This is a firsthand account by the pilot of aircraft #13 on the Doolittle Raid off the Hornet in 1942. Take the time and enjoy a bit of history.

My name is Edgar McElroy. My friends call me "Mac". I was born and raised in Ennis , Texas the youngest of five children, son of Harry and Jennie McElroy. Folks say that I was the quiet one. We lived at 609 North Dallas Street and attended the Presbyterian Church.

My dad had an auto mechanic's shop downtown close to the main fire station. My family was a hard working bunch, and I was expected to work at dad's garage after school and on Saturdays, so I grew up in an atmosphere of machinery, oil and grease. Occasionally I would hear a lone plane fly over, and would run out in the street and strain my eyes against the sun to watch it. Someday, that would be me up there!

I really like cars, and I was always busy on some project, and it wasn't long before I decided to build my very own Model-T out of spare parts. I got an engine from...

On December 7, 1941, Japanese torpedoes and bombs devastated Hawaii’s warships and air fields. The “Weapons Wall” at Pacific Aviation Museum has full-size models of three of these weapons—the ones used in the first wave of the attack. The wall also shows the aircraft that carried different types of ordnance during the first wave.

This article goes beyond the information shown on the Weapons Wall, to look at the bombs used in the second wave. The Japanese Kates and Vals of the second wave delivered different types of bombs than they delivered in the first wave—including two types of bombs not used in the first wave. Table 1 summarizes basic data about the torpedoes and four types of bombs used during the attack, and about the aircraft that delivered each weapon during the two waves.

Table 1: Japanese Bombs and Torpedoes at Pearl Harbor

The newest addition to Pacific Aviation Museum’s collection is a Navy SH-60B Seahawk helicopter. The Sikorsky Seahawk is a navalized version of the Army’s UH-60 Blackhawk. The Army began using the Blackhawk in 1979. The Navy quickly saw the Blackhawk as a good foundation for replacing its SH-2 Sea Sprite, which was protecting individual ships such as frigates, destroyers, and cruisers, which often have to operate outside of the fleet’s protection umbrella. In effect, the Sea Sprite was a self-contained antisubmarine warfare (ASW) system. The 1960s-vintage Sea Sprite was too small and underpowered to support the Navy’s new LAMPS II avionics system. The Blackhawk was the ideal size for the new system, and most of its development cost had already occurred. The Navy called its Sea Sprite replacement the SH-60B, where the “S” stands for antisubmarine warfare. The Navy began using the Seahawk in 1984.

Although the AH-6B Seahawk is primarily an antisubmarine warfare aircraft, it has...

OS2U Kingfisher Floatplane

Missions

In World War II, aircraft carriers were not the only ships to launch and recover aircraft. Cruisers and battleships each carried a few small floatplanes. Most were Curtis SOC Seagulls or Vought OS2U Kingfishers. Curtis SO3C Seamews and SC Seahawks also saw some use in the war.

Arriving Tiger

This summer, FedEx will deliver a big package to Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor—a World War II P-40E Warhawk. FedEx inherited the P-40 when it purchased Flying Tiger Airlines. As you might expect, the aircraft is painted in the colors of the Flying Tigers. This new arrival will give docents at Pacific Aviation Museum the opportunity to talk about the famous Flying Tigers and the often-overlooked China-Burma-India (CBI) theater.

In preparation for the P-40E’s arrival, this blog gives some background on the Flying Tigers and our new aircraft in particular. At the end of this blog, there are some larger-size pictures of P-40s, the Flying Tigers, and Claire Chennault.

Blood for the Tigers

Pearl Harbor was just the beginning. Just hours after striking Hawaii, Japan decimated MacArthur’s air forces in the Philippines and the British air forces in Malaya. Later that same day, Japan bombed Guam, Wake Island, Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and several...

See Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor restoration crew at work on our F-86 & MiG-15 as we prepare our "MiG Alley" Korean Conflict exhibit. New display opens June 25, 2010 in Hangar 79. You can see it on the Aviator's Tour.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, their main targets were battleships and aircraft carriers. However, they were worried about the big PBY Catalina flying boats, which had the range to find the Japanese fleet and track it for hundreds of miles.

The PBY’s role in the attack began at 7 am, when a patrolling Catalina found a Japanese minisubmarine just off the entrance to Pearl Harbor. Along with the destroyer Ward, the PBY dropped its depth bombs on the submarine. The PBY sent a coded message to its base at 7:15, but by the time this message was decoded and passed on to CINCPAC, the Japanese bombs had begun falling.

In fact, the Japanese attack began when a Val dive bomber dropped a 550 pound bomb on Ramp 4 at the south end of Ford Island. This bomb hit among Patrol Squadron 22’s twelve aircraft. In the blast and subsequent fire, seven VP-22 PBYs were destroyed and the remaining five were placed out of commission for several days. Other patrol squadrons did little...

At the start of the battle, the crew of an American ship killed the Deep Blue Dragon. Enraged, the Flying Dragon destroyed the ship that had killed her sister. But the crew of another American ship, plus survivors from the first, returned and slew the Flying Dragon. The Battle of Midway was over. Many people know the Japanese names of the aircraft carriers we faced in World War II, but few know the translations of these names. This is sad because, in the case of aircraft carriers, a lot is gained in translation. The Imperial Japanese Navy generally gave their flattops poetic names of flying creatures, including real birds such as cranes and the falcons and mythical birds such as phoenixes and dragons. The Romanized “ho” is a phoenix. Japan’s first carrier was the Hosho (Flying Phoenix). Another phoenix was the small Shoho (Happy Phoenix), which was sunk at midway. Her sister ship was the Zuiho (Fortunate Phoenix). Later in the war, Japan built the carrier Taisho (Great Phoenix)....

With every successful Navy is the integration of aircraft carriers and air superiority capabilities. The evolution of the aircraft carriers is equally as impressive with the switch from propeller to jet engines and the need for more specialized aircraft aboard. pictured below is the USS Essex CV-9 as it was configured in WWII and the Korean War.

USS Essex CV9

After the Wars end, the carrier was refitted to include an angled deck for increased flight capabilities and functionality. In addition, the front of the ship was fixed with a hurricane bow to increase stability and storm worthiness of the ship. Below is an image of the same ship pictured above after it was modernized to be an Anti-Submarine carrier.

Essex CVS9

With all the changes being made to the carriers themselves, there was also allot of change on the flight deck as well. Aviators refer to the rear of the ship as the "Business end" and the front of the ship as the "Pointy end". This terminology refers to how...