US Naval Dive Bombers Used for Search

I am trying to find out to what extent the VS squadrons actually participated in actual strikes in 1942. Were they always held back for searching duties or did they regularly get sent out on strike missions as well? Thanks in advance.

 

VS were frequently used in strikes; early examples include Enterprise’s attack on the Marshall Islands and Lexington and Yorktown hitting the Japanese at Lae and Salamaua. At Midway scouting was done primarily by PBYs, allowing VS-6 and-8 to participate in the morning attack; Yorktown’s VS-3 should be VS-5 was used for scouting and relocated Hiryu in the afternoon.

Hopefully someone can chime in, but I think in the 1930s VB and VS squadrons used different aircraft, but when they standardized on SBDs it made sense to maximize striking power when there was not a specific need for carrier-based scouting.

 

Thanks! That's good information. I assumed they were used for both but I was not sure. I did read that the scout dive bombers only carried 500lb bombs so that they would have more range. I guess they carried them while they searched in case they spotted something?

 

SBDs in both squadrons were the same, but for one example, at Santa Cruz VS-10 scouts carried 500-pounders and planted two of them on the carrier Zuiho.

Weight was also critical for launching; although they had catapults, our carriers mainly used rolling takeoffs. On June 4 at Midway, the first six SBDs of VS-6 carried one 500pdr, the rest added two 100pdrs, and VB-6 with the longest takeoff run had 1000pdrs; I don’t know if that was just circumstance or if it meant VB-6 was considered better able to manage the heavier load.

On June 5, Wade McClusky argued with Miles Browning about whether SBDs preparing to launch should carry 500s or 1000s, but this pertained equally to VS-6, VB-6, and VB-3 planes which had landed on Enterprise when Yorktown came under attack.

 

Some more about VS squadrons, pardon me if you're already familiar with this. In the mid-1930s there were separate scout and dive-bomber squadrons, not sure exactly what aircraft they were equipped with, but at one point I believe the scouts were two-seat fighters, presumably on the expectation that they might encounter and engage hostile scouts*. For example our smaller carriers Ranger and Wasp had two scout, one dive-bomber, and one fighter squadron. By 1940 this had transitioned to two VS squadrons with SB2Us and two fighter squadrons with F4Fs. They were CVs -4 and -7, so their squadrons were numbered 41-42 and 71-72. Presumably the VS squadrons did both scouting and attack. Not clear why these two had more fighters than our bigger carriers. Initially they did not carry torpedo planes (or torpedos), mainly to save size and cost; also their shorter flight decks and lower speed may have made it harder to launch heavy aircraft. By late December 1941 they were starting to organize torpedo squadrons, initially with TBDs; their VS squadrons were reduced from 18 to 15 planes.

* we might recall that the SBD proved reasonably effective in the air-to-air role.

 

Off the top of my head . . .

SBDs were pretty much interchangeable in the VS and VB roles. Pilots were also interchangeable as they had the same training; ergo VS, scouting, pilots could fly the VB mission and VB, bombing, pilots could just as easily fly the VS mission.

A classic example was “VS-5” aboard Yorktown at Midway. The squadron with the VS-5 designation was actually VB-5, the “real” VS-5 was back at Kaneohe and VB-5, for just the Midway deployment, was designated aboard the ship as VS-5. Has to do a lot with (1) how things were done in launch evolutions and (2) who was the senior VB/VS squadron commander.

(1) On Yorktown, when calling out which squadron was to man their planes, over the speakers, an announcement similar to “Now Scouting pilots man your planes.” Not so bad, but if you’ve two squadrons designated as VB. “Now Bombing pilots man your planes” might cause a little confusion. The quick fix was the unofficial redesignation of VB-5 to VS-5.
(2) Max Leslie, CO of VB-3 and a LCDR was senior to Wally Short, CO of VB-5 and a LT, so which squadron got to retain its real designation was a no brainer.

Thus all the Yorktown scouting missions were performed by VB-5 disguised as VS-5. No difference in training, all SBD drivers were trained for both missions so it really made no difference who was doing what.

Why did VS missions usually involve hauling just 500# bombs? Another simple answer . . . they could go farther with a 500# bomb than they could with a 1000# bomb. More gas, longer endurance. That was the purpose after all, go out on one bearing dogleg to left or right depending on mission parameters and come back on another. Early on, the mission was to go out and if the target was located, report and shadow, not necessarily attack. By late summer, early fall of 1942 that changed to locate, report and then attack if they thought they could get away with it.

So, when did VS squadrons go away? Long about February-March 1943 there were some reorganizations. We see, for examples, Air Group 11 going out to the Solomons to operate from Guadalcanal, VF-11, VT-11, VB-11 and VS-11. While at Espiritu Santo on the eve of moving up to Guadalcanal, VS-11 was redesignated as VB-21 and the VS-11 designation went away forever. Similarly with Air Group 10, VS-10 became VB-20; in Air Group 9, VS-9 became VB-19. Examples of a fleet-wide changes; you can track these redesignations perusing the BuAer weekly aircraft location reports for the February-March 1943 period. All the VS squadrons were redesignated as VB whatever. This was a recognition that the roles and missions were the same there was no longer a need to have squadrons designated as one or the other.

But wait! At the same time, the in-shore scouting squadrons, shore based and assigned to naval districts with such arcane designations as VS-1-D3 (translating as Scouting Squadron 1 - 3d Naval District) or VS-1-7D (Scouting Squadron 1- 7th Naval District) were put under Fleet Air Wings rather than naval districts. With that move all those squadrons were redesignated as VS with numbering starting in the 30’s and going up into the 60’s. Most of the district in-shore squadrons prior to the change operated float planes such as the OS2N or SOC but as time went on they migrated to SBDs and by the end of the war some were flying SB2Cs.

Meanwhile the pressing need to enlarge VF contingents on fleet carriers led to the demise of two VB squadrons per air group and we see much larger VF squadrons (eventually by January 1945 being separated in two squadrons, a VF and a VBF), one VB squadron, and one VT squadron as a standard complement with the VT and VB squadrons gradually reducing is size to allow more VF. By the bitter end, there was much talk about elimination VB squadrons all together and letting the VF/VBF drivers haul the freight, as it were, as they could perform the divebombing mission just as well. And the writing on the wall was apparent for the VT squadrons as well, primarily because no one had a navy or merchant fleet at which to throw torpedoes, though that axe did not fall until 1946 or so.

 

This thread includes some useful reports provided by @USNA1991 detailing aircraft of various carriers and squadrons in late 1941-early 1942:

USS Wasp's aircraft | WWII Forums (ww2f.com)

 

Up until 1941 the carrier based VB and VS squadrons might, or might not have, operated different aircraft, however, for the most part by the end of 1941 most VS and VB squadrons in an air group were homogeneous in composition. Noted below are VB and VS squadrons at the end of December 1940 compared to at the end of December 1941.

Lexington
VB-2 in 1940 operated 18 SB2U and two newly received SBDs; by the end of 1941, 18 SBDs
VS-2 in 1940 operated 18 SBC; by the end of 1941, 20 SBDs

Saratoga
VB-3 in 1940 operated 17 SB2U and one N3N; by the end of 1941, 21 SBDs
VS-3 in 1940 operated 18 SBC and two newly received SBDs; by the end of 1941, 22 SBDs

Ranger
VS-41 in 1940 operated 18 SBU. VS-41 would be redesignated VF-42 March 1941 and change to F4Fs.
VB-4 in 1940 operated 17 SB2U and 3 SBC. VB-4 would be redesignated VS-41 March 1941 (to replace the VS-41 that had changed to VF-42) and by the end of 1941 operated 15 SB2Us
VS-42 in 1940 operated 10 SBU; by the end of 1941, 19 SB2Us

Yorktown
VB-5 in 1940 operated 17 BT and one SBC; by the end of 1941, 18 SBDs
VS-5 in 1940 operated 17 SBC; by the end of 1941, 18 SBDs and 2 SNJ

Enterprise
VB-6 in 1940 operated 18 BT; by the end of 1941, 19 SBDs
VS-6 in 1940 operated 18 SBC; by the end of 1941, 18 SBDs

Wasp
VB-7 – n/a became VF-71 in November 1940
VS-71 in 1940 operated 15 SBU and one TBD; by the end of 1941, 17 SB2Us and one TBD
VS-72 in 1940 operated 18 SB2U; by the end of 1941, 18 SB2Us

Hornet
VB-8 did not operate in 1940; in December 1941 operated 19 SBCs
VS-8 did not operate in 1940; in December 1941 operated 22 SBCs

I would suspect the number of available aircraft of each type might have something to do with the variations and the increasing availability of the SBD resulting in standardizing.

Interesting to note that the VB and VS designations with just that nomenclature with which we’re most familiar came about in a 1 July 1937 reorganization:

On Lexington:
VB-5B became VB-2
VF-2B became VF-2
VS-3B became VS-2
VB-1B became VT-2 coming over from Ranger

On Saratoga:
VB-2B became VB-3
VF-6B became VF-3
VS-2B became VS-3
VT-2B became VT-3

On Ranger:
VB-3B became VB-4
VF-5B became VF-4
VS-1B became VS-41
VS-4B became VS-42 coming over from Saratoga

On Yorktown:
VB-7B became VB-5
VF-7B became VF-5
VS-7B became VS-5
VT-7B became VT-5

On Enterprise:
VB-8B became VB-6
VF-8B became VF-6
VS-8B became VS-6
VT-8B became VT-6

 

Interesting. In 1940 the VS squadrons all had biplanes except for VS-72, which was starting the transition to SB2Us for Wasp and Ranger. These two ships had SBUs while the larger carriers with the main fleet in the Pacific had the newer SBCs. This presumably made maintenance and logistic support easier and may have reflected a feeling that the Lexington and Yorktown classes were the "first team".

The VB squadrons all had monoplanes, so at that point they had significantly different capabilities from the VSs. This probably reflected a gradual transition to the new aircraft rather than a deliberate distinction between VB and VS (ironically, the planes with the heavier bombload also had greater range for scouting).