USS Lexington aircraft on the bottom of the sea.

[Maxrobot1]

 

[rochie]

recently watched a documentary that contained the video footage of those, amazingly well preserved !

 

[Wayne Little]

it really is amazing that they still look so good....

 

[MiTasol]

Deep water = less oxygen = less corrosion and growth.

 

[M. Tanaka]

https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/attachments/f4f-f-5-wildcat-vf-3-uss-lexington-wreck-2-jpg.655852/

This F4F seems to be piloted by whose name ends 'R'; with four kills and one bombing hit at the sinking of the LEX, when referring to a pic of Lieutenant Edward H. O'Hare in the below web page.

Fighting Squadron THREE (VF-3) | This Day in Aviation

Who is that?

 

[cammerjeff]

My best Guess would be Lt Gayler, he is credited with a total of 5 Kills in WWII but I have not been able to find when he scored those victories. But there was also a Lt Willard E. Eder listed as the standing 4th from the left on this Photo of VF-3's Aviators. He also survived the war and scored either 6 or 6.5 victories in WWII. So also a possibility But I think I see a capital G visible before the R, leading to my view it is the plane flown by Lt Gayler, that and the spacing of the letters make me think it is Gayler and not Eder. Also Lt Eder was posted to VF-2 at the time of the Coral Sea Battle.

But either way both men made a considerable contribution to USN History.

Noel Gayler - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Willard Eder - Recipient -

Willard Eder became a World War II Navy ACE, credited with shooting down 6.5 enemy aircraft in aerial combat.

valor.militarytimes.com

picture source Aircraft Carrier Photo Index: USS LEXINGTON (CV-2)

 

[M. Tanaka]

cammerjeff, Lt Gayler looked perfect fit to me. Thus checking web pages with the name, found those information;

More information and photos of Gaylers Wildcat

Then and Now: Noel Gayler’s assigned aircraft, flown on 8 May by Al ‘Scoop’ Vorse, aboard the Lexington, 1942-2018 – WW2Wrecks.com

www.ww2wrecks.com

Thank you so much anyway. Cheers, mt

 

[cammerjeff]

No problem, I just did a quite google search of site known to me. I was unable to come up with the A/C numbers flown by any other aviators other than Ohare & Thatch. But glad to see I agree with the difinative research done. Thanks for the link!

 

[R Leonard]

Before Lexington departed for Coral Sea, due to a shortage of both pilots and planes, 12 pilots and 19 F4Fs were transferred from VF-3 to VF-2. Thus most of the F4Fs operated in the battle by VF-2 sported VF-3 livery. F-5 was Noel Gayler's nominal mount in VF-3 as he was the squadron flight officer and thus led the second division. Going aboard Lexington, he became the squadron exec and was so assigned F-13 in the squadron tactical organization, leading the fourth division.

F-5, at that point, was assigned to LT Albert O Vorse, leading VF-2's second division, still in VF-3 markings with Gayler's score card. Oh, and we know that F-5 had been Gayler's in VF-3 based on the squadron organization and, noticeably, the small marking forward of the Japanese flags showing a bombing of an enemy ship . . . which Gayler so did at Lae-Salamaua back in March when VF-3 was, indeed, resident on Lexington.

Of course, the thing to remember is that the plane handlers did not really care whose plane was assigned to whom. They were told to spot X number of F4Fs on the flight deck in the order of launch and they cared not about side numbers, so X number, the easiest to move to the spot got moved.

So, did Gayler, or for that matter, Vorse operate F-5 at Coral Sea? Maybe, if the plane was spotted when and where either of those gents were supposed to mount-up, but it could have easily been flown by any other pilot in VF-2.

Always thought nineteen out of twenty F4Fs in VF-3 markings aboard Lexington played hob with generations of model builders trying to display a VF-2 F4F at Coral Sea.

 

[GrauGeist]

Also, if I'm not mistaken, at the time, Lexington's air groups had their numbering in black while Saratoga's were white?