spence
Posts: 3658
Joined: 4/20/2003 From: vermont Status: offline
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I was wandering about on the internet and stumbled into copies of official USN documents entitled something like "Location of Navy Aircraft" with several dates during 1943 and 1944. The site is vpnavy.com. (Site devoted to USN patrol aircraft) Click on the aircraft types (VP, VPB, VB etc) on the left sidebar, then go to a particular squadron number, then go squadron histories, then scroll to downloaded documents and voila. The VP-72 Squadron History has the list for Jan 6, 1943 along with at least one other date (the same listings can be found in other squadron histories). In another thread I made mention of the fact that SBD production seemed unrealistically low. The listing cited indicates that on Jan 6th 1943 there were a total of somewhat under 50 SBD3/4s in the entire Atlantic Theater including on the CVs, CVEs, various newly commissioning carriers and the shore establishment. Interesting to note that the USS Essex, which had a fairly complete complement of dive-bombers, was fitting out with SB2U Vindicators on that date (there were reserves at various places in the Pacific at this time). From the listings it appears that the overwhelming majority of all SBD-3s and SBD-4s ever produced were assigned to units deployed to the Pacific.
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