US Navy Carrier Launches Army Airplanes

We have been following the planning and execution of one of the most remarkable operations during WWII, the launch of 16 US Army B-25's to attack Japan.

This was neither the first nor the last time that US Army aircraft took off from Navy aircraft carriers.

In October 1940, soon after USS Wasp (CV-7) completed her sea trials, she loaded 24 Curtiss P-40 fighters from the Army Air Corps' 8th Pursuit Group and nine North American O-47A reconnaissance aircraft from the 2nd Observation Squadron. Proceeding to sea on October 12, Wasp flew off the Army planes in a test designed to compare the take-off runs of standard Navy and Army aircraft. That experiment, the first time that Army planes had flown from a Navy carrier, foreshadowed the use of the ship in the ferry role later in World War II.

In 1941, as the US became more involved in shipping war materials to Great Britain, the Navy started so-called "Neutrality Patrols" to protect shipping. That June, as the United States became more heavily involved and the situation in Britain became more difficult, the United States made plans to occupy Iceland. Wasp played an important role in the move.

That July, while Wasp lay alongside Pier 7, NOB Norfolk, 32 Army Air Forces (AAF) pilots reported on board "for temporary duty". At 06:30 the following day, the ship's cranes hoisted on board 30 P-40Cs and three PT-17 trainers from the AAF 33rd Pursuit Squadron, 8th Air Group, Air Force Combat Command, home-based at Mitchel Field, New York.

The carrier's assignment was to ferry the army planes to Iceland because of a lack of British aircraft to cover the American landings. The American P-40s would provide the defensive fighter cover necessary to watch over the initial American occupying forces. Wasp slipped out to sea on 28 July, and joined Task Force 16—consisting of the battleship Mississippi, the heavy cruisers Quincy and Wichita, and five destroyers, bound for Iceland. On August 6, Wasp launched the P-40s and three trainers.

In April and May, 1942, Wasp carried Royal Air Force Supermarine Spitfires to within about a hundred miles of the island of Malta, then under German attack and launched the planes to reinforce Malta's defenses. On the second delivery run, one Spitfire had a fuel problem and had to return to Wasp for a landing.

Meantime, on May 10, 1942, the carrier USS Ranger  launched 68 US Army P-40's to fly to Accra, on the African Gold Coast, on the initial leg of their voyage to China to reinforce the Flying Tigers. In July, she launched another 72 P-40's at Accra for the same purpose.

In these operations as well as others during the early months of WWII, Army and Navy forces worked well together. Even before the war, coordination between the two services was close and effective, including collaboration on the most sensitive US communications intelligence effort.