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Started By
Message
re: Vader’s Model Desk: Douglas TBD Devastator Torpedo Bomber
Posted on 4/19/22 at 7:47 pm to Darth_Vader
Posted on 4/19/22 at 7:47 pm to Darth_Vader
I built models when I was a young boy. Absolutely loved doing it. I have really enjoyed your threads and you are fantastic at model building! Please keep sharing. I am living vicariously through your endeavors! Cheers!
0
Posted on 4/19/22 at 7:53 pm to Darth_Vader
As a little kid, I would have played with that for hours! Great Job! Makes me want to watch the Charlton Heston Midway! 
Posted on 4/19/22 at 8:22 pm to Darth_Vader
They were devastating to the poor SOBs who had to fly them.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 8:38 pm to Darth_Vader
Another Awesome model always enjoy seeing your work. 
Posted on 4/19/22 at 9:40 pm to FightinTigersDammit
quote:
They were devastating to the poor SOBs who had to fly them.
The Devastator gets a bit of a bad rap, some deserved, some not. While it’s true it was outdated by summer 1942, it did perform relatively well in earlier engagements, even helping to sink the Japanese carrier Shoho at the Battle of the Coral Sea.
The Devastator’s biggest problem was the faulty Mark 13 torpedo the US Navy used at that time. The majority of the time it either ran too deep, passing harmlessly under its target, or if it did impact, it usually failed to detonate. It wasn’t that some of the Mark 13s we’re duds, it was almost all of them were duds. And on top of having a virtually worthless torpedo, at Midway the Devastators had to attack with no fighter cover. It was this fact that made their attacks at Midway a suicide mission.
The way torpedo bombers attacked was “low & slow”. They had to line up on their target to make a long straight approach only 30 meters above the waves at speeds not much over 100 knots. Once committed to an attack run, they had to keep the plane slow, steady, and perfectly straight otherwise they risked the torpedo being damaged or going off target when dropped. They were literally sitting ducks to the Japanese Zeros. And without fighters to protect them on their torpedo runs, they were slaughtered.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 9:45 pm to ds_engineer
quote:
My grandfather was a tail gunner on a Dauntless in the Pacific during midway. Keep the model desk churning out those cool historic planes
I wish I could have talked to your Grandfather. I’ve always loved the Dauntless. If I could go back in time and do one thing from WWII, bring a tail gunner on a Dauntless would be high on my list of options. Here’s a Dauntless I built some years ago.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 9:57 pm to Darth_Vader
I know all about the shitty torpedoes. They killed a lot of US submariners, too.
Posted on 4/19/22 at 9:58 pm to Darth_Vader
I want one, not the kit, the actual plane
Posted on 4/19/22 at 10:14 pm to CSATiger
quote:
I want one, not the kit, the actual plane
The only known original examples of the Devastator left are all sitting at the bottom of the Coral Sea where they’ve been since the sinking of the Lexington in May 1942….
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer/8e/7a/8e7a1a3d-94a7-4ef6-b993-9da5b59806d3/lexington_plane.jpg)
There is one replica from the recent movie “Midway”. It’s been donated to one of her aviation museums. But I can’t remember which one.
Posted on 4/20/22 at 7:13 am to Darth_Vader
quote:
I wish I could have talked to your Grandfather
I do too, I never got to meet him. Everything I know about him came from family members. I built a Dauntless model with my dad when I was young. That model hung in my room in a dive with the air brakes flared for most of my childhood. I’ve had a fascination with air planes since.
A few years back, I got to see the one at the Pearl Harbor museum. I was like a kid in a candy shop looking at that plane and talking to the old vet who flew one.
Posted on 4/20/22 at 12:04 pm to Darth_Vader
there are very well preserved
Posted on 4/20/22 at 12:45 pm to Darth_Vader
quote:
USS Enterprise
My 101 year old dad served aboard her beginning in April 1943, until her main elevator got blown sky high by a Kamikaze. Enterprise had to return to Bremerton for serious repairs and the war ended before they sent her back out.
Dad was an aviation metalsmith.
Posted on 4/20/22 at 1:30 pm to Darth_Vader
Love these threads!! Had grandfathers that fought in both Europe and the Pacific theaters.
One was a medic that went in at Normandy. He was issued 6 times as much morphine then usual, and tubes of lipstick. They knew there would be high losses. The tubes of lipstick was to put a mark on the wounded soldiers forehead that they would get more medical care or not. Basically they had to play god in a since. If they felt they could be saved or not. Morphine was used for the ones that were dying, to ease their pain.
Other grandfather flew a hellcat. Towards the beginning he was a pilot on a “Jeep ship” from what my dad told me. Basically when a frontline carrier lost planes, they would call back to one of these ships, and they would fly planes to them to replenish their numbers. Haven’t ever really been able to find much info on this though.
Around the middle of the war he got pushed into frontline duty for about a year, and towards the end he got put into a training position teaching new pilots how to take off and land on a carrier. It was doing this that he got injured for the first, and only time when a trainee came in too low, and crashed with him in it.
It happened to be in a converted Devastator for training purposes.
He died 6mo before I was born. Wish I could’ve met him.
One was a medic that went in at Normandy. He was issued 6 times as much morphine then usual, and tubes of lipstick. They knew there would be high losses. The tubes of lipstick was to put a mark on the wounded soldiers forehead that they would get more medical care or not. Basically they had to play god in a since. If they felt they could be saved or not. Morphine was used for the ones that were dying, to ease their pain.
Other grandfather flew a hellcat. Towards the beginning he was a pilot on a “Jeep ship” from what my dad told me. Basically when a frontline carrier lost planes, they would call back to one of these ships, and they would fly planes to them to replenish their numbers. Haven’t ever really been able to find much info on this though.
Around the middle of the war he got pushed into frontline duty for about a year, and towards the end he got put into a training position teaching new pilots how to take off and land on a carrier. It was doing this that he got injured for the first, and only time when a trainee came in too low, and crashed with him in it.
It happened to be in a converted Devastator for training purposes.
He died 6mo before I was born. Wish I could’ve met him.
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