did you ever hear of this?

Some old photos....





http://warbirdinformationexcha...opic.php?f=3&t=48962

There are some old movies about the early days of carrier operations if copies are available.

Surprised the dickens, being a Canadian, out of me the first time I heard about the Yank fleet on the Great Lakes. Apparently, they left a few planes behind as well.

Grizz

Back in the mid 90's ish I was involved in a SAR looking for a 206 or 210 flying freight that disappeared and a search was done on the shoreline from the north edge of Chicago up to Wisconsin. Basically anything metal that could have been from a plane was picked up. Pieces from at least 3 planes were found, 2 separate WW2 planes and some metal believed to be from a 727 that crashed in 1965. (IIRC a nosewheel of the missing plane was found washed up on a beach in Indiana but don't remember exactly)

One of my neighbors, who passed away a few years back was a naval aviator who served in the "Cactus Airforce" as a Dauntless pilot out of Henderson Field.

After he returned Stateside after his unit was relieved he was assigned to Pilot training aboard one of those great lakes carriers.

He related one incident where after a perfect landing the TAIL snapped off the aged SBD he was landing just behind the gunners compartment, the tail stayed on board he and his student pilot wound up taking a swim in the lake with the rest of the aircraft.

He credited his survival to the fact that the flight deck of those raining carriers were closer to the water than on one of the fast ocean going fleet carriers.