British Pacific Fleet and their part in the Invasion of Okinawa.

[Holbeach]

Corsairs on high CAP, Seafires or Firefly on medium CAP and Avenger on GA form the basis of attacks on Formosa and Sakishima airfields.

3rd part of this excellent analysis of the British involvement in 1945, by Drachinifel.

 

 

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Edited August 8 by Holbeach

[Gunfreak]

4 hours ago, Holbeach said:

Corsairs on high CAP, Seafires or Firefly on medium CAP and Avenger on GA form the basis of attacks on Formosa and Sakishima airfields.

3rd part of this excellent analysis of the British involvement in 1945, by Drachinifel.

 

 

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Carrier pilot is an excellent book for a personal take on a British FAA Corsair in the Pacific.

And Tidal Wave by Thomas McKelvey Cleaver deals with the last months of the war. Including the British pacific fleet off Okinawa and even the British flying over Japan itself.

[Cunctator]

The Kamikaze Hunters: Fighting for the Pacific, 1945 by Will Iredale is another good read about the topic. It follows a group of pilots from their training in the US, the August 1944 air strikes against Tirpitz through the final battles in the Pacific.

[Holbeach]

 

Here we have the first video by Naval historian, Drachinifel, detailing the reasons behind the British wanting to send a 120 ship fleet to the Pacific theatre of operations and the reasons why the Americans didn't want them to come. 

But they went anyway and proved themselves worthy, by attacking the Japanese main source of aviation fuel, on their way to their new base in Australia.

 

 

The British Fleet carrier task force leaves Australia and joins the American fleet attacking Okinawa and its job is to attack airfields on Sakishima which is flying Kamikaze raids against the Americans.

 

 

 

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Edited August 9 by Holbeach

[Holbeach]

More British Corsair action in the Pacific.

 

 

 

 

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Edited August 19 by Holbeach

[Holbeach]

 

USS Robin.

America asks for help with a Carrier and Britain responds with HMS Victorious.

The Pacific deployement in the words of the people who were there.

 

 

 

 

 

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Edited 7 hours ago by Holbeach

[Holbeach]

More British Corsair Carrier  action in the Far East.

You can clearly see the fully castoring tailwheel here.

 

 

[Holbeach]

End of the war for the British Pacific Fleet.

 

And the US Fleet for good measure.

 

 

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[Holbeach]

I'II put this here rather than start a new thread.

This is a good comparison between the British armoured and US un-armoured flight deck damage.

 

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[Mr_sukebe]

It was an interesting trade off, strike capability vs survivability.

The fact that US carriers post the Essex class used armoured decks probably says it all.

[Holbeach]

The Japanese also went down the armoured deck road, (IJN Taiho) but major flaws in the design drastically reduced the survivability and she didn't last long.

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