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U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet, 1941, America’s Mighty Last Battleship Fleet
By Mark Lardas, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK. 2024. 80 pp. Ill.

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U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet, 1941, America’s Mighty Last Battleship Fleet

U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet, 1941, America’s Mighty Last Battleship Fleet By Mark Lardas, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK. 2024. 80 pp. Ill.

In a very unusual and rare depiction of an important post-Pearl Harbor event, which the artist has labeled “Buffalo Run,” a flight deck is shown loaded with 18 Brewster F2A-3 Buffalos of Marine Corps fighter squadron VMF-221 on the flight deck of the carrier USS Saratoga (CV 3), originally on the way to relieve the decimated squadron VMF-211, which had been flying Grumman F4F-3 Wildcats from beleaguered Wake Island. When delays at Pearl and later rough seas delayed the carrier’s departure and progress, Adm. William Pye, in temporary command of the Pacific Fleet, ordered the Sara to turn around, perhaps keeping the air-Marines from further defending Wake, which the Japanese succeeded in taking. In the event, Sara launched 14 of the Buffalos toward Midway Island, where they became part of the defending force against the major Japanese attack on June 4. Artist Edouard A. Groult’s illustration shows the lead fighter already beginning its takeoff roll while the flight deck crew readies the other Brewsters for their launch. Behind, at the aft end of the flight deck, three SBD Dauntless dive bombers wait their turn while a plane guard destroyer is on station aft of the carrier.

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In a very unusual and rare depiction of an important post-Pearl Harbor event, which the artist has labeled “Buffalo Run,” a flight deck is shown loaded with 18 Brewster F2A-3 Buffalos of Marine Corps fighter squadron VMF-221 on the flight deck of the carrier USS Saratoga (CV 3), originally on the way to relieve the decimated squadron VMF-211, which had been flying Grumman F4F-3 Wildcats from beleaguered Wake Island.

In a very unusual and rare depiction of an important post-Pearl Harbor event, which the artist has labeled “Buffalo Run,” a flight deck is shown loaded with 18 Brewster F2A-3 Buffalos of Marine Corps fighter squadron VMF-221 on the flight deck of the carrier USS Saratoga (CV 3), originally on the way to relieve the decimated squadron VMF-211, which had been flying Grumman F4F-3 Wildcats from beleaguered Wake Island. When delays at Pearl and later rough seas delayed the carrier’s departure and progress, Adm. William Pye, in temporary command of the Pacific Fleet, ordered the Sara to turn around, perhaps keeping the air-Marines from further defending Wake, which the Japanese succeeded in taking. In the event, Sara launched 14 of the Buffalos toward Midway Island, where they became part of the defending force against the major Japanese attack on June 4. Artist Edouard A. Groult’s illustration shows the lead fighter already beginning its takeoff roll while the flight deck crew readies the other Brewsters for their launch. Behind, at the aft end of the flight deck, three SBD Dauntless dive bombers wait their turn while a plane guard destroyer is on station aft of the carrier.

USS Enterprise (CV-6) Operating in the Pacific, circa late June 1941. She is turning into the wind to recover aircraft. Note her natural wood flight deck stain and dark Measure One camouflage paint scheme. The flight deck was stained blue in July 1941, during camouflage experiments that gave her a unique deck stripe pattern. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

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USS Enterprise (CV-6) Operating in the Pacific, circa late June 1941.

USS Enterprise (CV-6) Operating in the Pacific, circa late June 1941. She is turning into the wind to recover aircraft. Note her natural wood flight deck stain and dark Measure One camouflage paint scheme. The flight deck was stained blue in July 1941, during camouflage experiments that gave her a unique deck stripe pattern. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

A Curtiss SBC-3 scout bomber of VS-6 from the USS Enterprise, flies up the starboard side of USS Mustin (DD 413) on May 26, 1940. The SBC was the last combat biplane for the Navy, but did not see combat in WWII. Some 40 were headed for France on a French carrier, but when France was conquered by Germany in June 1940, the SBCs were diverted to the French island of Martinique and were eventually scrapped. However, five of the French SBCs that were not aboard the carrier reached England where they were named “Cleveland,” and they were used as instructional airframes.

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A Curtiss SBC-3 scout bomber of VS-6 from the USS Enterprise, flies up the starboard side of USS Mustin (DD 413) on May 26, 1940

A Curtiss SBC-3 scout bomber of VS-6 from the USS Enterprise, flies up the starboard side of USS Mustin (DD 413) on May 26, 1940. The SBC was the last combat biplane for the Navy, but did not see combat in WWII. Some 40 were headed for France on a French carrier, but when France was conquered by Germany in June 1940, the SBCs were diverted to the French island of Martinique and were eventually scrapped. However, five of the French SBCs that were not aboard the carrier reached England where they were named “Cleveland,” and they were used as instructional airframes.

Review by Cmdr. Peter B. Mersky, USNR (Ret.)

A new addition to Osprey’s Fleet series (No. 7), this new title by a recently established author, who works at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, describes the American Navy and its ships just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor Dec. 7, 1941, thrust the U.S. into World War II.

Desperately trying to remain neutral, or at least out of the growing conflict overseas, America, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his cabinet of experienced long-time military advisers and other diplomatic specialists, were having a very hard time of it. It was only the surprise attack from the very ambitious and also worried Japanese in the first daylight hours of another supposed quiet Sunday in what many considered paradise so far from the U.S. mainland, that proved the now-obvious falsehood of the value of remaining neutral.

As lines of men formed, anxious to join what they supposed would be a quick revenge against Japan’s bold but ultimately unsustainable war against its eastern rivals, led by the U.S., the U.S. Navy was making a quick assessment of what it had left in its forces, so terribly decimated in the waters of Pearl Harbor.

Lardas’ book focuses on battleships and includes a few photos of other ships, including carriers, which were quickly taking the battleship’s place as the capital ship of most navies able to build and/or operate them during the war, thereby providing a look at how the world was progressing to this important change in order of battle. The U.S. did maintain a few battleships after WWII, even recommissioning the USS Iowa (BB-61) and USS New Jersey (BB-62). The New Jersey bombarded rebel positions in Lebanon after the drastic destruction of Marine barracks on Oct. 23, 1983.

The Iowa is presently at the Port of San Pedro, California, and the New Jersey is at Camden, New Jersey, as museum ships open to the public.

There is a lot of rarely discussed information in this book, along with Edouard A. Groult’s fine artwork.