1942-Contin ued

27 February The seaplane tender Langley, formerly

first carrier of the U.S. Navy, was sunk by enemy air

attack 74 miles from her destination while ferrying 32

AAF P-40s to Tjilatjap, Java.

1 March Carrier Replacement Air Group 9 was

established at NAS Norfolk, Va., under command of

Commander William D. Anderson. It was the first

numbered Air Group in the Navy and marked the end

of the practice of naming air groups for the carriers to

which they were assigned.

1 March Ensign William Tepuni, USNR, piloting a

Lockheed Hudson, PBO, of VP-82 based at Argentia,

Newfoundland, attacked and sank the U-656 south-

west of Newfoundland-the first German submarine

sunk by U.S. forces in World War II.

2 March Regularly scheduled operations by the

Naval Air Transport Service were inaugurated with an

R4D flight from Norfolk, Va., to Squantum, Mass.

4 March First Raid on Marcus-Enterprise, as part of

Task Force 16 (Vice Admiral William F. Halsey),

moved to within 1,000 miles of Japan to launch air

attacks on Marcus Island.

7 March Patrol Wing 10 completed withdrawal from

the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies, and

established headquarters in Perth, Australia, for patrol

operations along the west coast of Australia.

7 March The practicability of using a radio sono-

buoy in aerial anti-submarine warfare was demonstrat-

ed in an exercise conducted off New London, Conn.,

by the K-5 blimp and the S-20 submarine. The buoy

could detect the sound of the submerged submarine's

propellers at distances up to three miles, and radio

reception aboard the blimp was satisfactory up to five

miles.

8 March Inshore Patrol Squadron VS-2-DI4, which

had arrived at Bora Bora, on 17 February, inaugurated

air operations from the Society Islands.

9 March VR-l, the first of 13 VR squadrons estab-

lished under the Naval Air Transport Service during

World War II, was established at Norfolk, Va.,

Commander Cyril K. Wildman commanding.

10 March A carrier air strike, launched from

Lexington and Yorktown in the Gulf of Papua, flew

over the 15,000-foot Owen Stanley Mountains on

UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION 1910-1995

113

the tip of New Guinea to hit Japanese shipping

engaged in landing troops and supplies at Lae and

Salamaua. One converted light cruiser, a large

minesweeper, and a cargo ship were sunk and other

ships damaged.

10 March A contract with the Office of Scientific

Research and Development became effective whereby

Johns Hopkins University agreed to operate a labora-

tory which became known as the Applied Physics

Laboratory. This was one of several important steps in

the transition of the radio-proximity fuze from devel-

opment to large scale production. Other steps taken

within the next 6 weeks included the organizational

transfer of Section T from the National Defense

Research Committee directly to the Office of Scientific

Research and Development and the relocation of most

of the Section T staff from the Carnegie Institution of

Washington to the Applied Physics Laboratory at Silver

Spring, Md.

26 March Unity of command over Navy and Army

air units operating over the sea to protect shipping

and conduct antisubmarine warfare was vested in the

Navy.

29 March The forward echelon of Marine Fighter

Squadron 212 arrived at Efate to construct an air strip

from which the squadron initiated operations in the

New Hebrides on 27 May.

6 April The administrative command Aircraft,

Atlantic Fleet, was redesignated Carriers, Atlantic Fleet.

7 April To provide aviation maintenance men with

special training required to support air operations at

advanced bases, Aircraft Repair Units 1 and 2 were

merged to form the Advanced Base Aviation Training

Unit (ABATU) at Norfolk, Va.

9 April A radio controlled TG-2 drone, directed by

control pilot Lieutenant Moulton B. Taylor of Project

Fox, made a torpedo attack on Aaron Ward (DD

483) steaming at 15 knots in Narragansett Bay.

Taylor utilized a view of the target obtained by a

television camera mounted in the drone, and direct-

ed the attack so that the torpedo was released about

300 feet directly astern of the target and passed

under it.

10 April A reorganization of the Pacific Fleet abol-

ished the Battle and Scouting Forces and set up new

type commands for ships and aviation. With the

change, titles of the aviation type commands became

Carriers, Pacific, and Patrol Wings, Pacific.