Countdown to Kickoff II: The Final 24 Days

[Swayin]

USS Ranger (CV-4) Part Three

Shipboard Life

Sailors queued up for ice cream and other treats at Ranger's Gedunk on 22 March 1938. (below)



The Admiral conducts an inspection aboard USS Ranger (CV-4) on 19 June 1942. (below)



Sailors "stripping ship" aboard Ranger in anticipation of action off Morocco, circa early November 1942. Paint has been chipped from the bulkheads and overheads as a precaution against fire. (below)



The paint on interior surfaces turned out to be very flammable as the Navy learned in the early sea battles of WW2.  The tile on interior decks were flammable and also very toxic once they were set on fire.  This is the first documentation that I have seen of the stripping that was done for safety reasons later on in the war.

An Aviation Machinist Mate works on one of Ranger's TBF Avengers in the ship's cavernous hangar as she steams towards North Africa in preparation for Operation Torch. (below)



Testing machine guns of Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat fighters aboard Ranger while en route from the U.S. to North African waters, circa early November 1942. Note the special markings used during this operation, with a yellow ring painted around the national insignia on aircraft fuselages. (below)



This is a photo, since the individual squadron markings (VF-9 and VF-41) have been retouched out of the photo.

The Ranger never got the love or acclaim of the first-gen Pacific fleet carriers ... nice to see her get her due here!

 

[kingofnerf]

USS Ranger (CV-4) Part Four

Wartime Operations - Fighter Aircraft Delivery

After Rommel's victories in May and June, most notably the fall of Tobruk during the Battle of Gazala, the United States agreed to commit to the North African theater a total of nine combat groups, of which seven groups were to be in operation by the end of 1942. Ranger's contribution to the establishment of the Ninth Air Force was to ferry another 72 Army P-40s.

This time she ferried a complete combat unit, 57th Fighter Group, which she launched off the coast of Africa for Accra on 19 July. Lessons learned from the previous ferry mission resulted in negligible losses, for which the 57th received commendations. The Group was operational with the Desert Air Force in time to participate in the Second Battle of El Alamein.

Forward end of the flight deck of Ranger while en route to Africa, 18 July 1942, showing the "desert pink"-painted Curtiss P-40F Warhawks of the 57th Fighter Group (Lt. Col. Frank H. Mears, Jr., USAAF, commanding). (below)

Note four SB2U Vindicators from the Ranger Air Group parked among the USAAF fighters, and heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) off the carrier's port bow.  The "desert pink" camouflage color was a one-time Army experiment that does not appear to have been repeated after this re-supply.

However, that didn't stop the 57th FG from having success in the pink Warhawks.  In an aerial battle over the Gulf of Tunis at Cape Bon in April 1943, the group destroyed approximately 74 of the enemy's transport and fighter aircraft while sending an equal number down to the sea and beaches to escape by crash landing. The 57th lost just six aircraft in this melee. Forever known by the 57th as the 18 April 1943 Goose Shoot – "The Palm Sunday Massacre," it received another DUC and it added four newly created aces.

http://www.57thfightergroup.org/history/goose_shoot/index.html

The 65th Fighter Squadron "Fighting Cocks" were part of the 57th FG.

This action broke the German's aerial supply line and they surrendered Tunisia thirty days later.

Following training in Chesapeake Bay, Ranger underwent an overhaul at the Norfolk Navy Yard from 16 December 1942 – 7 February 1943. By December 33 Fighter Group had taken heavy losses in Tunisia and need reinforcement. Responding to Eisenhower's request, Ranger departed Norfolk on 8 January with the 325th Fighter Group aboard for delivery to Casablanca. She repeated the mission with another load, 75 P-40L fighters of the Army Air Forces' 58th Fighter Group to Africa, arriving at Casablanca on 23 February.

P-40L Kittyhawks of the 58th Fighter Group on the flight deck of Ranger on 14–24 February 1943, during transport to North Africa. (below)

The canopies are painted with a dark protective coating. Note that the engines of some of the aircraft are in the process of being run up.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ranger_(CV-4)

 

[kingofnerf]

Visitors to the Air Zoo museum, Michigan are treated to a P-40 painted in its lesser known camouflage colour of Desert Pink and despite the plane never seeing service in combat it is known to millions of aviation enthusiasts.

The aircraft's owner was the late Sue Parish, one of the Air Zoo's founders, who was a former WASP that died in 2010.

It was at this point that 'Icy's future took a turn for the better when Sue Parish was informed of the planes availability and bought the plane.

Despite this bright new beginning in the planes history much work was needed to make 'Icy' flyable. Restoration began and although the plane was in reasonable condition after its conversion to a racing aircraft the cockpit was the main area that needed attention and needed to be rebuilt and other parts were also needed including a new prop and spinner, but finally after a restoration process lasting three years and involving parts from other aircraft P-40N (44-7619) was again able to take to the skies. After some training in the Warhawk. Sue was eventually able to bring the plane to Kalamazoo, Michigan.

1977 saw the legend begin as Sue painted her P-40 in Desert Pink and the shark teeth design was added, but with a difference, this particular P-40's smile was friendlier and wore lipstick! Earning the nickname 'the friendly tiger'.

https://www.classicwarbirds.co.uk/articles/air-zoo-founder-sue-parish-and-her-pink-p-40-warhawk.php

A pretty neat story.

 

[kingofnerf]

USS Ranger (CV-4) Part Five

Naval Battle of Casablanca

As the largest carrier in the Atlantic Fleet, Ranger led the task force that comprised herself and the four escort carriers. These provided air superiority during the amphibious invasion of Vichy-ruled French Morocco. On 8 November 1942, Allied landings in French North Africa (Operation Torch) began. Vichy French government forces attacked the Allied forces in defense of the neutrality of French Morocco, in what became known as the Naval Battle of Casablanca.

It was still dark at 06:15 that day, when Ranger—stationed 30 mi (48 km) northwest of Casablanca—began launching her aircraft to support the landings made at three points on the Atlantic coast of North Africa (Operation Torch). Nine of her Wildcat fighters attacked the Rabat and Rabat-Sale aerodromes, headquarters of the French air forces in Morocco. Without loss to themselves, they destroyed seven planes at one field, and 14 bombers at the other. Another flight destroyed seven planes on the Port Lyautey field. Some of Ranger's planes strafed four French destroyers in Casablanca Harbor, while others strafed and bombed nearby shore batteries.

The Vichy French battleship Jean Bart opened fire with the four 15-inch (381 mm) guns of her one operational turret on U.S. warships covering the landings. She was hit and moderately damaged by Ranger's dive bombers, then silenced by the fifth hit from the 16-inch (406 mm) guns of the American battleship Massachusetts, which jammed the rotating mechanism of the one working turret.

An Army L-4 Cub prepares to launch from Ranger in support of Operation Torch on 9 November 1943, shortly before 2PM. (below)

Ranger carried three L-4s to the operation and launched them to serve as artillery spotters with ground forces.

Jean Bart's 15-inch turret was quickly repaired. On 10 November, Jean Bart opened fire again, and almost hit the heavy cruiser Augusta, the Task Force 34 flagship. In retaliation, bombers from Ranger inflicted severe damage on Jean Bart with two heavy bombs hitting the bow and the stern, causing the French battleship to sink into the harbor mud with decks awash.

French battleship Jean Bart attacked by planes from Ranger. (below)

The French battleship Jean Bart, photographed from an airplane of the Ranger.

In addition to damaging and sinking Jean Bart, Ranger's attack aircraft scored two direct bomb hits on the French destroyer leader Albatros, completely wrecking her forward half and causing 300 casualties. They also attacked the French cruiser Primauguet as she sortied from Casablanca Harbor and dropped depth charges within killing range of two submarines.

Ranger's planes also knocked out coastal defense and anti-aircraft batteries, destroyed more than 70 enemy aircraft on the ground, and shot down 15 aircraft in aerial combat. It was estimated that 21 enemy light tanks were immobilized and some 86 military vehicles destroyed – most of them troop-carrying trucks. Ranger had launched 496 combat sorties in the three-day operation, with 16 planes lost or damaged beyond repair.

Casablanca capitulated to the American forces on 11 November. Ranger departed from the Moroccan coast on 12 November, returning to Hampton Roads on 24 November and Norfolk on 14 December 1942.

Ranger departed from Scapa Flow with the Home Fleet on 2 October 1943 to attack German shipping in Norwegian waters (Operation Leader). The objective of the force was the northern Norwegian port of Bodø. The task force reached launch position off Vestfjorden before dawn on 4 October completely undetected.

At 06:18, Ranger launched 20 Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers and an escort of eight Wildcats. One division of dive bombers attacked the 8,000-gross register ton (GRT) freighter La Plata, while the rest continued north to attack a German ship convoy. The bombers severely damaged a 10,000 GRT tanker and a smaller troop transport. They also sank two of four small German merchant ships in the Bodø roadstead.

A second attack group from Ranger—consisting of 10 Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo bombers and six Wildcats—destroyed a German freighter and a small coastal ship, and bombed a troop-laden transport. Three of the aircraft were lost to anti-aircraft fire.

Memorial for aircrew lost in battle in 1943, Fagervika, Norway. (below)

Memorial for U.S. Navy airmen from Torpedo Squadron 4 (VT-4) from the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4), lost on 4 October 1943 during "Operation Leader".  The propeller blade was retrieved from the sunken wreck of a Grumman TBF-1 Avenger.

On the afternoon of 4 October, Ranger was located by three German aircraft; her combat air patrol shot down two of the enemy planes and chased away the third.

Ranger returned to Scapa Flow on 6 October. She patrolled with the British 2nd Battle Squadron in waters extending northwestward to Iceland, and then she departed from Hvalfjord on 26 November, arriving at Boston on 3 December.

Ranger's Officers and Enlisted Men in 1945. (below)

Sa-lute!

 

[kingofnerf]

USS Saratoga (CV-3)

USS Saratoga (CV-3) was a Lexington-class aircraft carrier built for the United States Navy during the 1920s. Originally designed as a battlecruiser, she was converted into one of the Navy's first aircraft carriers during construction to comply with the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. The ship entered service in 1928 and was assigned to the Pacific Fleet for her entire career. Saratoga and her sister ship, Lexington, were used to develop and refine carrier tactics in a series of annual exercises before World War II. On more than one occasion these exercises included successful surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. She was one of three prewar US fleet aircraft carriers, along with Enterprise and Ranger, to serve throughout World War II.

Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Saratoga was the centerpiece of the unsuccessful American effort to relieve Wake Island and was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine a few weeks later. After lengthy repairs, the ship supported forces participating in the Guadalcanal Campaign and her aircraft sank the light carrier Ryūjō during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons in August 1942. She was again torpedoed the following month and returned to the Solomon Islands area after repairs were completed.

In 1943, Saratoga supported Allied forces involved in the New Georgia Campaign and invasion of Bougainville in the northern Solomon Islands and her aircraft twice attacked the Japanese base at Rabaul in November. Early in 1944, her aircraft provided air support during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands Campaign before she was transferred to the Indian Ocean for several months to support the British Eastern Fleet as it attacked targets in Java and Sumatra. After a brief refit in mid-1944, the ship became a training ship for the rest of the year.

In early 1945, Saratoga participated in the Battle of Iwo Jima as a dedicated night fighter carrier. Several days into the battle, she was badly damaged by kamikaze hits and was forced to return to the United States for repairs. While under repair, the ship, now increasingly obsolete, was permanently modified as a training carrier with some of her hangar deck converted into classrooms. Saratoga remained in this role for the rest of the war and was then used to ferry troops back to the United States after the Japanese surrender in August. In mid-1946, the ship was a target for nuclear weapon tests during Operation Crossroads. She survived the first test with little damage, but was sunk by the second test.

USS Los Angeles ties up aboard Saratoga in January 1928, the first time a rigid airship had been moored to an aircraft carrier. (below)

USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) landing on USS Saratoga (CV-3), 27 January 1928. Note lines used to walk the airship forward from the aircraft carrier's stern.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Saratoga_(CV-3)

 

[kingofnerf]

USS Los Angeles (ZR-3)

USS Los Angeles was a rigid airship, designated ZR-3, which was built in 1923–1924 by the Zeppelin company in Friedrichshafen, Germany, as war reparation. It was delivered to the United States Navy in October 1924 and after being used mainly for experimental work, particularly in the development of the American parasite fighter program, was decommissioned in 1932.

Design

The second of four vessels to carry the name USS Los Angeles, the airship was built for the United States Navy as a replacement for the Zeppelins that had been assigned to the United States as war reparations following World War I, and had been sabotaged by their crews in 1919. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles Luftschiffbau Zeppelin were not permitted to build military airships.

In consequence Los Angeles, which had the Zeppelin works number LZ 126, was built as a passenger airship, although the treaty limitation on the permissible volume was waived, it being agreed that a craft of a size equal to the largest Zeppelin constructed during World War I was permissible.

Los Angeles was decommissioned in 1932 as an economy measure, but was recommissioned after the crash of USS Akron in April 1933. She flew for a few more years and then retired to her Lakehurst hangar where she remained until 1939, when the airship was struck off the Navy list and was dismantled in her hangar. Los Angeles was the Navy's longest serving rigid airship. Unlike Shenandoah, Akron, and Macon, the German-built Los Angeles was the only Navy rigid airship which did not meet a disastrous end.

USS Los Angeles lofted nearly vertical in the 1927 weather-related docking-mast mishap. (below)

Airship USS Los Angeles (ZR-3) in a near-vertical position, after her tail rose out-of-control while she was moored at the high mast at Naval Air Station Lakehurst, New Jersey.

On 25 August 1927, while Los Angeles was tethered at the Lakehurst high mast, a gust of wind caught her tail and lifted it into colder, denser air that was just above the airship. This caused the tail to lift higher. The crew on board tried to compensate by climbing up the keel toward the rising tail, but could not stop the ship from reaching an angle of 85 degrees, before it descended. The ship suffered only slight damage and was able to fly the next day.

Los Angeles next to her hangar in Lakehurst, New Jersey. (below)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Los_Angeles_(ZR-3)

 

[Swayin]

The Lockheed P-3 Orion is a four-engine turboprop anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft developed for the United States Navy and introduced in the 1960s. Lockheed based it on the L-188 Electra commercial airliner.[4] The aircraft is easily distinguished from the Electra by its distinctive tail stinger or "MAD Boom", used for the magnetic detection of submarines.

Over the years, the aircraft has seen numerous design developments, most notably in its electronics packages. Numerous navies and air forces around the world continue to use the P-3 Orion, primarily for maritime patrol, reconnaissance, anti-surface warfare and anti-submarine warfare. A total of 757 P-3s have been built and, in 2012, it joined the handful of military aircraft including the Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, Lockheed C-130 Hercules and the Lockheed U-2 that the United States military has been using for more than 50 years. The Boeing P-8 Poseidon will eventually replace the U.S. Navy's remaining P-3C aircraft.

 

[Swayin]

The Grumman F3F was a biplane fighter aircraft produced by the Grumman aircraft for the United States Navy during the mid-1930s. Designed as an improvement on the F2F, it entered service in 1936 as the last biplane to be delivered to any American military air arm. It was retired from front line squadrons at the end of 1941 before it could serve in World War II, and replaced by the Brewster F2A Buffalo. The F3F, which inherited the Leroy Grumman-designed retractable main landing gear configuration first used on the Grumman FF, served as the basis for a biplane design ultimately developed into the much more successful F4F Wildcat that succeeded the subpar Buffalo.

 

[Swayin]

The M3 Lee, officially Medium Tank, M3, was an American medium tank used during World War II. The turret was produced in two forms, one for US needs and one modified to British requirements to place the radio next to the commander. In British service, the tank was called by two names: tanks employing US pattern turrets were called "Lee", named after Confederate general Robert E. Lee while those with British pattern turrets were known as "Grant", named after Union general Ulysses S. Grant.

Design commenced in July 1940, and the first M3s were operational in late 1941.[2] The U.S. Army needed a medium tank armed with a 75mm gun and, coupled with the United Kingdom's immediate demand for 3,650 medium tanks,[3] the Lee began production by late 1940. The design was a compromise meant to produce a tank as soon as possible. The M3 had considerable firepower and good armor, but had serious drawbacks in its general design and shape, including a high silhouette, an archaic sponson mounting of the main gun preventing the tank from taking a hull-down position, riveted construction, and poor off-road performance.

Its overall performance was not satisfactory and the tank was withdrawn from combat in most theaters as soon as the M4 Sherman tank became available in larger numbers. In spite of this, it was considered by Hans von Luck (an Oberst (Colonel) in the Wehrmacht Heer and the author of Panzer Commander) to be superior to the best German tank at the time of its introduction, the Panzer IV (at least until the F2 variant).[4]

Despite being replaced elsewhere, the British continued to use M3s in combat against the Japanese in southeast Asia until 1945.[5] Nearly a thousand M3s were supplied to the Soviet military under Lend-Lease between 1941–1943.

 

[kingofnerf]

Lockheed S-3 Viking "War Hoover"

The Lockheed S-3 Viking is a 4-crew, twin-engine turbofan-powered jet aircraft that was used by the U.S. Navy (USN) primarily for anti-submarine warfare. In the late 1990s, the S-3B's mission focus shifted to surface warfare and aerial refueling. The Viking also provided electronic warfare and surface surveillance capabilities to a carrier battle group. A carrier-based, subsonic, all-weather, long-range, multi-mission aircraft, it carried automated weapon systems and was capable of extended missions with in-flight refueling. Because of its characteristic sound, it was nicknamed the "War Hoover" after the vacuum cleaner brand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_S-3_Viking

 

[kingofnerf]

Intimidator

 

[kingofnerf]

 

[Homebrewcock]

 

[Homebrewcock]

 

[Homebrewcock]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EU96DRtQpVI/UZwAJjowMAI/AAAAAAAAAV0/Pzf-zJYq68Q/s1600/Cory+Boyd2-thumb-400x562-12808.jpeg

 

[Homebrewcock]

 

[kingofnerf]

 

[kingofnerf]

"Tangerine" and "Bron-Y-Aur Stomp" from Led Zeppelin III

 

[kingofnerf]

"Rock And Roll All Nite" from KISS' third studio album Dressed to Kill

 

[kingofnerf]

"Free" from Chicago III