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Old September 19th, 2009, 08:34 AM
SymphonicPoet SymphonicPoet is offline
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Default Re: UFO's in Pacific War footage?

No, it's pretty definitely Enterprise. You may be thinking of her island as built. If you see early war pictures, they might confuse you, as Enterprise's bridge was extensively modified during a 1943 refit. The footage is probably from operations in the Central Pacific, since she traded in her Navy Blue measure 21 dress for a specially crafted dazzle pattern, MS 33 4ab, in 1944.

Photo Archive Main Index has quite a few good photographs of a number of different carriers.

Here you can see CV-6 with her original bridge:
Aircraft Carrier Photo Index: USS ENTERPRISE (CV-6)
The early war platforms and bridge windows are pretty clear. Squarish and angular platforms with large bridge windows.

Here you can see the bridge she was given in her 1943 refit:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/020646.jpg
Very different. It's rounder now, and there are many fewer platforms. The windows have been replaced with small portholes. And the front of the island looks much more square, since there are no platforms at all below the level of the bridge. You can see the heavy stack structure, which gives the island a massive appearance. It's less visible in the video, as the angle is much more severe, but you can make it out if you know what you're looking at.

The square sheer front to the island, the rounded bridge platform and bridge, the small rounded extension just above the bridge, and the rounded bass to the rangefinder just above and aft of that are all visible in the video. You get a nice clear shot at about 48 seconds.

A Sangamon class CVE, by contrast, has a very very small island, and a quite square bridge:

http://www.navsource.org/archives/03/0302623a.jpg

The island is diminutive by comparison to a fleet carrier. They didn't have the air control facilities of their larger brethren, and didn't need space for flag officers and their typically extensive staffs. Further, the funnels aren't incorporated into the island, as they were on the Yorktown and Essex class carriers. (Not quite certain where they are, as they're not at all obvious in the spotting picture. Might be that there were vents somewhere below the flight deck, as on early British carriers.)

Further, the planes are all aircraft that operated off Enterprise in 1943 and 1944. F6F Hellcats and TBF Avengers. The smaller aircraft, those with the short cockpit faired into the fuselage, are F6Fs. These were the primary US carrier fighter from 1943 until nearly the end of the war. (The Enterprise was among the first carriers to field the F4U Corsairs that replaced them when she took aboard specialized night squadrons.)

The larger aircraft, with the long "greenhouse" canopies, and the ball turret aft are TBF Avengers. These torpedo bombers began to replace the TBD Devastator in mid 1942, fully supplanting the aging TBDs shortly after Midway. (The navy never really had all that many TBDs anyway, so it wasn't terribly difficult.) The Avengers proved adaptable enough that they served right through the end of the war.

Anyway, I hope this helps clear things up. The vast majority of the footage is clearly Enterprise. And I'd bet quite a lot that it all is, and all from the same operation. The same day, I'd guess. But I'd still like to see the rest.
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