TOM WALSH wrote:
From my article on USMC Captain Christopher Lyman "Maggie" Magee:
Near the end of March, Magee was sent to U.S. Naval Air Station Glenview, Illinois for additional training. NAS Glenview, located next door to Chicago, was where the Navy's Inland Training Aircraft Carrier USS Wolverine IX-64 was based. The American Ship Building Company in Buffalo, New York had converted over a six month period the Great Lakes cruise liner SS Seeandbee into the mini-flattop. The Wolverine's crew began training the Navy's future sea-going pilots in the art of taking off and landing from a moving ship on August 12, 1942. Operating exclusively in Lake Michigan, IX-64 sailed North from Chicago's Navy Pier out into the lake 50 or more miles every day where, free from any interruptions, it conducted flight operations. A second Training Carrier, USS Sable IX-81, joined Wolverine at Glenview on May 8, 1943. Sable had previously been registered before its conversion as the SS Greater Buffalo. Both ships were coal-burning, side-wheel paddle steamers! By War's end, the two vessels had completed 116,000 air movements qualifying 17,820 Naval and Marine Aviators.
Chris Magee spent five days on the Wolverine completing eight mandatory takeoffs and landings.
The Navy used various aircraft types for training on these two vessels and, from the ship's logs and accident reports, it is known that a total of 143 aircraft were lost from 1942 through to 1945 costing the lives of 8 pilots. The number and types of planes that sank to the bottom of Lake Michigan are as follows: forty-one Grumman TBF/TBM Avengers, one Vought F4U Corsair, thirty-eight Douglas Dauntless, four Grumman F6F Hellcats, two Vought SB2U Vindicators, thirty-seven Grumman F4F/FM Wildcats, seventeen North American SNJ's and three TDN experimental drones. Many of the types were older aircraft that had served in the North African and Pacific Campaigns. The USN managed to salvage, from shallow water, six of the crashed airframes before the end of the War. The remaining 137 aircraft sat in a semi-preserved state for decades in a deep, fresh-water repository measuring 307 miles long by 118 miles wide. The Lake's average depth is 279'. Within the past several years approximately 40 airframes have been recovered by salvagers for the Navy. Most were found to be in good condition with tires inflated, parachutes preserved, leather seats maintained and engine crankcases full of oil. A sizeable portion of Lake Michigan's lost fleet of historic aircraft remains to be located and harvested. The USN still exercises control and ownership of these aircraft as they are considered to be, even after all these years, U.S. Government property.
Cheers,
Tom Walsh.
Very informative, thanks
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