134

UNITED STATES NAVAL AVIATION 1910-1995

1943-Contin ued

ment of encircling allied bases. Rabaul remained

under air attack until the war's end, the last strike

being delivered by Marine Corps PBJs on 9 August

1945.

18 December On the basis of his belief that tests

indicated the practicability of ship-based helicopters,

the Chief of Naval Operations separated the pilot train-

ing from test and development functions in the heli-

copter program. He directed that, effective 1 January

1944, a helicopter pilot training program be conducted

by the U.S. Coast Guard at Floyd Bennett Field, N.Y.,

under the direction of the Deputy Chief of Naval

Operations (Air).

20 December The Naval Air Training Command was

established at Pensacola, Fla., to coordinate and direct,

under the Chief of Naval Operations, all Naval

Aviation training in the activities of the Primary,

Intermediate, and Operational Training Commands.

20 December Two Catalinas of Patrol Squadron 43,

at Attu, flew the first Navy photo reconnaissance and

bombing mission over the Kuriles.

20 December Commander Frank A. Erickson,

USCG, reported that Coast Guard Air Station, Floyd

Bennett Field, N.Y., had experimented with a heli-

copter used as an airborne ambulance. An HNS-I heli-

copter made flights carrying, in addition to its normal

crew of a pilot and a mechanic, a weight of 200

pounds in a stretcher suspended approximately 4 feet

beneath the float landing gear. In further demonstra-

tions early the following year, the stretcher was

attached to the side of the fuselage and landings were

made at the steps of the dispensary.

25 December Aircraft from a two-carrier task group

(Rear Admiral Frederick C. Sherman) attacked ship-

ping at Kavieng, New Ireland, as a covering operation

for landings by the Marines in the Borgen Bay area of

New Britain on the following day.

31 December Fleet Air Wing 17 departed Australia

and set up headquarters at Samarai on the tip of the

Papuan Peninsula of New Guinea.

1944

3 January Helicopter Mercy Mission-Commander

Frank A. Erickson, USCG, flying an HNS-l helicopter,

made an emergency delivery of 40 units of blood plas-

ma from lower Manhattan Island, N.Y., to Sandy Hook,

N.J., where the plasma was administered to survivors

of an explosion on the destroyer Turner (DD 648). In

this, the first helicopter lifesaving operation,

Commander Erickson took off from Floyd Bennett

Field, N.Y., flew to Battery Park on Manhattan Island

to pick up the plasma and then to Sandy Hook. The

flight was made through snow squalls and sleet which

grounded all other types of aircraft.

11 January The first U.S. attack with forward-firing

rockets was made against a German U-boat by two

TBF-I Cs of Composite Squadron 58 from the escort

carrier Block Island.

16 January Lieutenant Ug) S. R. Graham, USCG,

while en route from New York, N.Y., to Liverpool,

England, in the British freighter Daghestan made a 30

minute flight in an R-4B (HNS-l) from the ship's 60 by

80-foot flight deck. Weather during the mid-winter

crossing of the North Atlantic permitted only two addi-

tional flights and, as a result, the sponsoring

Combined Board for Evaluation of the Ship-based

Helicopter in antisubmarine warfare concluded that

the helicopter's capability should be developed in

coastal waters until models with improved perfor-

mance became available.

18 January Catalinas of VP-63, based at Port

Lyautey, Morocco, began barrier patrols of the Strait of

Gibraltar and its approaches with Magnetic Airborne

Detection (MAD) gear and effectively closed the strait

to enemy U-boats during daylight hours until the end

of the war.

29 January-22 February Occupation of the Marshall

Islands-Six heavy and six light carriers, in four

groups of Task Force 58 (Rear Admiral Marc A.

Mitscher), opened the campaign to capture the

Marshalls (29 Jan) with heavy air attacks on Maloelap,

Kwajalein, and Wotje. On the first day the defending

enemy air forces were eliminated and complete con-

trol of the air was maintained by carrier aircraft during

the entire operation. Eight escort carriers, attached to

the Attack Forces of the Joint Expeditionary Force,

arrived in the area early the morning of D-day. Aircraft

from the carriers flew cover and antisubmarine patrols

for attack shipping and assisted two fast carrier

groups, providing air support for landings on

Kwajalein and Majuro Atolls (31 Jan), Roi and Namur

(I Feb), and for operations ashore. The AGC com-

mand ship, used for the first time during this cam-

paign, provided greatly improved physical facilities for

the Support Air Commander. Here, the Support Air

Commander first assumed control of Target Combat

Air Patrol, previously vested in carrier units, and a