USS CHENANGO (CVE-28) ferrying army P-40F fighters to Morocco, with the North African Invasion force, November 1942.
Army Curtiss P-40F fighters in the hanger deck of USS CHENANGO (ACV-28), to be ferried to North Africa with the invasion force. Photographed at Norfolk, Virginia, 15 October 1942.
Daniel Rathbun and his P-40 fighter take off from USS CHENANGO (CVE-28), to fly shore for combat operations in Morocco, about 10 November 1942. Note U.S. flag markings, and bridle from catapult behind the plane.
The following is a personal account of Daniel B. Rathbun and the first Army Air Force P-40 squadron which was transported and launched off the escort carrier USS Chenango and subsequently landed at Port Lyautey as part of Operation Torch."My plane was on a catapult on the bow where it would be the first plane to be catapulted-off when we arrived at our unknown destination. In the meantime, we “stood watch” in our planes. I remember being chiefly interested in the sharp changes in the rate-of-climb indicator in the plane as the bow of the small carrier went up, up, up, and then down, down, down.
The next morning, the “fog of war” descended. We were about 100 miles offshore and ready to go, but word had been received that the field in Port Lyautey had not been taken. Our Group CO, doubtless harking back to Tripoli and the war with the Barbary Pirates, and to Mobile Bay in the Civil War, assumed a “darn the torpedoes” attitude and ordered, “Shoot Rathbun and his wingman off and we will see what the situation is.” So off we went. There was no way of returning to the Chenango since we had no arresting gear and the flight deck was filled with other P-40s.
When we reached Port Lyautey, we could see cruisers, destroyers, amphibious-assault and merchant ships offshore, many sending small landing craft to the beaches. The sight that interested me the most involved several bomb craters on the concrete runway, all made by our Navy planes in an effort to immobilize French aircraft. There were grass fields on both sides of the North--South runway but they had been flooded and pools of water remained on the grass. While the craters were big and the debris field on the north end of the runway covered the entire width of the runway, I decided to try to land just beyond the first crater and then slip past the crater farther down the runway.
Craters aside, the runway was short–approximately 1,800-2,000 feet long–and landing just past the first crater left not more than 1,000 feet of runway. Therefore, I had to land at the lowest possible speed. Alas, the plane stalled just as I reached the first crater, dropping the wheels into the crater and wiping off the landing gear.
I came to rest out on the grass on the west side of the runway, shaken but not injured. My wingman, a bright young man by the name of Dowd, saw what happened so he decided to try the grass on the west side of the runway. He made a good landing, but the wheels sank into the muddy ground and he nosed up, damaging the propeller and knocking the engine out of line.
After getting out of the plane, I knew that I had to do what I could to stop the other planes. I ran to the destroyer USS Dallas, tied up to a pier in the river that formed the northern and eastern edges of the airfield, and asked that the ship send a message to the Chenango that further launches should be canceled. I don’t know how rapidly the message was transmitted; I do know that forty-five minutes later, more planes arrived, led by our group CO.
Before the planes arrived, two events took place. First, I saw an American tank on the field and thought that the tank could help us clear the runway. Having driven Caterpillar tractors for a living, I knew that by locking one track and wheeling, the tank could push debris back into the craters. I ran to the tank and asked the soldier in the turret if he could help me. He agreed and we proceeded to the first crater, where he tried to fill the crater, with very limited success. A good bit of debris was moved into the crater, but the tank had no way of tamping-down the chunks of concrete and dirt, an essential step if the runway were to be made serviceable. So much for runway repair.
While this was going on, an American cruiser offshore was firing twelve-inch shells at a fort east of the airfield. I was surprised and fascinated by the fact that I could both see and hear the shells as they passed over the airfield. I never did learn if the shells hit the target.
When the group CO appeared, he decided to land on the extreme northern end of the runway. Unfortunately for him, there was a sharp drop in terrain off the end of the runway, leaving the northern end of the runway exposed. Also, unfortunately for him, he came in slow and too low, possibly having lost some of his piloting skills in the eighteen days at sea. In any event, he was too low and his wheels hit the exposed end of the runway, wiping out the landing gear and skidding to, what would be to most pilots, an embarrassing stop.
I questioned then (and now) his assumption that he could stop his plane in the less than 1,000 feet before he would reach the first crater. Of course, given his wrecked plane, we will never know. I do know that he was unfazed by his poor judgment and performance, and I do know that approximately twenty of the planes following him proceed to tear themselves apart in the muddy grass east of the concrete runway. Oblivious to the chaos he had helped create by his foolhardy, too early, departure from the carrier, he strode up to me and delivered his obiter dictum: “Rathbun, if you had used your head, you could have prevented all of this.” In subsequent days, this man was to continue to take my breath away on numerous occasions.
That night, cold and without bedding, we raided the parachute room in the hangar, each of us taking a silk parachute which we opened and used as bedding. I recall settling down in the cockpit of an unoccupied P-40 and spending a very uncomfortable night in the seat, wrapped in silk.
On November 10, we moved approximately 80 miles to the south to Casablanca, leaving a score or more of damaged planes for the service group to worry about. Upon arrival in Casablanca, I took stock of my clothing and determined that I needed help if I were to maintain a soldierly bearing--eighteen days at sea plus the wear and tear at Port Lyautey had eliminated all traces of sartorial splendor. Consequently, I took everything to a laundry-cleaning establishment–and that was the last I saw of my wardrobe. Repeated trips to recover my clothing yielded nothing.”