Right Ship, Right Place, Wrong Planes
The March 31, 1941, cover of LIFE shows a Curtiss Helldiver and calls it the world’s best dive bomber. The aircraft carrier Enterprise is depicted with Douglas TBD torpedo bombers taking off from it’s deck practicing a mock attack. LIFE says, “they might be enemy bombers from an alien aircraft carrier coming in to attack the great Pearl Harbor base.” We know that just over eight months later this is exactly what happened on December 7,1941. The Enterprise was away from Hawaii on December 7th so it never got to defend the base. The Douglas TBD topedo bombers probably wouldn’t have done much good if they had been there. Three squadrons of the TBD’s totaling 41 planes were used against the Japanese fleet in mid 1942 during the Battle of Midway and only six survived. TBD torpedos that hit Japanese ships during the battle were often duds. The Douglas TBD was very susceptible to enemy flak and saw little action after this battle. The Curtiss Helldiver suffered many delays and modifications in it’s development and didn’t see action until November, 1943, at Rabual north of New Guinea. It was underpowered, had a short range, an unreliable electrical system and was often poorly manufactured. It spent most of the war as a trainer or pulling target tugs. LIFE rightly predicted that, “though it has little past to look back on, the aircraft carrier may have a history making future.” LIFE could not have picked a better example of aircraft carrier effectiveness than the Enterprise. The Enterprise collected 20 battle stars during WW II, more than any US War Ship. The Enterprise is arguably the most honored ship in US naval history.