WesWorld

A while back I purchased “Battleship and Cruiser Aircraft of the United States Navy, 1910-1949,” by William T. Larkins. (sorry, I had to abreviate the title for the thread subject.) I wanted to share some interesting facts I found in the book and my opinions of it.

First off, Larkins also provides exhaustive lists of what types were assigned to what ships when, a review of operational accidents, aircraft serial numbers with the associated type, even a list of the Vought FU-1’s assigned to VF-2B and the ships they were based on. (These were the USN’s battleship based fighters, to protect the ship’s spotting aircraft.) In the appendixes, there is a list of Side numbers and tail colors for the squadrons assigned to each BB’s. At very least, I’d have to say this book would be an invaluable resource for any modeler.

The photographic history in this book is outstanding. The Curtiss AB-3 on board the North Carolina in 1916. An SE-5A on the Mississippi. There is a fantastic, full page shot of the Fleet Commander’s dark blue Vought O3U-3 on board the Pennsylvania’s third turret. Plus, there are tons of photos of SOC’s, SO3C’s, OS2U’s, and SC-1’s. Larkins also has some photos of foreign contemporaries, like the Fairey Seafox, Supermarine Walrus and Loire-Nieuport 130.

There are also some good photos of aircraft I knew of and had never seen, or I never knew existed, like the Sikorsky XSS, and the SEV-3 twin float plane from Alexander Seversky. There is a great photo of the SOC’s and OS2U’s of VOS-7 tied down in England while their pilots flew Spitfires while spotting for Operation Neptune. There are also several excellent photos of the Edo XOSE-1, the last seaplane ordered by the US Navy. I’d heard of the OSE, but had never seen a photo of one until I got this book. Let me just say this, if the Chevrolet Corvette were a seaplane, it would be this one.

On the subject of being a shipboard aviator, here’s quote from Ens. Lionel T. McQuiston, from the Nevada:

“Originally I was disappointed at being assigned to the ‘unglamorous’ ship aviation. In retrospect, I was quite fortunate. Far from being dull, our activities varied and interesting. Though perhaps unglamorous by today’s standards, we seriously practiced dive bombing, fixed and free machine-gun firing, and strafing. We towed targets for the ship’s machine gun battery and provided aerial spotting via Morse code to the ship’s main battery. We, of necessity became proficient in dead reckoning navigation when ranging long distances from the ship in mid-ocean. Despite posing and unavoidable conflict for some ship operations, we enjoyed relatively good relations with the ‘black shoes.’ Inasmuch as we were closely related to the ship’s combat operations, and since we stood OOD watches under way when not flying, we matured as ‘Navy’ first and ‘aviation’ second.”

I’d recommend this book just on the basis of the photographs, even if every printed word were wrong. But given the information contained herein, I’d have to recommend this to anyone interested in shipboard aviation.