Try to imagine the kind of courage it took to strap into one of the seats on planes like this and take off from a carrier far out at sea, fly over the unmarked ocean 200 miles to attack either another fleet or attack targets ashore on an island somewhere in the Pacific and then fly back to your carrier as the sun set behind the clouds over a vast ocean. No GPS, no long range radio navigation, no radar. Just you and your comrades. Imagine doing it again and again and again. People who imagine they have problems today have no idea what real problems look like and they are terrified of things that these men wouldn't even have noticed.
5 comments:
I learned how to fly in a Cessna 140. It had 1960's instruments, no GPS. I had to rely on ground landmarks to correct my course all the time. The wind will blow a small plane sideways even though you are on the correct heading.
VFR: Visually Follow roads. IFR: I Follow Roads. Thank goodness for daylight & DOT.
Cessnas so easy to fly. Speed wheels were darned handy but as observed below, we usually just flew down the highways and then up the beach…
The Pacific Ocean is a tad low on landmarks. I've flown Cessna's also and highways were great points of reference.
I tried to look up how many carrier aircraft in the pacific were lost due to navigation errors. Not successful. Can find how many were lost "in combat" but not they ran out of fuel looking for their carriers.
Brave men indeed.
Now imagine doing it at night.
https://www.historynet.com/let-there-be-light-admiral-mitchers-decision/
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