Department of the Navy. Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. Naval Observatory. (1942 - 09/18/1947) ARC Identifier 12990 / Local Identifier 80-MN-4280B STORY OF THE BLACK CATS
My Dad flew with the Black Cats in the SW Pacific during WWII. On one mission they were so shot up by the Japanese during a raid that they limped home on one engine, and no radio. I forget all the details. He told me about it so long ago, and he passed away in 2007. RIP Dad.
My father was in VP-71 Squadron in the South Pacific, in a PBY5A. VP-71 covered 13 months of service instead of the usual 6 months. They were supposed to be replaced with the first Squadron of PBMs, but they weren't ready for deployment.
@@AxgoodofdunemaulThe Big Picture! LOL, when I was in Basic and AIT they showed us some of those. I'd already seen them. A couple had the kid who played Mark McCain on The Rifleman. But they weren't Big Picture features. Official training films.
My grandfather learned to fly in a PBY and was taught by a man named Laurie Young , he said the first time he landed a plane on a real runway it must have bounced 10 ft in the air. He was so good to me. I never see a pic of one that I dont think of him and remember how he laughed when he told about landing on that runway and it scaring him to death.
No mention of the Australian RAAF black cats, they mined a lot of Japanese held harbours and rescued coast watchers, there’s a great book in them, well worth reading.
RNZAF flew Catalinas in Pacific also. Note these aircraft are seaplanes not amphibs. Wheels bolted on to retrieve plane onto land. Removed after relaunch.
U.S Navy had Cats stationed at Wallaby Point on GREAT PALM ISLAND NORTH QUEENSLAND. SOME WRECKAGE STILL THERE AND CONCRETE SLABS WHERE THE WORK SHOPS ETC STOOD IN 1943. MY UNCLE'S USED TO GO UP THERE EVERY SATURDAY TO HANG OUT WITH THE MEN AND GET RATIONS AND COCA COLA..
The book is RAAF BLACK CATS by Robert Cleworth & John Suter Linton. 2019 Allen & Unwin publishers 🇦🇺 (RAAF-Royal Australian Air Force) also operated Catalinas as night raiders, with four squadrons Nos. 11, 20, 42, and 43 laying mines from 23 April 1943 until July 1945 in the southwest Pacific deep in Japanese-held waters, bottling up ports and shipping routes and forcing ships into deeper waters to become targets for U.S. submarines; they tied up the major strategic ports such as Balikpapan which shipped 80% of Japanese oil supplies. In late 1944, their mining missions sometimes exceeded 20 hours in duration and were carried out from as low as 200 ft (61 m) in the dark. Operations included trapping the Japanese fleet in Manila Bay in assistance of General Douglas MacArthur's landing at Mindoro in the Philippines. Australian Catalinas also operated out of Jinamoc in the Leyte Gulf, and mined ports on the Chinese coast from Hong Kong to as far north as Wenzhou. Both USN and RAAF Catalinas regularly mounted nuisance night bombing raids on Japanese bases, with the RAAF claiming the slogan "The First and the Furthest". Targets of these raids included a major base at Rabaul. -Wikipedia
I had no idea the PBY was used offensively during the war. I am glad they were! My Dad was a Marine Raider and started hoping islands from the Canal to Iwo.
As a proud U.S. NAVY veteran I salute the brave crews of the flying boats and the Black Cats. PO3 '73>'77 PATRON TWO FOUR, (Batmen) P3C Orians NAS JAX FLA. Yeah, The NAVY does it ALL, and does it all at ONCE! 💙✌🇺🇸
I know Jimmy Buffet owns several of these old flying boats and flies them all over the Caribbean. There is an airline that flies out of Ft Lauderdale with service all over the Caribbean as well- Chalks Airline
Dad flew in Catalina’s to pickup downed airmen. He said they stunk of gasoline (he said they leaked constantly) and each crewman had to search the other to make sure no one had cigarettes and would blow the plane up mid flight if someone fired up a smoke.
Watching them load the torpedo on the port wing, my first thought was how many of those pilots asked if they could exchange the torpedo for more bombs as they were more reliable.
Not so, by the time the US was in the Pacific island hopping the all new Mark 13 torpedoes were excellent...many US torpedoes were useless at the beginning of WW2, but at the end they worked superbly...
Seattle still has single-engine floatplanes, flying to the San Juan Islands and Victoria BC -- but the c00Ler twin engine flying boats did not come back after The Plague Years :'-( In 1964, my Mom got to Okinawa on an island-hopping flying boat
When I was a child my brother and I would scream in excitement when the red and white Coast Guard Cats would fly by, so slow they seemed to hang in the air - the 1950s, Southern California. Do you want to know what the Catalina is saying with its looks? I'm a good girl, just don't eff with me.
My stepdad spent time as a waistgunner in PBYs early in the Pacific war. I'm still trying to piece together his service history. He died in '85 when I was only 13 so I have so many unanswerable questions. He loved these planes!
My grandfather used to tell me stories about how him and his friends took down a pt boat at the cost of having their black cat fall into the water due to a failed engine being shot to hell, he said the weather was so bad they were caught by surprise and before they knew what was going on they found themselves being rescued by another fleet luckily no one in his unit died. Unfortunately he passed away in 2012
I believe the PBY "secret base" is at Tulagi and the harbor reconned for the convoy they are hunting in the story - at 16:17 they show a map which appears to be New Britain/Rabaul.
Funny, myself and several others with the ability to read have known about the Black Cats and several other really interesting unique scenarios in the wartime US military. Sadly, too many people only know this because they play video games and they only know as much as the game tells them.
@@damndirtyrandy7721like it or not, and you should absolutely like it, because without video games all this will be lost to the newer generations due to lack of interest. Games have informed a generation and made them interested in history they wouldn’t even know about otherwise, given the modern school system, history is brief and without detail in the classroom
That moment when you learn many ships the cats would sink were not just Japanese ships, but also carrying tons of Allied POWs. like American soldiers. Not that they knew at the time, but really changed how this was narrated and thought of.
Some of the footage of the convoy attack shown here is from Damien Parer's "Bismark Convoy Smashed", 1943 film. He flew in a RAAF Beaufighter standing behind the pilot to shoot the footage.
@@davidneale6950 They all used hedgehogs..It all depended on what they had at the time.. You can go lookup the history of the hedgehogs well. As it tells you where they were used..
The Hedgehog (also known as an Anti-Submarine Projector) was a forward-throwing anti-submarine weapon that was used primarily during the Second World War. The device, which was developed by the Royal Navy, fired up to 24 spigot mortars ahead of a ship when attacking a U-boat.[2] It was deployed on convoy escort warships such as destroyers and corvettes to supplement the depth charges. I've never seen, or heard of, the hedgehog being mounted on anything other than a ship/vessel. Where have you got your information from?
I think there’s a bit of confusion in the original post. They didn’t use Hedgehogs on the Cat’s but rather the mortar round that the Hedgehog launched.
The scripts for the narration done for these war-time documentaries gets funnier and funnier as time goes by …. Reminds me more and more of “Dragnet” … like they all went to the Jack Webb school of narration… so serious at times, other times so overly dramatic and they just LOVE throwing around that slang around.. just to remind you how hip they are, and how much you aren’t. Aren’t you really intimidated when they say something like “another tin fish for the starboard side” ? And apparently they were told to try to be witty … I guess witty for 1943 was more about the censors and less about… well, wit, as it were …
I've seen some great war documentaries in my time... this beats 'em all. Well done, Navy camera and editing crews... My dad was a Marine First Sergeant on Okinawa in June '45. At the time, few knew about the A-bomb in production, & America was preparing to invade the home islands of Japan. Marine NCOs with serious combat experience were sent home (on a Catalina), given two weeks leave (when he married my mom), & sent to Officer Candidate School (Cherry Point, NC). Halfway through the course, we dropped the bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the war ended, & the OCS candidates were given the choice of finishing the course & being commissioned, returning to their previous enlisted rank, or getting out of the service. Semper Fi...
@Celso rostom, na verdade, atuaram! Creio que foi um pequeno erro de digitação. Meu pai fez parte de um esquadrão de Catalinas PBY com base no Rio de Janeiro entre 1942 até o fim da guerra.
Pretty painful US propaganda film, but they were very useful in the Pacific campaign and as anti submarine aircraft in the Atlantic. My dad was an Australian Coast Watcher on Bougainville and then on New Britain and the PBYs were the lifeline for supplies and rescues. He himself was rescued from New Britain by one after his position was betrayed by natives who had been bribed by the Japanese. His radio operator was killed. He had to swim 2 miles offshore beyond the reef to be picked in the middle of the night. It was a miracle. He remained in touch with the US Navy pilot of the PBY who came from St Louis, until his death in 1992.
My mum was a pilot for the Black Cats. She was in secret transition so nobody knew she was a chick. Anyways, she hit a iceberg and the rest is history.
Not much of a "Super Plane"...never designed for dive bombing during those night missions...was supposedly obsolete by 1941....amazing what they did with it...and radar, to-boot. ..😀
