now resides at the FAA Museum at Yeovilton.

GreenKnight121 said:
The CVEs were all returned - and most were then sold to civilian shipping firms and converted to merchant ships, with the remaining being placed in reserve (and scrapped in the 1950s & 60s).
Click to expand...
The US built ships were returned, but there was one that had an afterlife as a carrier in a foreign navy.

Biter, laid up due to her troublesome diesel engines, was returned to US control on 9 April 1945 "as lying" at Greenock. Refitted by the USN, she was then loaned to the French Navy and used off Indochina 1946-49, before she became an accommodation ship. She was not finally returned to US control until 1965, who used her for target practice the following year.

Of the 5 surviving British built escort carriers, not subject to Lend Lease, 3 were converted for mercantile use immediately following their RN service. A fourth ship, Nairana, was loaned to the Dutch Navy between Jan 1946 and May 1948 for use as a carrier, after which she was returned to the RN and then sold for merchant service.

The final ship, Campania, retained by the RN postwar, was used as a floating exhibition ship during the Festival of Britain in 1951, touring various ports around Britain. The following year she became the command ship for the British atomic bomb tests off Australia before being sold for scrap in 1955.
 
Yes... and the French then borrowed two Independence-class CVLs for a few years in the 1950s.

Here is F. S. Dixmude (ex-Biter) with Piasecki H-21 (Flying Banana) helos aboard:




US Army H-21 Shawnees over Vietnam 1962:




F. S. Bois Belleau (ex-Belleau Wood CVL-24) with F4U-7 fighters:




F. S. La Fayette (ex-Langley CVL-27) with Corsairs:




Toulon with Clemenceau, Arromanches, and LaFayette, between Nov 1961 & March 1963:

 
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