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Project Jenny KLIK - 1st Inf Di v Women in Vietnam RELATED-- To AFVN To Saigon To Vietnam Further Afield Index
From: Steve Pennington
Date: April 29, 2014
Subject: WW II Aircraft Carriaers on Great Lakes
As an aside, the Great Lakes are littered with wrecks fro the landing mishaps of the Wolverine and Sable. A bunch of teenagers and twenty-somethings trying to haul tons of metal onto the deck met with some less than successful conclusions. The depth of the lakes, fresh water and cold temperatures have preserved the planes over the years. Too bad we can't pull more of them up to preserve the history.
SLP
From: Joe Ciokon
Date: January 30, 2014
Subject: Audio Carts
Museums have been harvesting some of those lost aircraft. Gross Isle was one of our Reserve bases when I was flying as an aircrewman in a P2V Neptune out of NAS Saint Louis, MO in 1956. I graduated from aerial photography school out of NAS Glenview, IL, flying missions over the Lakes. We lost a Neptune which headed across Michigan towards Canada on a clear day. Never found a trace. Destroyers even pinged the lake and found nothing.
JoeC
From: Bob Morecook
Date: January 29, 2014
Subject: Audio Carts
Very Interesting!
BobM
From: Mike Jackson
Date: April 29, 2014
Subject: WW II Aircraft Carriers on the Great Lakes!
The Great Lakes provided vital support for the war effort in WWII, from building 28 fleet subs in Manitowoc to providing the bulk of US industrial output, we could not have won the war if not for the benefits of the Great Lakes and their related industry. However there was another benefit of the lakes that is often overlooked. Japan quickly lost the war because, among many other things, its Navy could not replace its carrier pilot losses. We could. But how did we train so many pilots in both comfort (calm seas) and safety (no enemy subs)?
We took two old side-wheel Great Lakes passenger steamers and turned them into training carriers on Lake Michigan! Virtually every carrier pilot trained in the war got his landing training on these amazing ships! Sadly nothing but these great photos and the wrecks of the aircraft that ditched alongside them remain to tell their fascinating story!
Thanks to Tom Ursem for sending this link!
By the way, there is also a "Military Landing Strip" on Grosse Isle
WW II Aircraft Carriers on the Great Lakes!
April 2014
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