Dec 7, Ford Island PBY's

[Holedigger]

Seeking information. I have been working on a project, have it roughed up and have run into some dead ends...HELP PLEASE
I am looking for specifics on
1-just which PBY from which squadron got back out to search for the attacking fleet.
2-markings, star forward on nose or aft of the blister? Red and white striped rudder or no?
3-Pics of Ford Island Hangars from the water, this is the south end seaplane facility. I have yet to build out some Kingfishers to have scattered about the yard
4-Just what bomb load did they carry on this patrol? I know the one's airborne at the time of the attack had DC's as they were on sub patrol, so GP 500's?
This is a rough draft, just trying to get my bits in place, so any comments and details would be welcome.
Thanks
Holedigger

[Jack Cook]

Looks nice!!
Just make sure it's not in CY's marking

[David_Aiken]

Aloha Hole digger,
The PBY in question came down the ramp on the southwestern end of Ford Island...somewhat to the left of the scene which as depicted. The plane went down the channel toward the entrance.

The wind was coming from the east, headed west which meant the PBY was taking off somewhat cross wind yet WITH the wind. The smoke as depicted is headed easterly.

HTH...and I have more,
Cheers,
David Aiken
PearlHarborHistory AT Hotmail.com

[Mark_Pilkington]

?

I dont know too much about the PBY's used at Pearl Harbour, but the image above seems to show an Amphibian on the ramp, (tricycle u/c) rather than a nose high,tail low flying boat on beaching gear??

I'm not sure the PBY-5A was at Pearl Harbour in 1941?, 186 had been ordered since its first flight in 1939, but I am not sure if they were deployed at Pearl Harbour by that time?

A lot of USN squadrons in the Pacific (such as those evacutated from the Phillipines to Australia) still had PBY-5 flying boats in 1941 and early 1942?

regards

Mark Pilkington

[David_Aiken]

Hi Mark,
You are MOST correct. PatWing 1 and PatWing 2 had been in the process of upgrading from the PBY-3 TO the PBY-5.

USS Enterprise SBD pilot, Lt C.E. Dickinson, Jr, was shot down. He then came to Pearl Harbor by hitch-hiking with a civilian car. He viewed, during his crossing to Ford Island Naval Air Station, the beaching crew in the water removing the gear from this [depicted] PBY for its flight.
Cheers,
David Aiken

[Holedigger]

Thanks for all the input and feed back. It IS a work in progress and sorting through all the data can be frustrating and misleading at times! Yes the PBY on the ramp is "Supposed to be" on beaching gear.... it is being revisited as my tail was WAY too high in the air.....good catch. Thought that spindly tail gear looked way too tall!?

Here it is at the moment, though it looks like I will be redoing the contol tower yet again...sources say....WRONG!

Thanks again and keep it coming
Chris aka Holedigger

[mustangdriver]

This is pretty cool man.

[David_Aiken]

Aloha Hole Digger,
The PBY 11-P-8 belonged to Pat Wing 1...VP-11 based at Kaneohe NAS...it was lost in the attack on that base.

Lt Commander Massey Hughes was the CO of VP-23 [Pat Wing 2] and pilot of the PBY in question. VP-23 was the first to have the PBY-5 (not -5A) in Hawaii. The BuNo of the plane Massey flew is in question, hence the side number/Modex as well.

Massey Hughes' was the first of the four VP-23 PBYs to get airborne that morning. Hughes, Chittenden, Wood, Winters were the pilots. Flight logs have isolated alas ... two BuNo of the four PBYs. The side numbers are still in limbo.

The search continues,
Cheers,
David Aiken

[Holedigger]

....and the Number is........anything but what I got! I was afraid of that. Well if I take of the number that we know it wasn't, is there a short list of the planes it might have been? Very chaotic day for sure!! We'll catch up with the paperwork later! Looks like a toss up between VP-23 and VP-24, each got 4 AC up that day.

[David_Aiken]

Hi Hole Digger,
VP-24 got airborne at 0700 to work on an 'exercise' with USS Gudgeon near Lanai Island... They diverted as soon as they got word of the attack...and began their search mission starting at Barber's Point.
HTH,
David Aiken

[Holedigger]

Do you know of any of the VP-24 Birds landed and rearmed or just changed search pattern? I need to have a bird that went up after the attacks. That leave the 4 VP-23 birds that got up, so I will try to whittle down what #'s the had and try to make an educated guess.

[David_Aiken]

Ahhhh, Hole digger,
The hole is getting deeper! lol

Actually I had thought that your effort was to do Massey Hughes' PBY...

The POST-attack "chase" began immediately after the Japanese 'left'. Actually a few Japanese planes were taking down the damage done thus were still over Oahu...but the bombing had ceased...

After Massey Hughes' plane, the three VP-23 PBYs which got into the air: Winters, Chittenden, and Wood... I have been working hard to get the BuNo from the various crewmen's flight logs. There HAS been some difficulty as dudes who flew with Winters have BuNo for Chittenden's PBY and vice-versa... so which BuNo went with which pilot? The mixup came from the clerk-typist "secretary" who wrote up each flight log.

THEN to connect the BuNo TO a modex/side number...ouch!

I know that 23-P-6 was one of the three planes, but WHOSE PBY?
Cheers,
David Aiken

[Holedigger]

Thanks David,
I shall run with that number then. At least we know it was one of those flying.......on a very confusing day, though I did run across an accounting for every round fired, from 5" to .45cal!!! (think they said list was not quite complete!) but they can't track their airplanes?????

23-P-6 it is then!

[Holedigger]

Here is the latest update, it's getting there. It is the myriad of little things that take forever! I might even be done by Dec 7th!

A bit of a closeup of the time eaters

[Holedigger]

Hopefully this is a wrap, unless I trash it and start over, or if more and better photos and info show up and prod me to "fix" it some more.

Thanks everyone for your help and info.

Chris
aka "Holedigger"