AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 93 / 335

Plate 93 of 335 · Second World War · Carrier torpedo bomber

Douglas TBD-1 Devastator

TBD-1 1512 ‘6-T-2’, painted as Douglas TBD-1 Devastator BuNo 1512, ‘6-T-2’ of Torpedo Squadron Six (VT-6), USS Enterprise, as spotted for launch at the Battle of Midway on 4 June 1942, about two hours before it was lost with Ensign Severin Rombach and ARM2c Wilburn Glenn: a three-seat carrier torpedo bomber with a Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp radial in a NACA cowling, a three-blade propeller, a long framed greenhouse canopy over the three crew, a low wing with corrugated upper skin and outer panels that folded upward, main wheels that retracted only halfway into fairings under the wing, and a Mk 13 torpedo slung semi-recessed under the belly, shown tail down on its wheels with the wings spread: non-specular Blue Gray upper surfaces and fuselage sides over Light Gray undersides, black propeller blades, a white star on a blue disc without the red centre on each side of the rear fuselage and above and below each wing, and a black ‘2’ ahead of the fuselage star, as photographed aboard Enterprise in May and June 1942 (no Devastator survives anywhere; shape from a TBD-1 three-view, scaled to the published dimensions and checked against wartime photographs; the photographs are black and white, so the colours are the standard 1942 US Navy finish, the upper port wing star follows the rule of the time rather than a photograph, and the canopy is shown closed).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Douglas TBD-1 Devastator BuNo 1512, ‘6-T-2’ of Torpedo Squadron Six (VT-6), USS Enterprise, as spotted for launch at the Battle of Midway on 4 June 1942, about two hours before it was lost with Ensign Severin Rombach and ARM2c Wilburn Glenn: a three-seat carrier torpedo bomber with a Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp radial in a NACA cowling, a three-blade propeller, a long framed greenhouse canopy over the three crew, a low wing with corrugated upper skin and outer panels that folded upward, main wheels that retracted only halfway into fairings under the wing, and a Mk 13 torpedo slung semi-recessed under the belly, shown tail down on its wheels with the wings spread: non-specular Blue Gray upper surfaces and fuselage sides over Light Gray undersides, black propeller blades, a white star on a blue disc without the red centre on each side of the rear fuselage and above and below each wing, and a black ‘2’ ahead of the fuselage star, as photographed aboard Enterprise in May and June 1942 (no Devastator survives anywhere; shape from a TBD-1 three-view, scaled to the published dimensions and checked against wartime photographs; the photographs are black and white, so the colours are the standard 1942 US Navy finish, the upper port wing star follows the rule of the time rather than a photograph, and the canopy is shown closed). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.2 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (TBD-1); engine, crew and dimensions are for the TBD-1 1512 ‘6-T-2’ modelled here.

History

The Devastator

In 1934 the US Navy asked for a new torpedo bomber for its carriers, and Douglas answered with a design that was modern for its day: an all-metal low-wing monoplane with a Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp radial, an enclosed cockpit under a long glazed canopy for its three crew, main wheels that retracted halfway into the wing, and outer wing panels that folded upward under hydraulic power to save room on deck and in the hangar. The XTBD-1 first flew on 15 April 1935, and the navy ordered 129 production TBD-1s, which joined Torpedo Squadron Three aboard USS Saratoga in October 1937.

The Devastator was the first monoplane of its kind on an American carrier, and for a few years it was the most advanced carrier torpedo bomber in the world. It could carry a Mk 13 torpedo under the fuselage or bombs, and for level bombing the middle crewman lay prone beneath the pilot and aimed through a window in the belly with a Norden bombsight. But naval aircraft moved on quickly in the late 1930s, and when the United States went to war in December 1941 the Devastator was slow, lightly armed and unprotected, and its replacement, the Grumman Avenger, was not yet ready. Its torpedo was worse: the Mk 13 had to be dropped low and slow, and it often ran deep or failed to explode.

In early 1942 TBDs from Enterprise, Yorktown and Lexington raided the Marshall and Gilbert Islands and New Guinea, and in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May they helped to sink the light carrier Shoho. At Midway on 4 June 1942 the torpedo squadrons of Hornet, Enterprise and Yorktown attacked the Japanese carriers without fighter cover. Of the 41 Devastators that went in, only six came through the attack, and none of their torpedoes hit; all fifteen of Hornet’s Torpedo Squadron Eight were shot down, and Ensign George Gay was its only survivor. Their attacks drew the Japanese fighters down low just as the American dive bombers arrived overhead, and the dive bombers sank three carriers within minutes. The Devastator was withdrawn from the front line soon afterwards. No complete Devastator survives; several lie on the seabed, in the lagoons of the Marshall Islands and elsewhere in the Pacific, and none is in a UK museum.

This airframe

TBD-1 BuNo 1512 ‘6-T-2’

1512The airframe modelled

Bureau Number 1512 was a TBD-1 of Torpedo Squadron Six (VT-6), led by Lieutenant Commander Eugene Lindsey, aboard USS Enterprise. It was photographed on Enterprise’s lift in May 1942, with its wings folded, and again on the morning of 4 June 1942, at the front of the squadron’s aircraft ranged on the flight deck for the strike against the Japanese carriers at Midway. About two hours later it was shot down in the torpedo attack, and its crew, Ensign Severin Rombach and Aviation Radioman Second Class Wilburn Glenn, were killed; Lindsey and most of his squadron were lost with them. The model shows it as it was spotted that morning, tail down on its wheels with its wings spread and a Mk 13 torpedo aboard: non-specular Blue Gray upper surfaces and fuselage sides over Light Gray undersides, a white star on a blue disc, without the red centre that was deleted in May 1942, on each side of the rear fuselage and above and below each wing, a black ‘2’ ahead of the fuselage star, and black propeller blades. Its shape comes from a TBD-1 three-view, scaled to the published dimensions and checked against wartime photographs. The photographs are black and white, so the colours are the standard US Navy finish of 1942; the star on top of the port wing follows the rule of the time rather than a photograph, no serial or full squadron code can be read in the photographs and none is painted, and the canopy, open as the crews boarded, is shown closed.

Where to see one

Not on charge

No complete Devastator survives anywhere. Several lie on the seabed off the Marshall Islands and elsewhere in the Pacific.

All 335 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.