First, thanks for the head's up on the availibity of catapults on the CVEs; I had read Tillman's book on the Wildcat and he specifically mentioned that the first CVEs, which were converted merchantmen (in the case of the RN's first escort carrier, I believe that it was a converted German Merchant ship), and there was little mention of cats after that. I have also just finished the memoirs of an Avenger pilot, and cannot for the life of me recall him mentioning that they ever used catapults, which means that it was so common that it never occurred to him to bring it up, or that it was so rare...
However, I think cat shots were used for special cases; most flight ops were CAPs and recon patrols where takeoffs would not be made from a crowded flight deck. Even for big raids, the SBDs and Turkeys would take off first, because they were slower and had more endurance than the fighters, which more often than not were there to protect the bombers and torpeckers, so their load was just drop tanks and bullets most of the time. They didn't need the cats unless they were grossly overloaded or at the front of a very crowded deck, as in the late war scenario where they finally figured out that fighter-bombers were just as effective as Helldivers and had the added advantage of not having a whiny rear gunner weighing them down.
Having said all that, I still believe that the part about Air Bosses not wanting their planes shot off the deck with a catapult is valid; do you remember in the movie The Bridges Over Toko-Ri where the carrier uses the props from the Corsairs and Skyraiders parked on the flight deck to help maneuver the ship into port? The CAG was beside himself over the wear and tear on his planes' engines (James Michener, who wrote the original book, took that from personal observation) and complains bitterly to the Captain of the ship, whose primary concern is getting into his docking space more quickly, not whether one of the aircraft's engines was going to wear out that much sooner and cr@p out on some young man over the Korean hinterlands.
cheers
horseback
|