OT SBD Dogfight

[niceguy2005]

Anyone else catch the dogfight show on the History Channel last night? I had never before heard the story of Swede Vejtasa's and how he shot down 3 Zeros in a dogfight. I was a little skeptical of the show's claim that Swede was pulling 9Gs in his SBD, but it was certainly a spectacular feat.

[dpstafford]

I've been watching those, but I must have missed that one. And SBD taking out three Zeros?!?

Must have been after the "bonus" expired.....[:D]

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: dpstafford

I've been watching those, but I must have missed that one. And SBD taking out three Zeros?!?

Must have been after the "bonus" expired.....[:D]

Most certainly. [:D]

Iirc it was May 42 and Swede was an SBD pilot on Yorktown. I missed what his mission was and why he was flying without other escorts...perhaps on patrol.

Swede used the fact that his SBD could take a higer G turn to continually turn after each pass of a zero to go head on with the next one. Swede pulled consecutive high G turns for 17 minutes before a zero finally made a mistake and swede got in behind it and downed it with a well aimed burst. However by this time a 3rd zero had joined the fight. After downing the first zero Swede caught another one making a high banking turn. He pulled his SBD almost vertical and before he stalled was able to shoot down the zero as it passed in front of him.

The final zero positioned itself for a head on attack and was closing fast. It was trying to ram him. Swede turned away at the last minute and his wing clipped the plane. It went down and somehow the SBD survived.

pretty amazing

[JJB647]

If I rememeber correctly Yorktown actually put SBD's up as CAP to augment the small number of Wildcats.
Dogfights is a great show. The one about Taffy 3 at the Battle off Samar is my favorite.

[kilowatts]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

I missed what his mission was and why he was flying without other escorts...perhaps on patrol.

In the early war US carriers frequently used SBDs as a low-level anti torpedo bomber screen. IIRC this mission would often be given to the scouting squadron. Swede was lucky as well as good; out of 8 SBDs flying patrol that day only 4 made it back to their ship.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: kilowatts

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

I missed what his mission was and why he was flying without other escorts...perhaps on patrol.

In the early war US carriers frequently used SBDs as a low-level anti torpedo bomber screen. IIRC this mission would often be given to the scouting squadron. Swede was lucky as well as good; out of 8 SBDs flying patrol that day only 4 made it back to their ship.

You know what they say better lucky than good...

But then if you are both you just might live to make history. [;)]

Iirc, the show said Swede was transfered to Big E and flew Wildcats. He was I think the first to shoot down 7 Japanese planes in a day.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: JJB647

If I rememeber correctly Yorktown actually put SBD's up as CAP to augment the small number of Wildcats.

Yorktown and Saratoga both I believe. I think the practice was discontinued after Coral Sea because the results weren't very good.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

ORIGINAL: JJB647

If I rememeber correctly Yorktown actually put SBD's up as CAP to augment the small number of Wildcats.

Yorktown and Saratoga both I believe. I think the practice was discontinued after Coral Sea because the results weren't very good.

i seem to remember (from Lundstrum) they prolonged the practice a bit after that (i could be wrong) - the SBDs were pretty much murder on Kates, but Zeros returned the favor for the SBDs.

[Sonny II]

ORIGINAL: dpstafford

......................

Must have been after the "bonus" expired.....[:D]

I was really surprised that the history channel did not mention that fact. Guess they wanted to make Swede look good.[:D]

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: Sonny II

ORIGINAL: dpstafford

......................

Must have been after the "bonus" expired.....[:D]

I was really surprised that the history channel did not mention that fact. Guess they wanted to make Swede look good.[:D]

I think this gives clear evidence that there should be an SBD dogfight bonus. Something on the order of +6 [:'(][:D]

[tsimmonds]

Wasn't it a flight of SBDs that shot up Sakai?

[Nikademus]

Yes, the SBD's accounted for approx 1 Val and 5 Kates but themselves lost 5 of their number to Zeros. The curious thing here.....is that per Lundstrom.....no Zeros were shot down by SBD's.

Was this documentary on Coral Sea?

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Wasn't it a flight of SBDs that shot up Sakai?

Yeah, but they weren't on CAP...

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

Yes, the SBD's accounted for approx 1 Val and 5 Kates but themselves lost 5 of their number to Zeros. The curious thing here.....is that per Lundstrom.....no Zeros were shot down by SBD's.

Was this documentary on Coral Sea?

"Dogfight" is on Military Channel (and maybe History Channel, and others) and it usually talks about one or two related aerial encounters (related - they may talk about a couple of dogfights in Vietnam in one show, or fighters over Europe in the next)... so it wouldn't have been a documentary on Coral Sea per se...

i remember Lundstrom talking about Swede V. in his books, but not this exploit.

[Nikademus]

Yes he gets some mentioned primarily in Vol II but is referenced (at least by index) only once in Vol I. I don't recall any SBD ever shooting down 3 Zeros. That would be an incredible feat...more so at Coral Sea given the Wildcat CAP's managed to shoot down zero zeros. (pardon the pun) [:)]

[BrucePowers]

I saw the show also. It was at Coral Sea.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: BrucePowers

I saw the show also. It was at Coral Sea.

Here is what Lundstrom has to say on it (The First Team page 250:
"...Scouting Five claimed four Zeroes shot down, one to Lieut (jg) Stanley W. Vejtasa, (later a renowned ace with Flatley's Fighting Ten). The Japanese, however, lost no fighters in this combat."

Nothing else is mentioned about Vejtasa in this volume (which goes through Midway).

Lundstrom's research is painstakingly meticulous - and i'm afraid i'd have to take his word over a History Channel production. Maybe they take some other events and lump it in?? i'll check to see what vol 2 says.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

ORIGINAL: JJB647

If I rememeber correctly Yorktown actually put SBD's up as CAP to augment the small number of Wildcats.

Yorktown and Saratoga both I believe. I think the practice was discontinued after Coral Sea because the results weren't very good.

i seem to remember (from Lundstrum) they prolonged the practice a bit after that (i could be wrong) - the SBDs were pretty much murder on Kates, but Zeros returned the favor for the SBDs.

You may be right about the SBDs not being on CAP after Coral Sea... SBDs did fight with Japanese when the Japanese were attacking USN carriers, but usually it was because returning flights of SBDs ran into the fight, or were on ASW "inner" patrol and ran into trouble that way.

[rtrapasso]

Well, it looks like it had to be Coral Sea or nothing - by early June (before Midway) Vejtasa was transferred to VFR-10 in San Diego to train as a Wildcat fighter pilot (which he excelled at...)

[wdolson]

ORIGINAL: irrelevant

Wasn't it a flight of SBDs that shot up Sakai?

No, it was TBFs. He saw the silluette and thought they were Wildcats. He zoomed in on the tail end charlie and found out too late that he made a mistake and his prey had rear turrets.

Here are a couple of sites about Swede's fight:
http://aviation-history.com/airmen/coralsea.htm
http://www.au.af.mil/au/goe/eaglebios/04bios/vejtas04.htm

Early in the war it was standard doctrine to use SBDs as back up CAP over carriers. The predominance of the Zero soon changed that practice and the Navy increased the size of the fighter squadron on carriers soon after. A few SBD pilots were moved to fighters when they proved adept at dog fighting. However, the results were mixed. Some were killed fairly quickly in fighters. Swede was one of the successful transitions.

BTW, I checked the pilot database and he is in the game.

Bill