Did the TBD Devestator Ever Score Any Hits?

[Dan Jones]

No disrespect intended to any veterans or to the airplane, but was the TBD ever responsible (directly) for inflicting any damage to the IJN or the Japanese merchant fleet in the Pacific?

[Dan K]

During the Battle of the Coral Sea, Devastators of VT-5 sank the destroyer Kikuzuki on May 4.

And on May 7th, VT-2 and VT-5 helped sink the light carrier Shoho with multiple hits.

[lmritger]

Emphatically YES!

As Dan K notes, Shoho was absolutely decimated by the perfectly executed attack of VT-2 on May 7, 1942, and VT-5 took out Kikuzuki. Also, VT-2 either sank or severely damaged a few ships on the Lae/Salamaua raid, but if memory serves that was with 500 pounders, not torpedoes.

The TBD was a perfectly capable and stable platform, but the torpedo itself required a long, steady run in order to (hopefully) work correctly, so in order for the attack to succeed, they needed strong escort to keep the Japanese fighters away. VF-3 did a superb job of this at Coral Sea, which paved the way for VT-2's success... but at Midway, the torpedo squadrons had no support, and they paid the ultimate price.

What really grinds my gears is that the vaunted Grumman Avengers fared no better at Midway, for the same exact reason - 5 of 6 were shot down with no hits, and the last one only made it back to the beach through sheer luck. Yet the TBD is viewed by history as a failure through circumstance as opposed to any inherent fault in it's design, while the TBF/TBM is viewed as a tremendous success thanks to it's later service... and that success can be attributed in great part to improved tactics which ensured strike packages had the necessary support to keep fighters away, as well as substantially improved torpedoes from late 43 onwards, all lessons paid for in the blood of the men who died in the unescorted TBDs and TBFs at Midway.

Cheers,

Lynn

[Adam Kline]

Good points. The Dauntless gets most of the credit for those battles, and the Navy was quick to find a replacement in the Helldiver which suffered as much as the TBD in reputation of failure. I think the pilots had a lot of griping that pushed circumstances of poor execution of other support elements (fighter cover) to the back of the table. Blame the plane not the human.

[Scott Rose]

The TBD was a perfectly capable and stable platform, but the torpedo itself required a long, steady run in order to (hopefully) work correctly, so in order for the attack to succeed, they needed strong escort to keep the Japanese fighters away. VF-3 did a superb job of this at Coral Sea, which paved the way for VT-2's success... but at Midway, the torpedo squadrons had no support, and they paid the ultimate price.

It's my understanding that those torpedoes had a 90% failure rate, even when employed perfectly

[Dan Jones]

It's my understanding that those torpedoes had a 90% failure rate, even when employed perfectly

Read a book called "Hellions of the Deep". It's the story of US torpedo development before and during the war. The criminal incompetence of not only the Bureau of Ordnance but several other government departments (including the Navy Department) almost cannot be believed.