Erroneously landing on an enemy aircraft carrier?!

From the Washington Naval Treaty to the end of the Second World War.
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R Leonard
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Re: Erroneously landing on an enemy aircraft carrier?!

Post by R Leonard »

While some other writer's error is not your fault, my correction as to Bill Surgi's actual rate is merely keeping the story straight.

Regarding opines of sea stories . . .

Extracts from Yorktown's after action report
Page 6
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and Page 7
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Extract from Lexington after action report
Page 4
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Without much effort there are plenty of citations of this event in various historic recountings . . .
  • Robert Cressman (of the US Naval Historic Command) in his That Gallant Ship - USS Yorktown (CV-5), pages 95 and 96
  • Samuel E Morrison in History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Vol 4, pages 43 and 44
  • Pat Frank and Joseph Harrington in Rendezvous at Midway - USS Yorktown and the Japanese Carrier Fleet, pages 204 and 205
  • Coral Sea Commemorative Association of Australia, Audrey F Wicks (Ed.) in Coral Sea Log, page 54
  • Jeff Nesmith in No Higher Honor - The USS Yorktown at the Battle of Midway, page 109
  • Stuart D Ludlum in They Turned the War Around at Coral Sea and Midway, pages 74 through 76 (Ludlum's sources identify the voice on the MC1 "Stand by to repel boarder" call as that of CDR Robert Armstrong, CV-5 Assistant Air Officer
  • John Lundstrom in The First Team - Pacific Naval Air Combat from Pearl Harbor to Midway, pages 214 through 217 (Lundstrom opines, in the cold light of day, that the Japanese interlopers ". . . were puzzled and descended to check their navigation."
There are no doubt other works on my shelves which might mention the confusion in the darkness, but the above were the first I grabbed off as being fairly certain of finding reference. Ships' after action reports would seem to belie the "hoary sea story" theory.
Last edited by R Leonard on Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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R Leonard
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Posts: 14
Joined: Tue Sep 21, 2021 5:13 pm

Re: Erroneously landing on an enemy aircraft carrier?!

Post by R Leonard »

Also, the CTF-17 after action report
Extract from page 6
CV-5 CTF-17 AAR page 6 Extract.JPG
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