TBT…

They clanked when they walked…

This 19 minute video is a little hokey, since it was done during the war, and the cameras didn’t really work well at night, but it is a tribute to the Naval Aviators and crewmen that flew the Black Cats in WWII. This particular video was filmed at Samarai, the base on the Bismark Sea.

Having had a chance to talk to some of these gents, I’m still amazed that they not only accomplished the missions they did, but they kept the birds flying AND kept getting back in the airplanes night after night! They also did a number of other missions, including search and rescue, surveillance and anti-submarine warfare… At least that they talk about…

There is a pretty good website, Dave’s Warbirds that has quite a bit of info on the Black Cats, HERE. Including a list of all the squadrons that flew those missions.

h/t JP

Comments

TBT… — 9 Comments

  1. Night ops in the ’70s were scary enough, but in the ’40s, in a time of war? Given the radar of the era was in its infancy, and the generally hostile conditions … wow. The more I learn about the war, the more I want to stand and salute that entire generation.

  2. Cool history. Can you imagine going to war with those tools? Well, they did a phenomenal job with them. Today’s ops and technology is leaps and bounds. Scary if you think of the exponential advancements. I like those old films. It was simple back then. I think I might have been born in the wrong era. The patriotism back then was different. They did what they were supposed to do whether they agreed with it or not and kept quiet about all the nonsense we see today. They were stoic citizens doing their duty with pride.

  3. Rev- That it was! And agreed!

    Fargo- They did, and Samarai was the lap of luxury… One of the gents I talked to spent a month with their airplane parked under palm leaves on the beach of a little island, getting fuel and food brought in by PT boat. They were forward observers, providing the info for other crews to attack.

  4. My oldest brother was a crew member on PBY’s out of NAS Atlanta when it was based out of Peachtree-DeKalb Airport in Atlanta. He patrolled the coast during Korea. As a 8/9 year old, I could go with him on the weekends and sit in the plane while they warmed it up and worked on it. Very noisy inside.

  5. Ed- Yep, it was… And some of them DID have serious problems dealing with it.

    CP- Oh yeah, most of the surviving crewmen and wearing TWO hearing aids and are pretty much deaf! But they wouldn’t trade hearing for what they did, either!!!

  6. It sounds fantastical to us, used to GPS, precision guided munitions, etc. But they were running with what was at the time best tech available.

    They did the job because the job needed doing. I like to think in a true existential crisis that this country still *could* muster that kind of spirit. But one wonders.

  7. On a tangent, but if you liked the Catalina video (and thank you for the link, sir!) you may enjoy this book about some other night ops in the same period:
    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1624103.A_Dance_with_Death
    During “glasnost,” that first glimpse behind the Iron Curtain, WASP pilot Anne Noggle went over and interviewed the Night Witches, who as young girls flew nightly ops, dusk till dawn, for disruption/sleep deprivation against the Germans on the eastern front. Mostly flying wood and fabric Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes, they were sometimes attacked by Bf109s. But every “n” minutes there would be another noisy, rattly motor coming by to drop a ‘something.’ Maybe a rock, a grenade, a sack of camp waste, a broken casting, a 100kg bomb. And then will come another.
    Every. Damn. Night.