PBY's

[Capt. Crosswind]

PBY Nav technique & Pearl Harbour

Thanks IME - If you think about a 20 hour sortie out of an island base in the Pacific such as Midway, a one degree error through out means you miss the base by 40nm !! Throw in any evasion tactics requiring course changes & flying in/below cloud cover & you can see those Cat Navs must have used sharp pencils on their plot. I guess in emergency you could call up for HF/DF ?

Thanks PaperTiger - Historian L Deighton credits the sinking to the PBY which was the first mention I had heard of a PBY in either books or doco's.This raises an interesting point - Condor spots a sub at 0342 & Ward starts to hunt for it ,finally sinking it at 0630 or thereabouts with the PBY's assistance . Meanwhile they must have been reporting back to Pearl & yet the fleet ( less than 10 miles from this action) remain at normal harbour routine. Looks like someone at HQ was remiss in not having the fleet closed up at action stations, at least for submarine threat ??