US Navy PBY Catalina Units of the Atlantic War (Combat Aircraft) by Ragnar J Ragnarsson

Author:Ragnar J Ragnarsson [Ragnarsson, Ragnar J]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: US Navy PBY Catalina Units of the Atlantic War
ISBN: 9781782008682
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2012-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

While serving with VP-94 in Brazil, Lt(jg) Stanley E Auslander sank U-590 on 9 July 1943 with PBY-5A BuNo 02955/1. Eleven days later he attacked and carried out an hour’s gun duel with U-662 until both ran out of ammunition (the submarine was sunk the following day by another PBY-5A from VP-94). In November 1943 Lt Auslander converted to the PB4Y-1 Liberator, and he is seen here standing to the far left with his crew in front of their new bomber PB4Y-1 COVER GIRL (BuNo 38785) of VB-105 at Dunkeswell, in England, in 1944 (Courtesy of Stanley E Auslander)

Of the U-boat’s five survivors, to whom Rowland dropped life rafts, one soon died while the other four were rescued by the patrol yacht USS Siren (PY-13) after spending 16 days at sea. One died on the ship after being rescued, leaving the wounded commander and two seamen as U-662’s only survivors.

Except for a Força Aérea Brasileira PBY-5 sharing in the destruction of U-199 at the end of the month, U-662 was the last U-boat to be sunk by a Brazilian-based PBY. VP-94 would continue flying convoy coverage, anti-submarine and barrier patrols from airfields along the Brazilian coast, as well as from the island of Fernando de Noronha, which lies 214 miles northeast of Brazil’s Cabo de São Roque.

The last contact made by a PBY with the enemy took place on 3 November 1943 when Lt John H Dougherty in ‘94-P-6’ (almost certainly BuNo 04973) attacked U-154 60 miles east-northeast of Fortaleza – the advance base from which he was operating. Although his depth charges did the enemy no harm, a possibly good straddle seems to have been defeated by the middle two depth charges failing to explode. The attack did, nevertheless, drive the U-boat off convoy TJ 12, which it had been stalking for eight hours in order to set up a night attack.

On 10 August 1944 five of VP-94’s PBY-5As moved to Santa Cruz to initiate the USBATU (United States Brazilian Aviation Training Unit). Four months later, on 12 December 1944, VP-94 transferred its entire complement of 15 PBY-5As to the Força Aérea Brasileira in a formal ceremony in Rio de Janeiro’s seaplane base at Galeão. Three days later squadron personnel received orders to return to Norfolk, where the unit was officially disestablished on 22 December 1944.

By the end of 1943, what had started out as a detachment of six PBY-5s two years earlier had grown to eight squadrons with an establishment of 99 aircraft under the control of FAW 16. Consistent with the Navy’s policy of replacing PBYs with newer, albeit inferior, PBM-3s and PV-1s, only one of the eight squadrons was PBY-equipped!

Presumably as a result of urgent pleas from the Air Force Atlantic Fleet, PBY-5A-equipped VP-45 was transferred from the Pacific Fleet in 1944. Having recently completed its first tour of operations with FAW 4 in Alaska and the Aleutians, the unit deployed to Belém on 29 April. VP-45 maintained detachments in Amapá and São Luis, as well as on the island of Fernando de Noronha and Ascension, midway between Brazil and Africa.

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