Lt. Don Carroll Pilot Float Plane V?? USS Boston CA-69 & New Jersey BB-62


A member of the USS Boston CA69 & New Jerseys BB-62 units who served on board these ships towards the end and after the war. Don also tested the last new float plane developed for the Navy (the SC1 Sea Hawk see above)

Work In pogress 4/29/2001

Don Carroll was born on January 20 1923 in Iowa City, Iowa. His father Louis owned a grocery store during my early years, his mother Mary was a house wife and mother to Don and his brother and sister. He graduated from High School in Hamburg, Iowa.

Don: "I got a great car when I was a Junior, it was a Modle "T" four door sedan, named Bubbles,(we painted it with house paint, all sized spots). I started college at Fort Dodge Iowa Junior College in Sept. 1940 and left in July 1941. I was lucky to have traveled all of the US west of the Mississippi River. My brother was too young for WWII, and Sister was helping in the local hospital as an aide. My family lived too far from any war industries to be able to work in any.

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I enlisted in the Navy on August 13, 1941 and was 18 the previous January. I guess my occupation was student and I played in Dance Band. Don beat the draft by 2 years. He got the draft notice to report while he was in Pasco, Washington Naval Air Station.

. <- The Strand

Don: "I heard about the attack on Pearl while I was in school in San Diego, we all found out by being mustered and sent to the Silver Strand to guard against Japanese landings, (boy that was a joke) there wasn't a brave boy among us and who had ever seen a Sub-machine gun?

My friends who lived in California knew where Pearl was, I don't know about those back home. I had enlisted on the advise of my Father, he had been and infantry 2nd Lt. in France in WWI, he said stay as far away from being a foot slogger as possible. I passed test to be a Gunners Mate Striker while in "Boots" and sure enough I was sent to Hospital Corps School. I wanted to be a Gunner due to an "Asiatic GM1/c that was my boss for a month of temp. duty in the Armory at Great Lakes.

I was not married when I enlisted, but kept up a "V" mail romance with my high school sweet heart, Helen,
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We were later married, and still are 58 years later. My mother had the little flag with a star,she kept it in her front window, Dad as an active American Legionaire and WWI Vet, would never let any one forget that he had a son in the Navy.

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Don: "I was trained in Scout planes (float) to fly from Battleships and Cruisers. After 2 years as Test and acceptance, in 1945/46 I flew SC-1 single place scouts and was attached to the Cruiser Boston CA-69 during her decomissioning

A good shot of the Bostons hanger deck and catapult arrangement.
and then the Battleship New Jersey. The (factory) testing that we did was pretty simple. We would do a walk around, make sure all the pieces were fastend on. Cockpit check see that all guages were where they were supposed to be. Start up and check that all engine guages were recording as they were expected. Since this was a single place plane, we had no back up of the checks. If all the flight controls worked we would do a couple of run ups and then taxi to active runway. At this point, I don't know what the other guys did but I would say a short prayer, and shove the throttle to take off settings,, release the brakes and hang on. The air tests were usually rather routine, after getting 6 to 7 thousand feet. I would go through various gentle manuvers, and gradually get more and more violent, climb up another 3000 feet and do stalls and recovery to check actual stall speed and recovery charictoristics. If nothing made too many unusual noises and I was still in control, a high speed run and a high angle div e and pull out, (no less than 4000 feet) save room if you had to bail out. This just about did it, so if landing patern was clear would do a very tight down-wind and landing, simulate "at sea landing" I never found any serious problems, but some of the guys did have problems that were corrected before delivery. The most frightening thing about testing was visiting the plant for regular inspections of the production line. No one had the faintest idea what they were building, "just hook the red wire to the red wire -- rivet this thing on to that place, and so on. But in the end there it was a nice blue airplane. I did have one very scary time, while doing stalls, I over corrected and went into and inverted spin, (not recommended)


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Pick up procedures:

The hanger deck was, from from stargoard hull to port hull and was the same length for and aft. We could store 3 A/C, and have space to do maintenance, and no the wings on the SC-1 did not fold. The hanger was in the extreme aft section, this was directly below the catapults. Landing procedure was. The ship would take up a heading so wind was 45 degrees off the port bow, the pilot made a fly by at 500 feet and started a 360 degree turn to the left, the ship would make a 90 degree turn to port, thus making a moon shaped "slick" the plane would then land in this smooth water, and taxi up to the ship. The main float had a hook near the front. during this time the ship would "stream" a large net, (called a sled,) from the end of the port catapult, and the pilot would just taxi onto the "sled" and shut down, the hook would hold the plane in place and a hook was dropped to the pilot who hooked it to a hoisting ring forward of the cockpit. Plane and pilot were hoisted onto the catapult. During this operation the ship never slowed below 25 kts except for a very brief slow down to allow the plane to taxi onto the "sled". If the pilot was doing his job, and landed close to "sled" the slow down was only a minute or less.

The Boston was a heavy cruiser, it was later converted to a missile ship of some kind. When I was on-board. we had 3 Pilots and 23 enlisted crew. The ship had an elevator in the aft section of the ship. we could store 3 A/C in a hanger deck and the planes were raised to main deck during "flight quarters" and secured to the catapult, I was only on her for about 1 month and we spent all time tied up in San Francisco. We were charged with getting the ship into moth-ball readiness. The SC-1 was as you said. it could be rigged for floats or landing gear. I ran tests on this during production in 1944/45 and was released to inactive duty. Some genius in personnel found that I had tested this plane and also went through VO/VCS training. so I was recalled for the Boston clean up, and during this time I had free run to run evaluation on the SC-1 as a float plane. It was a great plane to fly, could get up to 300 kts, and still slow down to around 65 Kts.


BB62 The USS New Jersey

After my short tour in San Fran, I was sent to the BB-62 as exec of the AV div., we had 4 Pilots but only 3 planes (SC-1). I spent the next 7 months helping get the division set up from OS2U's to the SC. It handled better off the catapult than the old OS2U mostly because of the added power and only one occupant. We did get a break on armament from a 30 Cal to two 50 Cal guns. I did not serve aboard either ship until after WWII was over. I went from flight training to Port Columbus Ohio as a Test/ferry pilot. during the 2 plus years there I had the "fun" of flying every single engine A/C that was in service. I even got a shot at the FG-1, which was a modified F4U with a HUGE engine, and a larger prop than on the F4U, I put the FG-1 up to 400 Kts in level flight and was not even close to max.


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The float version of the N3N trainer "the yellow peril" on the water & the SO3C Sea Mew

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The OS2U Kingfisher land variant and a O3U3





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HAd there been no war I would have graduated from College and gone into the grocery business with my dad, and hated every minute of it. My true love was aviation and that was to be my major in College. I was released to inactive duty in 1947. returned to mid-west and went back to College. Started again in 1948 at Northwest Missouri State College in Maryville, Missouri. I took a job with Montgomery Ward and in 1951 was called back to duty, but was busted on my physical due to perforated ear drums. I was asked to go to Landing Signal training, but I declined. I had landed on a carrier enough to know that LSO was a job I did not want. I attended "week end' ( Reserves) training and was retired in 1967..


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