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Damaged TBF Avenger...still airborne!


Sabrejet
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The toughness of American airplanes of WW2 is legendary. How many time have we seen pics of B-17s and P-47s with severe battle-damage but which still made it home...with, of course, outstanding pilots at the controls who nursed them back. Not to be outdone, here's a USN Avenger with severe damage but still airborne. I don't know if it made it safely back to the carrier, but I sincerely hope it did!

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Incredibly, this B-17 made it back to England, though sadly and inevitably there were some casualties.

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The toughness of American airplanes of WW2 is legendary. How many time have we seen pics of B-17s and P-47s with severe battle-damage but which still made it home...with, of course, outstanding pilots at the controls who nursed them back. Not to be outdone, here's a USN Avenger with severe damage but still airborne. I don't know if it made it safely back to the carrier, but I sincerely hope it did!

 

 

Found some info on this Avenger;

 

A good reason why TBM pilots like the "Turkey". This one flew back to the USS Bennington after another TBM fell on it. Left wing tip gone and heavy damage behind the turret. The pilot made a successful water landing next to the ship.

 

Chris

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Re the first pic. I did some research. The damage was caused by a mid-air collision with another TBF which was lost. This one made it back to the vicinity of the US fleet and ditched. The pilot was Lt Bob King. He was picked up. His crewmen bailed out earlier. They too were picked up.

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Shot-up B-17 back in England. Incredibly, the explosion blew the tail-gunner out and he survived to be made a POW!

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This B-29 lost a prop in flight...but still made it back!

 

I just read a book about B-29's in Korea and WW2, this photo got me thinking about it. In the photo you can see where the prop let go and struck the fuselage of the aircraft.

 

One of the stories in the book was about a B-29 which was shot up over Japan and had engine damage, the engine and prop "ran away" but they could not get it feathered. With the prop not feathered the fuel consumption was going to be so great that they knew they'd never make it back home to base and would have to ditch, so they made the decision to restart the engine and let the prop run away and detach from the engine, in the hope that it would just fall off and thus lessen the drag and lower their fuel use. They then moved the crew away from the area of the fuselage they knew the prop would hit when it detached and took their chances with the higher probability of a prop hit to the fuselage which maybe was survivable, to the certainty of not losing the prop and having to ditch in the ocean. They made it back.

 

Anyway, this photo reminded me of that story. What a decision to have to make.

 

MW

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The gals in post #18 are wearing this patch, which indicates they are working in a Consolidated plant.

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Johnny Signor

A Corsair with a bite out of its tail on Guadalcanal.

This F4 is from VMF-112 "Wolf Pack" you can just make out their early emblem on it's tail.

Johnny

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This is a gut-wrenching picture! One can only imagine the horrendous conditions inside this B25.... the fuselage of was which effectively a flying wind-tunnel!

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