The Criticality of the WW II Use of the PBY Catalina Flying Boat
Contributed by Col Suellyn Wright Novak, USAF Ret, Alaska Veterans Museum Founding Executive Director
Talk about a plane starring in many vital roles—that’s the Consolidated PBY Catalina. She was originally designed as a search and rescue aircraft; thousands of Allied fliers and sailors owed their lives to the big, lumbering flying “Dumbo.” It was rugged and had long range (2,545 miles); therefore, it was ideally suited to the Aleutian Campaign. Powered by two 1,200 hp Pratt and Whitney Twin Wasp piston engines and sporting a high parasol wing, which lifted the engines above the spray of rough water, nevertheless it was slow, having a top speed of 179 mph. The joke was it was in danger of being struck from behind by birds. They had a combination of .30-cal and .50-cal machine guns in the bow turret, waist blisters, and a ventral tunnel position. They could also carry 4,000 pounds of bombs, depth charges, or torpedoes, which they would use in the Aleutians.
Fleet Air Wing Four lost four of six Catalinas at Dutch Harbor (June 3–4, 1942). The wing lost 23 fliers killed in action, three prisoners of war, and ten missing in action within a two-day period of blistering action. But the greatest asset was yet to occur. The loss of one Japanese Zero, flown by Petty Officer Tadayoshi Koga from the Ryujo, was to have immense repercussions. Koga had attacked the Dutch Harbor garrison. A bullet from a crashing PBY .50-cal severed the indicator line to the oil pressure gauges. Seeing the gauge reading zero, Koga headed toward nearby Akutan Island, the designated rescue spot by submarine for any downed aviators. He was to land the fighter, destroy it, and walk to the beach. Looking down, he mistook the tundra for a grassy field and lowered his landing gear. When he touched down, the marshy bog flipped his plane, breaking his neck.
On July 10th, LT William Thies and his crew, in a Catalina, found Koga’s Zero. On the 11th, a well-armed party headed for Akutan. The party found the badly decomposed body of Koga, still strapped in, with head and shoulders submerged in water. He had banged his head in his landing, may have been unconscious, and then drowned. He was buried nearby. A salvage team then removed the engine, set up tripods, and loaded the engine and the upside-down Zero onto sleds, which a bulldozer loaded onto a barge that was towed back to Dutch Harbor. After more study, it was sent to San Diego, where it was disassembled, studied, reassembled, test flown, and from this Zero came the tactics for U.S. fighters to best the Zero.
The crews of the Catalinas took off from Cold Bay, Dutch Harbor, and Otter Point at dusk, droning out at low level for 400 miles through the twilight darkness, then turning on a short base leg before heading back. Day patrols took off in the early morning as the night patrols were returning. Day patrols returned in late evening.
So, Alaska and the forgotten Aleutian Campaign actually contributed to the knowledge and tactics to defeat the Japanese Zero, a highly maneuverable fighter.
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