What was the most important American warplane used in the Pacific Theater during World War II? The P40 Warhawk equipped the American Volunteer Group — the vaunted Flying Tigers — to stand against the Japanese when no one else could. The SBD Dauntless turned the tide at Midway. The F4F Wildcat held the line at Guadalcanal. Navy aviators in Hellcats slaughtered Japanese pilots by the thousands, while the B-29 Superfortress finally delivered the coup de gras.
All of those combat aircraft played a major role in our ultimate victory over the Japanese. However, one of the most important planes of the war sported a 450-horsepower engine and a cruise speed of 152 mph. The Vought OS2U-3 Kingfisher floatplane carried a pilot and a single gunner/radio operator. It was armed with but two M1919 Browning .30-caliber machineguns. It was old, slow, and ugly at the outset of the war.
However, the Kingfisher served as the eyes for American battleships while also rendering vital service in the search and rescue role. Kingfisher crews spotted the fall of heavy shot and rescued stranded Americans. The OS2U was one of the most pivotal planes of the war.
Radial-Powered Angel
Eddie Rickenbacker was the most successful American fighter ace of World War I. He shot down 26 enemy aircraft while flying French-built Nieuport and Spad fighters. Rickenbacker returned home after the war a hero and was later awarded the Medal of Honor.
Eddie Rickenbacker was too old to fight in World War II. However, he nonetheless used his celebrity status to support the war effort. Though originally an isolationist, when it became obvious that the Axis was never going to stop, he went all-in for Great Britain.
In 1942, US Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson gifted Rickenbacker the use of a B-17D Flying Fortress and asked him to tour air bases in the Pacific Theater. His mission was to asses conditions, offer support, and deliver a secret message to General Douglas MacArthur.
Unbeknownst to the crew, however, the bubble octant used for navigation onboard the plane had been damaged onboard a different plane in a hard landing. This defective device was then installed on Rickenbacker’s Fortress prior to a leg destined for Canton Island. The broken octant introduced a systematic bias to all of the navigator’s readings. The big plane subsequently wandered badly off course and ran out of fuel over open ocean.
Rickenbacker and seven Army crewmen survived the ditching and subsequently drifted thousands of miles in tiny life rafts. Everyone but Rickenbacker had been injured to one degree or another in the crash. They ran out of food after three days.
On day eight, a tern landed on Rickenbacker’s head. The WWI ace grabbed the bird, and the starving men ate it raw. They used whatever they couldn’t eat as bait to catch small fish.
One man died of exposure, and the survivors split up. However, on day 24, Rickenbacker and his fellow survivors heard the characteristic drone of a radial airplane engine approaching in the distance. The crew of a Vought OS2U-3 Kingfisher patrol plane had spotted them adrift at sea and landed.
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Rickenbacker lost 40 lbs. during the ordeal. However, following a few days’ rest, he resumed his journey and delivered his message to MacArthur. He was also personally responsible for the inclusion of basic fishing tackle with American aviators’ survival gear, something that continues to this very day. The ugly, slow airplane that effected his rescue was an unsung hero of the Second World War.
Origin Story
Developed by Vought engineer Rex Bessel in the 1930s the OS2U Kingfisher was an all-metal monoplane that could be configured for either land or sea operations. Bessel was later chief engineer for the F4U Corsair, the first fighter aircraft capable of sustaining 400 mph in level flight while fully loaded. The Kingfisher was to be a versatile utility plane capable of operation in some of the world’s most unforgiving environments.
The Kingfisher incorporated a variety of advanced concepts in its design. It was the first production aircraft to be constructed via spot welding, a process that created a smooth surface to minimize drag and resist mechanical deformation. Deflector plate flaps and drooping ailerons along with carefully designed spoilers increased lift and improved low-speed handling, critical features for the sorts of missions the Kingfisher was expected to perform. The plane was powered by a Pratt & Whitney R-985-4 Wasp Junior radial engine. A larger version of this same powerplant drove such planes as the T6 Texan.
The pilot was afforded a single .30-caliber Browning machinegun mounted low on the right side of the cockpit and synchronized to fire through the propellor arc. The pilot’s weapon was situated between the cylinder heads on the engine and carried 500 rounds. The rear gunner had another .30-caliber machinegun with 600 rounds on a Scarff ring mount. The Kingfisher could also carry a pair of small 100-lb. general purpose bombs or two 325-lb. aerially delivered depth charges. 1,519 airframes saw service.
Applications
The Kingfisher was well-established in US naval service by the onset of war. While the plane was used in a variety of roles, its most effective was as a shipboard spotter plane aboard American battleships and both light and heavy cruisers. What made the Kingfisher so effective was its means of launch and recovery.
These heavy battlewagons were equipped with a pair of steam catapults on their sterns, each of which could manage a single Kingfisher. These catapults launched the ungainly planes over a very short distance. Once the mission was complete, the warship would make a long, slow turn to create a flat space in its wake. The Kingfisher pilot would then land his plane in the relatively still water and taxi up to the stern of the ship. The vessel towed something called a sea sled that rode just below the water’s surface. Once secured atop the sled, a hoist on the deck lifted the plane and crew back up into position. This allowed the battleship commander access to a bird’s-eye view of the tactical situation.
The kingfisher was a fair-weather machine. Rough seas made recovery difficult. However, the vantage afforded by the Kingfisher crews linked to the ship via radio allowed accurate gunnery against both ship and shore targets. Particularly when combined with radar, the Kingfisher maximized the effectiveness of American battlewagons. The 16-inch rifles mounted on these massive ships accurately fired shells that weighed more than a VW Beetle out to 24 miles when properly spotted.
Denouement
The Kingfisher was used by the militaries of 10 different nations. Only eight examples survive today, none of which are flyable. The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum at Dulles International in Washington DC has one. The Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola sports another.
There is a Kingfisher on display with the USS North Carolina museum ship in Wilmington, NC. This example was recovered in 1963 from a crash site in Calvert Island, British Columbia. Volunteers at Vought restored the plane before gifting it to the battleship museum in 1971. There is also a restored Kingfisher originally sourced from Mexico included in the extensive aircraft collection on display at the battleship Alabama memorial in Mobile. I recall being impressed with this machine when I saw it perched on the stern of the big battleship as a kid. It is housed indoors today.
Fighters and bombers get all the press, because they are fast, powerful and sexy. However, sometimes the most important military machines are also the most humble. Nothing really works if you can’t keep the grunts fed, the weapons supplied, and everything pointed in the proper direction.
The Vought OS2U Kingfisher provided a vital service during World War II, something that could not have been done by any other machine. In so doing, the ungainly plane helped win the war for the Allies.
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