Warbird Information Exchange

TBF landing on the USS Cowpens 1943

TBFs of VT-5 attacking the Marcus Islands 1943

TBF of VC-21 overflying the jeep carrier USS MARCUS ISLAND CVE-77

TBF in the catwalk after a night trap gone astray

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I like the Turkeys but always wondered why they used an enclosed ball turret, seems unusual on anything other than a larger bomber and a Navy aircraft and why is it I rarely see the belly gun?

I would think that the turret gave a greater range of fire and ease of aiming that big heavy .50. Add the faster speed of the Avenger (compared to it's predecessor) and you really start having problems slewing a big heavy gun around and firing it accurately. As for not seeing many pics of the belly gun, I would assume that most pics are shot when NOT in the active combat zone, and thus that .30 gun would be in the stow position most of the time and only popped out when enemy action might be expected.

Later versions on the TBF/M-3 deleted the .30 tunnel gun mostly
to save weight.

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Well that would make sense. Thanks

Did the turret guns actually shoot down any aircraft?

Funny you should ask, I am currently reading "Samurai", the story of Saburo Sakai, one of Japans top aces. Reading yesterday, he was blasted from the air by the tail gunners of an Avenger flight (he mistook them for wildcats and flew right up behind them). Ooops! He was severely wounded and barely made it from Guadalcanal back to base in Rabaul. So I imagine at least a few went down in flames.

Holedigger,
In "Samurai",it was either an error in translation or an error by Martin Cadin,but Sakai attacked a flight of SBD's and not TBF's.I have just been reading John B. Lundstrom's book "The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign" which gives a very detailed account of Sakai's flight on 7 August 1942 that cross-references both US and Japanese official records as well as diaries and other sources.

According to Lundstrom,"Ahead at 7,800 feet he [Sakai] noticed what appeared to be eight Grumman fighters in tight formation almost begging to be ambushed.Unfortunately for him the targets proved to be Lt. Carl H. Horenburger's eight VB-6 and VS-5 SBDs still toting their 500-pound bombs.They observed Zeros and closed formation even more to meet their attack.Too late did Sakai realize his disasterous mistake,but he had commited to a low-deflection stern attack into the muzzles of sixteen .30-caliber machine guns"

The story continues in detail,but I don't want to quote too much from the book.I do highly recommend this book and Lundstrom's earlier book "The First Team" which covers in detail the activities of US carrier fighters from Pearl Harbor through the Battle of Midway.

Interesting. It would have to be beyond a simple error or mistranslation as it states in the book

"The enemy planes were not fighters, but bombers, the Avengers torpedo planes, types I had never seen before. From the rear they looked exactly like Wildcats, but now their extra size was visible, as were the top turret with its single gun and the belly turret with another 50 caliber gun."

Oops, wrong word? NOT! Author making things up? Possible The fact that Sakai received a severe head wound in the fight, perhaps his memory was VERY bad and was influenced by others stories or his own muddied memories OR the authors leading/probing questions filled in the gaps wrongly.

Other than photos from his bio, are there any infrequently seen pix around of President Bush and his Avenger - or maybe planes from his unit or time frame ... surely Jack has access.

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"Take care of the little things and the big things will take care of themselves."

It's called writing fiction. Caiden did that even if it was for a non-fiction book

Sorry no VT-51 photos a few VF-51.

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