USS SABLE and USS WOLVERINE

Formerly the SeeandBee and Greater Buffalo.
USS Sable (IX-81 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
USS Wolverine (IX-64 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Only coal fired sidewheel steamer aircraft carriers in the US Navy. Used for training carrier pilots during WWII. They sailed on Lake Michigan near Chicago. By using Lake Michigan the submarine threat on both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was avoided.
The Quad Cities television station WQPT just ran a movie, Heroes on Deck: World War II on Lake Michigan, about the history of these two ships, carrier pilot training on them and recovery of a number of planes that crashed and ended up in the lake. One of the planes recovered is one of two surviving bird cage corsairs, which you is under going restoration.
2010 - 11/04 - Rare Corsair -Early Birdcage Version Recovered from Lake Michigan

The Naval Air Museum in Pensacola has a number of planes that were recovered from Lake Michigan. One is very special - a Douglas SBD that actually flew in the battle of Midway! After combat it was assigned to a training squadron and went into the lake while trying to land on one of the converted side wheel steamer training carriers. If you are ever in the area, the Pensacola Naval Air Museum is a great place to visit.

Steve

This portion is interesting and somewhat suspect:

"According to information provided by the National Aviation Museum Foundation, which is part of the recovery effort, Ensign Carl Harold “Harry” Johnson, U.S. Navy Reserve, was undergoing carrier landing qualification training on June 12, 1943, out of Naval Air Station Glenview, in suburban Chicago. His plane crashed over the port bow of the carrier USS Wolverine just before 6 p.m. He escaped the sinking aircraft and was rescued by the picket boat, suffering superficial cuts. The Corsair sank into 220 feet of water.

Two weeks later, Johnson earned his carrier wings after completing eight carrier landings/takeoffs in a North American SNJ-4C. Sadly, Johnson was killed in a mid-air collision between two Grumman F6F-3 Hellcats over Hawaii on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1943."

It would have been very unusual for an ensign to earn his initial carrier qualification in anything other than an SNJ at that time, and I doubt a non carrier qualified ensign would have been given an F4U to make a qualification attempt, particularly, in June 1943.

The early Corsairs had issues with both a wing drop trait during a stall as well as bouncing on landing due to the design of the oleo struts - an issue that wasn't fully resolved until late 1943. As a result the F4U was not accepted for ship board operations until April 1944.

Prior to that Navy squadrons using the F4U were land based, and while VF-17 and VF-12 carrier qualified with the F4U in April 1943, VF-12 converted to the F6F and VF-17 was land based, although it did fly on and off a carrier in November 1943 for refueling purposes during a raid on Rabaul.

The ensign in question was also killed in an F6F-3 in November, consistent with the US Navy using the F6F aboard carries at that point - which begs the question why he would have been flying an F4U in the first place.

It's remotely possible that he was part of an abortive attempt to train and qualify nuggets in the F4U - but I really doubt it, particularly on the very small Great Lakes carriers, which were a lot smaller than a fleet carrier and still significantly smaller than any of the classes of escort carriers.

I think it's more likely that there's been a record keeping error somewhere along the line with the pilot involved. I suspect Johnson may have went over the side that same day with an SNJ, along with a more experienced navy pilot testing the F4U for carrier operations who also went over the side that same day.

----

Here is an image of an F4U-1 coming aboard the escort carrier Charger during VF-17 qualifications. Both the wing drop and bounce are evident, and you can see why an F4u would tend to go over the port bow. .The F4U-1's 2,000 hp R-2800-8 engine and 13" 4" diameter propeller also produced an incredible amount of torque and if the pilot applied too much power to quickly on a wave off, it would torque roll and crash inverted - a trait that was aggravated by the tendency to drop the left wing in a stall. It wasn't an airplane you turned a nugget loose with for initial carrier qualifications.

scha said:

The Naval Air Museum in Pensacola has a number of planes that were recovered from Lake Michigan. One is very special - a Douglas SBD that actually flew in the battle of Midway! After combat it was assigned to a training squadron and went into the lake while trying to land on one of the converted side wheel steamer training carriers. If you are ever in the area, the Pensacola Naval Air Museum is a great place to visit.

Steve

Click to expand...

I agree it's a superb museum to visit.

As I recall they have the SBD and an F4F in the same exhibit, displayed in "as recovered" condition.

In the Air Force, we didn't crash that many in Lake Michigan.
But we did have - One A Day in Tampa Bay.
That would be referring to Martin B-26s.

One of my patients and Dear friends trained on one of those ships I don't remember which one. They assigned him to fly ASW off of a small carrier I believe the USS Bouge. He flew Wildcats and was very worried about his navigation since all he had was a watch, compass and speedometer. he said it was all dead reconning and he would carefully write down speed time and course in a note book to keep track of his position.
After the war he was stationed in Europe and got to fly many different types of aircraft. Spitfires, Me 109s Fw 190s Thunderbolt and Mustang etc said all he had to do was ask to fly one and if it had gas in it it was ok to go ahead and take it up.
After he game home the some gents from new Jewish state came to his house- He was Jewish- and asked if he would go with them to fly in the Jewish AirForce. His wife who had waited for him all thru the war years quickly made up his mind for him, and thank God he stayed home.
He was the smartest man I ever knew and a real great patriot.
He owned a very successful fabric company and they had a corp. jet A Leer, but after some lean years, the bean counters told him it was not cost effective and made him sell it. His Pilot was a US Army vet of Vietnam and selling the jet put him out of a job.
My Friend really liked the pilot so He came up with a plan ,He bought a Bell Helicopter and leased it to the local TV station on the condition his pilot friend got the job flying it. I truly miss that Gentleman.