USS Lexington (CV-2) wreck found .. 4 March 2018 [revised]

[Taigh Ramey]

Are the open compartments on the wings of the TBD for rafts or are they the floatation bags as depicted in your photos Mark? If they are flotation bags then wouldn't they have been securely attached to the structure and not easily used when they abandoned ship?

I know that some aircraft had water immersion/raft deployment systems in place so the rafts not taken for use and flotation bags could possibly have been deployed on entry into the water.

Just speculation on my part.

[Mark Allen M]

Greetings Taigh, If I recall those TBD photos are from an early factory prototype that used those wing compartments for the floatation bags at that time. They may have been replaced/removed later to hold life rafts. Of course I'm speculating as I really don't know for certain. They certainly look like they may have held rafts though at that time.

[Pogo]

^^^ What the last two said. Awesome stuff!!

Can someone say how many crew for TBD? They seem to refer to 'assistant pilot' (?) and bombadier, and it's almost as if a third guy was in the belly or something, given what appears to be a sighting window in the belly? with it's own miniature bomb doors? (did I see correctly??). Also couldn't quite catch where the forward firing machine gun sticks out. And here I thought I knew a thing or two about TBD's - this is truly fantastic info!

Please forgive me for not doing my own homework as I'm away on a job in remote west Texas and have limited computer time/access for the next several weeks, thank you.

EDIT: ooooops ... I apparently posted way out of sequence. Oh well, you get the idea...

[JFS61]

^^^ What the last two said. Awesome stuff!!

Can someone say how many crew for TBD? They seem to refer to 'assistant pilot' (?) and bombadier, and it's almost as if a third guy was in the belly or something, given what appears to be a sighting window in the belly? with it's own miniature bomb doors? (did I see correctly??). Also couldn't quite catch where the forward firing machine gun sticks out. And here I thought I knew a thing or two about TBD's - this is truly fantastic info!

Please forgive me for not doing my own homework as I'm away on a job in remote west Texas and have limited computer time/access for the next several weeks, thank you.

EDIT: ooooops ... I apparently posted way out of sequence. Oh well, you get the idea...

The Devastator was originally designed for a crew of three - Pilot, Torpedo Officer/Navigator and Radioman/Gunner. By the time of the Battle of Midway, this had been reduced to just the Pilot and the Radioman/Gunner (which was fortunate, when considering just how many more lives could have been lost).

[lmritger]

Greetings Taigh, If I recall those TBD photos are from an early factory prototype that used those wing compartments for the floatation bags at that time. They may have been replaced/removed later to hold life rafts. Of course I'm speculating as I really don't know for certain. They certainly look like they may have held rafts though at that time.

No, they likely still had the flotation gear in place at that time... Bill Esders noted that his deployed when he ditched T-3 after the Battle of Midway. One of the things which has stood out to me is that EVERY one of these TBDs has had it's float bags deployed... and as they were just big bags, I don't think they'd be very useful as flotation devices for people. So why are they all deployed? Maybe the increasing pressure as the aircraft sank caused them to deploy, but then quickly get carried away or exploded at depth... the planes all seem to be in roughly the same area so there was little "kiting" as they descended, suggesting if the bags DID deploy, they didn't stay attached for long.

Anyways, HOW FREAKING AWESOME IS THIS!!! I can't get over how beautifully preserved T-12 appears to be, and T-11 is amazing as well. Oh, and I'm going to relent on something I said earlier... I had come out strongly against making any of these airworthy, but I'm going to relent slightly... let's pull up what's left of T-3 and get it over to Vulture's Row. She's too badly damaged to make a good static display, but there's enough there to work with.

Lynn

[Jim MacDonald]

Can anyone make out the cockpit colors on the TBDs? Still silver lacquer or zinc chromate?

Lynn,

Can you relent just a little bit more & have to sent to Vulture's Row? Also, is your TBD site still up? Haven't seen it in quite a while, but I enjoyed visiting it.

Mac

[lmritger]

Can anyone make out the cockpit colors on the TBDs? Still silver lacquer or zinc chromate?

Lynn,

Can you relent just a little bit more & have to sent to Vulture's Row? Also, is your TBD site still up? Haven't seen it in quite a while, but I enjoyed visiting it.

Mac

Hi Jim! It is still up and in fact, I posted a brief update to the TBD page last week after having to hunt down the FTP password- I hadn't updated it in SEVENTEEN YEARS prior to that, which is utterly shameful. But brother, there's a very, VERY large update being worked on now! Thanks for the kind words about the site!

So, onto the burning question about the interiors... as you've likely guessed, that's the second thing I've looked for in these pics (the first being any trace of a BuNo) and it looks like the floatation bag compartments on every example found thus far are in something like 34151 Interior Green, and I can tell for certain that the interiors of T-5, T-8, and T-9 are definitely green as well. The flap edges of T-4, however, are still showing aluminum lacquer and since she's upside down on T-9, it's hard to say what her interior color is.

By the way... Petrel JUST released more pics confirming T-1 as BuNo 0345, and T-11 as BuNo 0291. So there's two we didn't have previously!!!

Cheers,

Lynn

[Richard W.]

I'm remembering something I once read about the Norden bomb sights in the TBDs.

It said that all the flotation bags were removed from the wings very early in the war to prevent any downed a/c floating long enough for the enemy to recover a Norden. Extra risk to the crew was deemed acceptable in light of the huge importance the Navy put on keeping the Norden secret.

Take with a grain of salt because I can't provide a source.

Last edited by Richard W. on Thu Mar 15, 2018 6:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Jim MacDonald]

Yes!!

These are the TBDs that went down with the Lex.

0271 TBD-1 VT-2
0273 TBD-1 VT-2
0275 TBD-1 VT-2
0290 TBD-1 VT-2
0291 TBD-1 VT-2 T-11
0300 TBD-1 VT-2
0313 TBD-1 VT-2
0320 TBD-1 VT-2
0339 TBD-1 VT-2
0345 TBD-1 VT-2 T-1
1514 TBD-1 VT-2
1516 TBD-1 VT-2

I'd love to see more of side numbers confirmed.

Thanks for the confirmation of the colors, Lynn.

[old iron]

I think I have seen the numbers T-1, T-2, T-3, T-4, T-8, T-9, T-11 and T-12 on the Devastators that have been foundIs there any accounting for how many a/c of each type were on the deck when the Lady went down?

[Mark Allen M]

Great seeing some of you guys so fired up. Lots of great info and knowledge being posted. Outstanding job.
Below are the latest photos Lynn pointed out. The SBD's didn't fare as well as the TBD's it seems.








Here's what Lynn posted: "This is BuNo 0291, originally delivered to VT-3 as a spare aircraft; the only other record we have of her is that she was listed as damaged on 1/26/40, 3-T-8, pilot AMM2/c (NAP) C. E. Ziegler. In the May 7 attack on Shoho, T-11 was flown by Radio Electrician J.E. Mattis, with ARM3c F.D. Kreeger as observer and L.E. Bartel the gunner; Mattis also flew T-11 in the attack on Shokaku on May 8."

[dakoblue]

Ho w this is possible


this SBD was lost before sinking

Last edited by dakoblue on Thu Mar 15, 2018 7:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

[lmritger]

Ho w this is possible

Somebody's got some 'splainin to do... unless Petrel covered a WHOLE lot more territory than anyone realizes (which seems extremely unlikely). I'm guessing someone just transposed a number... what do you show for 4537 or 4513?

Lynn

[lmritger]

This is the earliest BuNo I have yet seen where we have definitive proof of a 34151/Interior Green primer being used as opposed to aluminum lacquer. To quote Joe Biden, this is a big effing deal (at least to me). So this proves that everything from 0291 onwards left the factory with a green interior... that is a whole lot earlier in the production run than I ever imagined.

The crew of the R/V Petrel are my new heroes.

Lynn

[Dan Jones]

Looks like the poor old SBD's and the remains of that one F4F must have been right on top of one of the big explosions on Lex, but the TBD's certainly fared well.

Assuming one did lift a couple of TBD's up to the surface, what's the procedure to then "de-salinate" and stabilize them, and how long does it take? I imagine you'd need a tanker full of fresh water to start. I wonder what those rent for a day?