Ps. - R. Leonard - in Your link - i found one interesting sentence:
"Bureau of Navigation and NAS Pensacola, Fla., continued to follow the procedure of identifying those students completing the elementary flight course at Pensacola as “Naval Aviators” to differentiate them from pilots who had completed the advance course of requirements and qualified as Navy Air Pilots."
and
"The language of the act provided “flight pay” only for "Naval Aviators”, those fliers completing the elementary
flight course at Pensacola".
So - this difference should explain my questions. If "Naval Aviators" were pilots after elementary flight course only - so this is explanation of inexperience of many young carrier pilots.
Most Successful Fleet
Re: Most Successful Fleet
I see where you found that quote, that refers to ancient history in the first six years of US Naval Aviation. In the early days of USN aviation, various regulations and public laws used the terms Navy Air Pilots and Naval Aviators in various forms, some time to have the same meaning or otherwise interchangeably and sometimes to indicate a different stage of status. At one time, only designated Naval Aviators were authorized flight pay, leaving all the very first to fly for the USN and USMC, the already designated Navy Air Pilots, ineligible for the additional pay. Had you read further you would have found:
“A revision to the May 1917 course of instruction was issued 1 January 1918, and the term Navy Air Pilot was not mentioned. In this revision, officers and men detailed for pilot duty were classed as student Naval Aviators and Naval Aviators, seaplane or dirigible. By this time the U.S. was fully engaged in World War I, the Naval Aviation training program had expanded, and the question of title finally seemed to be settled. It took almost three years, from 22 March 1915, when the SecNav order was issued to change Navy Air Pilot to Naval Aviator, to January 1918, before the terminology Navy Air Pilot was dropped from instructions issued by the Navy.”
From that point through today those completing the Naval Aviation training course are designated as Naval Aviators. There have been no Navy Air Pilots since 1918; the naval officers who formed the genesis of US Naval Aviation and had been designated Navy Air Pilots were re-designated as Naval Aviators in precedence order of their Navy Air Pilot certificates.
Nobody ever said carrier aviation was easy, no one ever said anyone who ever had the “carrier qualified” box checked in his training record never made a mistake, had an LSO misjudge, ran out of gas on final or lose power on take off; a multitude of pitfalls out there awaiting victims, or just a plain and simple instance of bad luck.
I would not expect to see zero-accident proficiency from anyone who is simply checked off as qualified for a particular task. Certainly plenty of effort is expended in training and testing of soldiers in the task of map reading, but then why is one of the more dangerous people in the world a second lieutenant with a map and a compass? Qualification is qualification, not proficiency - - - qualification, in terms of military training, means that at some point someone demonstrated they could complete a task to a set standard, such as performing X number of carrier landings and Y number of carrier launches. It might be months, if not years, before an individual might again be presented with the, ummmm, opportunity to so excel. And, separated from such an opportunity, one essentially starts over, except with the knowledge, which could, of itself be dangerous, that “oh, I’ve done that before.” I am wondering, and please do not take offense, if you are not ascribing a little too much to the word “qualified.” Again, “qualified” is not the same as “proficient”. And even being even more than “proficient” will not save you – google “George Duncan+F9F” and one of your results will be http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/F9F-Duncan.htm and see what can happen to even an extremely proficient, practiced and competent carrier qualified naval aviator. Apropos of nothing else I remember George Duncan quite well; he went on to retire a rear admiral in the 1970’s. He was my father’s relief as captain of USS Ranger, in, oh, I guess, around May 1962.
From 7 Dec 1941 through 15 Aug 1945, USN carrier based aircraft flew some 147,094 action sorties - that’s each one plane going up with the expectation of coming down in one piece AND that plane or its element making some sort of contact with the enemy. In the course of those sorties, in combat action, at least 1,428 were shot down by antiaircraft fire, 452 were shot down by enemy aircraft, 1,002 were otherwise lost in the course of combat operations, 1,988 were lost in what were termed “other flights,” and another 974 were lost aboard ships (storms, sinkings, what have you, but not tossed overboard due to damage from one of the above mention categories but including those which might have been squashed by combat damaged airplane’s unhappy landing). That makes it something like 5,844 carrier aircraft lost either while operating or while simply in the wrong place on a flight deck. Officially, the USN descriptions for these losses are described (definitions and statistics drawn from Naval Aviation Combat Statistics - World War Two, DCNO 1946):
Action sorties - Number of planes taking off on a mission which eventuated in an attack on an enemy target or in aerial combat, or both. This basis of tabulation was the number of planes of one squadron taking off on the mission. If any of these planes had action, the entire squadron’s planes on the mission were counted as action sorties, including abortive planes, planes which reached the target but did not attack, and planes which escorted or patrolled but did not engage in combat. Thus if 16 VP took off as escort, 2 returned early, 2 engaged in combat, and 4 strafed, all 16 were counted as action sorties. Likewise if 8 planes took off for CAP, and only 2 engaged in combat, all 8 were action sorties. On the other hand, if 8 VF took off for escort, and none engaged in any sort of attack or combat, then none were counted as action sorties, even though they reached the target, and even though the escorted bombers attacked the target. Likewise, CAP planes missions, none of whose planes engaged in combat were not counted as action sorties.
Losses of own aircraft - Loss data have come primarily from two sources: (1) action reports, squadron and ship, covering losses from all causes on missions involving actual combat with the enemy, and (2) loss reports, covering losses from all causes whatsoever.
The losses on action sorties reported herein have been taken primarily from action reports, in which the exact cause of loss can be determined more accurately. Two major exceptions to this practice may be noted: (a) losses on unreported or poorly reported combat missions have been added from loss report sources; these may sometimes be inflated, because of a tendency in the early loss reports to ascribe to “combat” or “enemy aircraft” losses whose cause was unknown; (b) aircraft listed in action reports as seriously damaged rather than lost, and later indicated in loss reports to have been scrapped or jettisoned because of this damage; these have been added as losses on action sorties.
Losses other than on action sorties have been taken from the loss reports, with some confirmation from carrier and squadron reports. The accuracy of loss reports, particularly with respect to cause of loss and date of loss, is frequently debatable, and many adjustments have been made where indicated.
Losses on action sorties - Includes all planes counted as action sorties, which failed to return to a friendly base or were destroyed in landing at base plus planes returning and later destroyed because of damage sustained during the mission, plus planes lost on unreported missions which apparently involved action with the enemy. All loses on action sorties have been classified by cause under the three categories Enemy A/A, Enemy A/C, and Operational. Where the exact cause was not given in the action report (planes reported missing) the cause most likely under the circumstances of loss described was arbitrarily assigned, or if the circumstances were not stated, the cause stated in the loss report was assigned.
Losses on other flights -These are limited to losses, during each month, of planes assigned to squadrons which reported engaging in action against the enemy during that month. For these squadrons these figures represent all operational losses of airborne planes, on missions not involving action against the enemy; they include also planes later stricken because of operational damage sustained on such flights.
Losses on ship or ground - These figures are also limited to losses, during each month, by squadrons reporting action during the month. For these squadrons they included all losses, regardless of cause, of planes not airborne at the time of the loss, or at the time the damage was sustained that ultimately resulted in the loss of the plane. Principal causes of these losses included: struck by aircraft landing, taking off or taxiing, or by automotive vehicles; explosions and fires; storms, typhoons; enemy bombing or strafing or suicide attacks on carriers; own gunfire. It should be noted that all losses of grounded aircraft to enemy action are not included (some such losses were of aircraft assigned to pools or to squadrons not in action nor is the greater part of the listed losses on ship or ground attributable to enemy action. The carrier losses in this category, however, do include all carrier planes lost in enemy attacks on carriers.
It should be noted, in connection with all categories of loss, that the figures for carriers represent all losses in active carrier combat operations (excluding strictly patrol and escort operations) in Pacific combat areas, while the land-based figures represent the bulk of, but not all, the losses of squadrons in active combat areas.
At any rate, this means that 2,990 aircraft were lost in carrier operations, combat and non-combat without being actually shot down by either enemy aircraft or anti-aircraft fire. While true, some of the 1,002 combat operational losses may have received damage which subsequently caused their loss, it is equally true that they could have been lost through fuel exhaustion or navigational errors or other pilot error or mechanical failure. At any rate, a quick calculation shows that more than half of the carrier aircraft lost over the course of the war were not shot down in the heat of battle. In fact, if you look at just the “lost on other flights” category, that one alone accounts for more than 34% of the aircraft lost, better than one in three.
Total flights, not just combat sorties were not counted until the beginning of 1944. Looking at the data collected, there were, from 1 Jan 44 thru 15 Aug 45, from a total of 25,236 aircraft on hand aboard carriers at some point during this period, 338,530 flights made by squadrons while assigned to carriers. Of those, 139,294 were combat sorties (94.7% of all carrier combat sorties . . . a commentary on the ramping up of operations in the last 20 months of the war). There were a total of 5,203 carrier aircraft lost, 1,638 losses were directly attributable to combat, antiaircraft fire (1,337) or enemy aircraft (301). Discounting these lost on ships (896) that leaves us with 2,669 additional losses, 882 lost in the course of combat operations but not directly attributable to those actions, and another 1,787 on those ubiquitous “other flights.” Thus, in non-combat related flights, somewhat more than 0.9% of aircraft were lost. Besides one or two well known, and not well known instances, most of these loses were one by one, usually in landings or take offs, but sometimes folks were simply never seen again. Remember USN single seat pilots were also trained in navigation, steps to prevent vertigo, fuel management and such; they were, to coin a phrase, “qualified,” to perform those tasks as well. The flip side is in the combat range where 1.4% of aircraft were actually shot down and another 0.6% were lost operationally, usually for the same reasons as those lost on “other flights.” This means that on the average, for any given flight there was a 1 plane in 200 chance of not returning the plane in one piece whether in combat or not. Does not sound like much, but when you consider the number of flights in an operating week, the number, on a personal basis, starts to get very unpleasant. Hence the review boards . . . if someone was doing something wrong, that something needed to be found out and corrected.
In early March 1942, VF-42, was aboard USS Yorktown. A squadron with a fairly high percentage of proficient carrier qualified aviators – most having spent their time from March to December 1941 operating off, in turn USS Ranger, USS Wasp, and, since May, exclusively off Yorktown with never more than a week ashore at Norfolk for any one time except during the ship’s transit of the Panama Canal headed for the Pacific and about a week shortly after the transit, ashore at San Diego. In March, not counting the five pilots straight out of Pensacola who joined aboard on 8 December 1941, the remaining 14 pilots ranged from 13 years down to a little over 1 year (averaging 3.7 years) as active naval aviators, and had been aboard ship the entire previous 10 months, not to mention their earlier assignments. In that month the squadron lost three of its 18 F4F-3s. The question was why? Fortunately no one was killed or seriously injured so there was an investigatory starting point. Turns out the engine died in each of the planes prior to going into the water, but there was no indication as to why. Finally one pilot was able to bring a sputtering Wildcat around for a deferred emergency landing and was able to get back aboard before the engine died. Turns out the self-sealing bladders in the fuel tanks were disintegrating and at in opportune moments blocking the fuel line. Certainly not the fault of any pilot, but still instances of qualified carrier aviators dropping their mounts into the water.
Really all it takes in a moment’s distraction or inattention. I know of one early war aviator, from the same VF-42, a naval aviator since November 1940 and flying off various carriers since January 1941, in May 1942, who was in the pattern for a late landing aboard Yorktown, gear down, hook down, ready to make the final turn when . . . oops, here comes a gaggle of Japanese planes. Forget landing, retract everything and give her the gun! In a short, sharp, confusing, heart-pounding, melee in evening twilight things got very interesting very fast. Just as abruptly, perhaps even more so in the gathering darkness, the Japanese went away and the excitement quickly died down enough to resume landing. Back in the circuit, LSO says come on, straight level, come on, in the groove, keep coming, looking good, and, and, and, cut! And the plane cheerfully rolled down the deck at 70 some knots straight into the barrier . . . no hook. Put the gear back down, forgot the hook. No big damage, the plane was ready to go the next day in time for a critical escort mission, but a lot of embarrassment.
Regards
“A revision to the May 1917 course of instruction was issued 1 January 1918, and the term Navy Air Pilot was not mentioned. In this revision, officers and men detailed for pilot duty were classed as student Naval Aviators and Naval Aviators, seaplane or dirigible. By this time the U.S. was fully engaged in World War I, the Naval Aviation training program had expanded, and the question of title finally seemed to be settled. It took almost three years, from 22 March 1915, when the SecNav order was issued to change Navy Air Pilot to Naval Aviator, to January 1918, before the terminology Navy Air Pilot was dropped from instructions issued by the Navy.”
From that point through today those completing the Naval Aviation training course are designated as Naval Aviators. There have been no Navy Air Pilots since 1918; the naval officers who formed the genesis of US Naval Aviation and had been designated Navy Air Pilots were re-designated as Naval Aviators in precedence order of their Navy Air Pilot certificates.
Nobody ever said carrier aviation was easy, no one ever said anyone who ever had the “carrier qualified” box checked in his training record never made a mistake, had an LSO misjudge, ran out of gas on final or lose power on take off; a multitude of pitfalls out there awaiting victims, or just a plain and simple instance of bad luck.
I would not expect to see zero-accident proficiency from anyone who is simply checked off as qualified for a particular task. Certainly plenty of effort is expended in training and testing of soldiers in the task of map reading, but then why is one of the more dangerous people in the world a second lieutenant with a map and a compass? Qualification is qualification, not proficiency - - - qualification, in terms of military training, means that at some point someone demonstrated they could complete a task to a set standard, such as performing X number of carrier landings and Y number of carrier launches. It might be months, if not years, before an individual might again be presented with the, ummmm, opportunity to so excel. And, separated from such an opportunity, one essentially starts over, except with the knowledge, which could, of itself be dangerous, that “oh, I’ve done that before.” I am wondering, and please do not take offense, if you are not ascribing a little too much to the word “qualified.” Again, “qualified” is not the same as “proficient”. And even being even more than “proficient” will not save you – google “George Duncan+F9F” and one of your results will be http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/F9F-Duncan.htm and see what can happen to even an extremely proficient, practiced and competent carrier qualified naval aviator. Apropos of nothing else I remember George Duncan quite well; he went on to retire a rear admiral in the 1970’s. He was my father’s relief as captain of USS Ranger, in, oh, I guess, around May 1962.
From 7 Dec 1941 through 15 Aug 1945, USN carrier based aircraft flew some 147,094 action sorties - that’s each one plane going up with the expectation of coming down in one piece AND that plane or its element making some sort of contact with the enemy. In the course of those sorties, in combat action, at least 1,428 were shot down by antiaircraft fire, 452 were shot down by enemy aircraft, 1,002 were otherwise lost in the course of combat operations, 1,988 were lost in what were termed “other flights,” and another 974 were lost aboard ships (storms, sinkings, what have you, but not tossed overboard due to damage from one of the above mention categories but including those which might have been squashed by combat damaged airplane’s unhappy landing). That makes it something like 5,844 carrier aircraft lost either while operating or while simply in the wrong place on a flight deck. Officially, the USN descriptions for these losses are described (definitions and statistics drawn from Naval Aviation Combat Statistics - World War Two, DCNO 1946):
Action sorties - Number of planes taking off on a mission which eventuated in an attack on an enemy target or in aerial combat, or both. This basis of tabulation was the number of planes of one squadron taking off on the mission. If any of these planes had action, the entire squadron’s planes on the mission were counted as action sorties, including abortive planes, planes which reached the target but did not attack, and planes which escorted or patrolled but did not engage in combat. Thus if 16 VP took off as escort, 2 returned early, 2 engaged in combat, and 4 strafed, all 16 were counted as action sorties. Likewise if 8 planes took off for CAP, and only 2 engaged in combat, all 8 were action sorties. On the other hand, if 8 VF took off for escort, and none engaged in any sort of attack or combat, then none were counted as action sorties, even though they reached the target, and even though the escorted bombers attacked the target. Likewise, CAP planes missions, none of whose planes engaged in combat were not counted as action sorties.
Losses of own aircraft - Loss data have come primarily from two sources: (1) action reports, squadron and ship, covering losses from all causes on missions involving actual combat with the enemy, and (2) loss reports, covering losses from all causes whatsoever.
The losses on action sorties reported herein have been taken primarily from action reports, in which the exact cause of loss can be determined more accurately. Two major exceptions to this practice may be noted: (a) losses on unreported or poorly reported combat missions have been added from loss report sources; these may sometimes be inflated, because of a tendency in the early loss reports to ascribe to “combat” or “enemy aircraft” losses whose cause was unknown; (b) aircraft listed in action reports as seriously damaged rather than lost, and later indicated in loss reports to have been scrapped or jettisoned because of this damage; these have been added as losses on action sorties.
Losses other than on action sorties have been taken from the loss reports, with some confirmation from carrier and squadron reports. The accuracy of loss reports, particularly with respect to cause of loss and date of loss, is frequently debatable, and many adjustments have been made where indicated.
Losses on action sorties - Includes all planes counted as action sorties, which failed to return to a friendly base or were destroyed in landing at base plus planes returning and later destroyed because of damage sustained during the mission, plus planes lost on unreported missions which apparently involved action with the enemy. All loses on action sorties have been classified by cause under the three categories Enemy A/A, Enemy A/C, and Operational. Where the exact cause was not given in the action report (planes reported missing) the cause most likely under the circumstances of loss described was arbitrarily assigned, or if the circumstances were not stated, the cause stated in the loss report was assigned.
Losses on other flights -These are limited to losses, during each month, of planes assigned to squadrons which reported engaging in action against the enemy during that month. For these squadrons these figures represent all operational losses of airborne planes, on missions not involving action against the enemy; they include also planes later stricken because of operational damage sustained on such flights.
Losses on ship or ground - These figures are also limited to losses, during each month, by squadrons reporting action during the month. For these squadrons they included all losses, regardless of cause, of planes not airborne at the time of the loss, or at the time the damage was sustained that ultimately resulted in the loss of the plane. Principal causes of these losses included: struck by aircraft landing, taking off or taxiing, or by automotive vehicles; explosions and fires; storms, typhoons; enemy bombing or strafing or suicide attacks on carriers; own gunfire. It should be noted that all losses of grounded aircraft to enemy action are not included (some such losses were of aircraft assigned to pools or to squadrons not in action nor is the greater part of the listed losses on ship or ground attributable to enemy action. The carrier losses in this category, however, do include all carrier planes lost in enemy attacks on carriers.
It should be noted, in connection with all categories of loss, that the figures for carriers represent all losses in active carrier combat operations (excluding strictly patrol and escort operations) in Pacific combat areas, while the land-based figures represent the bulk of, but not all, the losses of squadrons in active combat areas.
At any rate, this means that 2,990 aircraft were lost in carrier operations, combat and non-combat without being actually shot down by either enemy aircraft or anti-aircraft fire. While true, some of the 1,002 combat operational losses may have received damage which subsequently caused their loss, it is equally true that they could have been lost through fuel exhaustion or navigational errors or other pilot error or mechanical failure. At any rate, a quick calculation shows that more than half of the carrier aircraft lost over the course of the war were not shot down in the heat of battle. In fact, if you look at just the “lost on other flights” category, that one alone accounts for more than 34% of the aircraft lost, better than one in three.
Total flights, not just combat sorties were not counted until the beginning of 1944. Looking at the data collected, there were, from 1 Jan 44 thru 15 Aug 45, from a total of 25,236 aircraft on hand aboard carriers at some point during this period, 338,530 flights made by squadrons while assigned to carriers. Of those, 139,294 were combat sorties (94.7% of all carrier combat sorties . . . a commentary on the ramping up of operations in the last 20 months of the war). There were a total of 5,203 carrier aircraft lost, 1,638 losses were directly attributable to combat, antiaircraft fire (1,337) or enemy aircraft (301). Discounting these lost on ships (896) that leaves us with 2,669 additional losses, 882 lost in the course of combat operations but not directly attributable to those actions, and another 1,787 on those ubiquitous “other flights.” Thus, in non-combat related flights, somewhat more than 0.9% of aircraft were lost. Besides one or two well known, and not well known instances, most of these loses were one by one, usually in landings or take offs, but sometimes folks were simply never seen again. Remember USN single seat pilots were also trained in navigation, steps to prevent vertigo, fuel management and such; they were, to coin a phrase, “qualified,” to perform those tasks as well. The flip side is in the combat range where 1.4% of aircraft were actually shot down and another 0.6% were lost operationally, usually for the same reasons as those lost on “other flights.” This means that on the average, for any given flight there was a 1 plane in 200 chance of not returning the plane in one piece whether in combat or not. Does not sound like much, but when you consider the number of flights in an operating week, the number, on a personal basis, starts to get very unpleasant. Hence the review boards . . . if someone was doing something wrong, that something needed to be found out and corrected.
In early March 1942, VF-42, was aboard USS Yorktown. A squadron with a fairly high percentage of proficient carrier qualified aviators – most having spent their time from March to December 1941 operating off, in turn USS Ranger, USS Wasp, and, since May, exclusively off Yorktown with never more than a week ashore at Norfolk for any one time except during the ship’s transit of the Panama Canal headed for the Pacific and about a week shortly after the transit, ashore at San Diego. In March, not counting the five pilots straight out of Pensacola who joined aboard on 8 December 1941, the remaining 14 pilots ranged from 13 years down to a little over 1 year (averaging 3.7 years) as active naval aviators, and had been aboard ship the entire previous 10 months, not to mention their earlier assignments. In that month the squadron lost three of its 18 F4F-3s. The question was why? Fortunately no one was killed or seriously injured so there was an investigatory starting point. Turns out the engine died in each of the planes prior to going into the water, but there was no indication as to why. Finally one pilot was able to bring a sputtering Wildcat around for a deferred emergency landing and was able to get back aboard before the engine died. Turns out the self-sealing bladders in the fuel tanks were disintegrating and at in opportune moments blocking the fuel line. Certainly not the fault of any pilot, but still instances of qualified carrier aviators dropping their mounts into the water.
Really all it takes in a moment’s distraction or inattention. I know of one early war aviator, from the same VF-42, a naval aviator since November 1940 and flying off various carriers since January 1941, in May 1942, who was in the pattern for a late landing aboard Yorktown, gear down, hook down, ready to make the final turn when . . . oops, here comes a gaggle of Japanese planes. Forget landing, retract everything and give her the gun! In a short, sharp, confusing, heart-pounding, melee in evening twilight things got very interesting very fast. Just as abruptly, perhaps even more so in the gathering darkness, the Japanese went away and the excitement quickly died down enough to resume landing. Back in the circuit, LSO says come on, straight level, come on, in the groove, keep coming, looking good, and, and, and, cut! And the plane cheerfully rolled down the deck at 70 some knots straight into the barrier . . . no hook. Put the gear back down, forgot the hook. No big damage, the plane was ready to go the next day in time for a critical escort mission, but a lot of embarrassment.
Regards