Aircraft Recovery

Aircraft were recovered by three methods called Baker, Able, and Charlie. In Baker Recovery, a plane landed one mile ahead of the ship in calm water and waited. In Able Recovery, a plane landed alongside an anchored ship and was hoisted aboard. In Charlie Recovery, the most common method, a plane flew alongside the ship at 300-foot altitude while the ship made a 90-degree turn to create a relatively smooth slick about 200 yards long and 100 yards wide. The crew swung a boom over the side and lowered a 10 x 6-foot rope and canvas sled into the sea. The pilot timed his landing to hit the slick with its ocean swells at the right moment, taxied the plane onto the sled, and a hook on the pontoon latched onto the sled before the pilot stopped the engine. A crane then lowered a hoisting hook, the passenger retrieved the lifting cable stowed behind the pilot's headrest and attached it, two other cables in the wings were attached to steady the plane, and steadying lines and long fending poles kept it from spinning and striking the ship. The crane lifted the plane from the water and lowered it onto a launching car or car truck on the deck. The crane hoisted at 110 feet per minute, reached out 40 feet, and by 1945 had been modified to handle a 9300-pound seaplane. Recovering aircraft from the ocean could be deadly: crewman Eldon Means was lost at sea on April 6, 1945, after Seaplane OS2N-1 capsized while being taken aboard from a sled streamed on the starboard quarter. Pilot Ensign Oliver was picked up by the USS English more than an hour later, and the English also sank the plane, but Means, identified in the deck log as E.E. Means, ARM Ic, was seen swimming and could not be found. Donald Scible, a Seamon 1/C, recalled that the sea sled was lowered by crane, dragged behind the ship, hooked by the plane, winched forward under the crane hook, and then lifted aboard; he said it was made of manila rope with squares about a foot apart and was rolled up and stored near the catapults when not in use.

North Carolina · United States