World War II in the Pacific was often an improvisational war for the US in the early years, before US war industries came fully on line and the US buried Japan under a wave of ships and planes to seize control of the air and the sea. Before that took place, the US had to fight cagily and make do. No better example of this spirit of improvisation can be found than the PBY Catalina night bomber squadrons that wreaked havoc on Japanese shipping in daring nighttime raids seventy years ago.
The PBY Catalina flying boat, was an amphibious plane and the workhorse plane for the US in the Pacific. Used for everything from anti-submarine patrols, to air-sea rescue and cargo transport, its most unusual incarnation was as a night bomber against Japanese shipping.
Equipped with magnetic anomaly detectors, normally used to detect submarines in anti-submarine patrols, and painted flat black, PBY Catalina 5As and 6As squadrons began to attack Japanese supply convoys at night. Their attacks proved quite effective, the Black Cats sinking 112, 700 tons of Japanese merchant shipping between August 1943-January 1944, damaging another 40,000 tons and damaged 10 Japanese warships.
The original Black Cat squadron was VP 12 which pioneered the techniques used by the other Black Cat squadrons that followed. The ten Black Cat squadrons showed what improvisation, imagination and daring can accomplish in wartime.
I’m ashamed to say that as a former VP sailor I didn’t know about this. Amazing what an old bird can do with the right crew and a good plan. There’s a PBY that sits just inside the gate at NAS Jax (at least she used to). If I ever make it back there I’ll give her a pat and thank her for her service.
VP squadrons get some pretty unique jobs when needed. There was a P-2 squadron that dropped listening devices during Vietnam that was hush, hush until a few years ago. Sooner or later I’m sure the P-3 stories will come out too.
Michael, until I came across the movie a few weeks ago, I was completely unaware of this. It would make a grand feature length film!
Great find Don.
There is one of these old girls in our local airport museum – the main fuselage is restored and waiting for the tailplane and rudder to be sorted, and the wings as well. There is another operational PBY owned, I think, by the air force, and it travels around the airshows accompanied by 2 DC3 Dakotas – one owned by the airforce and one – I think – by Air New Zealand. I recall when I was a kid, going to Auckland where dad was in hospital for about 8 months post-op from returning from the Italian campaign with a damaged back ( a painful condition that stayed with him the rest of his life till he died at 93 in 2005) and we’d go down to Mechanic’s Bay and watch the Catalinas come up onto the ramp. There were Short Sunderland flying boats there also – the Catalinas were withdrawn, and the Sunderlands – and Solents were used early on as airliners taking passengers up into the Pacific Islands after the war.
Great history.
“where dad was in hospital for about 8 months post-op from returning from the Italian campaign with a damaged back ( a painful condition that stayed with him the rest of his life till he died at 93 in 2005)”
I am unsurprised Don to learn that your father was one tough hombre!