Lake Michigan navy aircraft,'

the navy used Lake Michigan as a carrier training area and lost 200 aircraft to the bottom. Not long ago the naval history command recovered a corsair a rare birdcage type. The year before they brought up a daughtless and a hellcat some years before a rare vindicator. I looked up the list of aircraft known to be on the bottom hoping to see a buffalo a..s they are a rare craft the one in a museum in Dutch markings is a replic. Very few exist and no navy examples exist too bad they missed that when they were reducing inventory after the war so many planes were being scrapped I guess they just lost trac
Did some more reading says they have recovered and restored 25 aircraft so far. And found a WWI u boat that was used for target practice. Seems they could have disposed of it somewhere more convient, maybe thinking the cold fresh waters might help preserve it for later historical purposes.

 

They are lots of rare navy aircraft on the bottom of the lake. However, they are all still Navy property - which is why so few Navy wrecks are recovered...It is not worth the long legal & financial battle to get permission(only a few have).

Where as the USAF gave up their rights to wrecks back in the 50s or 60s, leading to far more USAAF/USAF wrecks being recovered & restored.

The Dutch replica was built by the American "Cradle of Aviation" museum which also built a full scale F2A-2 static replica for themselves.

 

thats kewl checked it out online, have some great displays, the navy has been doing more recovery in recent years they recovered a lost f3f it was found intact supposed to be a easy salvage. They get to the location the planes gone they decide to do a search find it a mile from where it should have been and broken up all over the floor. They decide to get it anyway since their out there get it all on board and back to a hanger for restoration the take everything apart to do a complete rebuild the the plane crashed ditched because it ran out of fuel the pilot reported the auxiliary tank was fuel but when we when he switched over the plane stalled stalled as if lack of fuel. They took apart the fuel switch and found the post key had sheared and so the valve would not turn not turn and that caused the loss of the plane, wonder what else they'll find

 

The two training carriers helped certify 35,000 pilots wow that's a lot and i think there were other navy training stations. The thunderbird training bases trained tens of thousands as well for the USAF, the one in Arizona is now one of the top business training centers. Lol the commander was a business professor bought the whole base for a dollar, turned it into a business college. Sold most of the land outside the base and preserved most of ot the barracks and buildings now classrooms and lecture halls but the tower is preserved and one hanger. From the air and old photos it looks pretty much the same a few new buildings and paved parking lots. The made part of it like a museum that people can visit and read about what they did during the war. It's was great for us we have such huge oil resources and had the fuel to train new pilots and train them not to just fly but gave them advanced combat training not like Germany and Japan so low on fuel pilots barely knew more than to take off and land. One article said most of the kamakazi pilots hard barely three weeks of training or less. The guy in charge of the air forces after the war committed suicide leaving a note saying that he thought the idea of kamakazinwould turn the war and save Japan but it failed and all those pilots died for nothing and he was sorry for sending so many to a useless death.

 

An F4F-3 was recovered from the lake in 1992. It was restored and dedicated to MOH winner Lt. Cmdr. Edward "Butch" O'Hare. Downed 5 enemy planes and damaged another in his first sortie. It is displayed in the passenger terminal at the airport named in his honor, Chicago/O'Hare Airport. (ORD)

 

Thach & James H. Flatley.

 

Thach developed the "Beam Defense" and taught it to O'Hare and others present in VF-3 at San Diego in those last waning days of peace for the US in 1941. O'Hare taught the Beam Defense to Flatley when VF-3, which O'Hare then commanded, and VF-10, which Flatley commanded, were together at NAS Maui in the late summer/early fall of 1942. Flatley, once convinced, adopted the tactic into his squadron doctrine and took it into combat in late 1942 operating off Enterprise and from Guadalcanal.

It was Flatley who named the Beam Defense as the Thach Weave. Flatley's next job in February 1943 was as CAG-5 where he further spread the gospel of the Thach Weave. Then, in October 1943 he was Director of Training at ComFAirWest at San Diego where, among other things like insisting that the famous Koga Zero be incorporated into the training program, he directed the rewrite of the USF-74B carrier aircraft doctrine with himself and director of VF training concentrating of the fighter portion while his VB and VT training directors concentrated on their respective areas. The rewrite included the Thach Weave, formally putting it into doctrine, though by then most squadrons, and not just fighter squadrons, had at the least been exposed.

By the end of the war O'Hare had been killed and Thach and Flatley occupied bookend positions, Flatley as Operations Officer for the First Fast Carrier Task Force (TF-58) under Mitscher and Thach as Operations Officer of the Second Fast Carrier Task Force (TF-38) under McCain. Both were captains (O-6) by then, not bad for a couple of guys who were lieutenants (O-3) in December 1941.