The OS2U was the most widely used navy float plane of World War
II. They were carried aboard battleships and
cruisers. Cranes were used to place them in the water and
later recover them. The result was that conventional surface
ships could conduct their own flight operations, independent of
the aircraft carriers. The Kingfisher could perform a variety
of tasks - training, scouting, bombing, tactical and utility
missions such as towing aerial gunnery targets and chasing
practice torpedoes. Most OS2Us operated in the Pacific Theater where
Kingfisher pilots rescued many downed airmen. Some were
used in the Atlantic Ocean to hunt Nazi submarines.
The Navy contracted for the prototype
XOS2U-1 on March 22, 1937, and this airplane first flew in July
1938. The first production Kingfisher, the
OS2U-1, was delivered early in 1940 and assigned to the
battleship "USS Colorado." Fifty-four OS2U-1s soon
followed. By early 1941, Vought had built 159 OS2U-2s and the
Navy had stationed these airplanes at Naval Air Stations in
Pensacola, Florida, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Alameda,
California. Under the Lend-Lease program, the
United States sent many Kingfishers to Great Britain where they
served in the Royal Navy as the Kingfisher I. Other countries
received Kingfishers both during and after the war including
Australia, the Soviet Union, Uruguay, Chile, Mexico, the
Dominican Republic and Cuba.
|
