Dumbo (air-sea rescue)

From the start of hostilities in World War II, air-sea rescues by flying boats were not unknown, though they were incidental to the aircraft's stated mission. In the Pacific Ocean theater, the first purposely assigned rescue aircraft, a PBY Catalina, was given the mission of plucking downed airmen from the ocean. From January to August 1943, such rescue flights based at Guadalcanal saved 161 aviators.[9]

Beginning in November 1943, during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, American submarines were tasked with the rescue of U.S. Navy and Marine airmen downed during aircraft carrier attack operations.[10] Submarines were often vectored to a rescue site by aircraft providing coordinates, but too many layers of command slowed the cooperation considerably. Long-range naval patrol aircraft were fitted with extra radio equipment to allow direct contact with surface and underwater units. By the end of 1944, some 224 airmen had been rescued by submarine.[10]

In the last eight months of World War II, Dumbo operations complemented simultaneous United States Army Air Forces heavy bombing operations against Japanese targets.[10] On any large-scale bombing mission carried out by Boeing B-29 Superfortresses at least three submarines were posted along the air route, with Dumbo aircraft sent to patrol the distant waters and listen for emergency radio transmissions from distressed aircraft. At the war's final B-29 bombing mission on August 14, 1945, 9 land-based Dumbos and 21 flying boats covered a surface and sub-surface force of 14 submarines and 5 rescue ships.[10]

A Navy PBM Mariner flying boat rescues Lt. (jg) J. M. Denison, shot down while operating from the escort carrier USS Marcus Island (CVE-77) in 1945

Once Iwo Jima was taken by American forces, Dumbo missions had less distance to fly and could range closer to Japan, or remain on station for longer periods of time. After the Battle of Okinawa, distances were cut considerably and air-sea rescue missions observed a higher degree of success. From April to August 1945, the percentage of survivors rescued was higher than at any other point in the war.[11] Squadrons assigned Martin PBM Mariner flying boats made a significant contribution beginning in April.[11] Flying boat rescues sometimes took place while under fire from enemy shore batteries,[11] and on a few rare occasions from within an enemy-held harbor.[12]

Not all Dumbo operations were successful. Some Dumbo aircraft were lost to enemy action, weather or mechanical trouble, and some friendly fighter aircraft were shot down attempting to suppress enemy fire during a rescue. During one attempted rescue, a P-51 Mustang fighter pilot was taken prisoner by Japanese motor torpedo boats which fired at and drove away both the rescue submarine and the Dumbo aircraft. During another rescue, a fighter pilot clambered aboard the Higgins lifeboat that was dropped to him but was subsequently killed by fire from the shore of Chichijima 100 yards (90 m) away.[1]

In July 1945, a PBY Catalina Dumbo aircraft helped rescue distressed crewmen of the torpedoed cruiser USS Indianapolis. Airmen dropped rafts and supplies, but noticed that some of the more than 300 men in the water were being attacked by sharks. The pilot, Lieutenant Adrian Marks, defied regulations forbidding him to land in heavy seas and brought his flying boat to a rough landing amid 12-foot (4 m) swells. He and his crew filled the fuselage with sailors, then began using parachute cord to lash more survivors to the top of the aircraft's wing, damaging it severely. With the arrival of the destroyer USS Cecil J. Doyle, Marks and his crew were rescued along with the 56 sailors they saved. The unflyable Catalina was sunk by gunnery from the Doyle the next morning. Marks was later awarded the Air Medal for this heroic action.[13]

U.S. Coast Guard PB-1G search and rescue plane in flight, 1946

SB-29 "Super Dumbo", a post-World War II variant of the B-29 Superfortress, with an air-droppable EDO A-3 lifeboat rigged underneath

After World War II, sixteen B-29 bombers were converted for air–sea rescue duty and redesignated SB-29, nicknamed "Super Dumbo".[8] The first SB-29s were received by the Air Rescue Service in February 1947. The SB-29 served through the Korean War and into the mid-1950s.[8]

The United States Coast Guard operated Dumbo flights along the West Coast of the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s with the PB-1G, a B-17 variant; eighteen B-17Gs were set aside by the USAAF in 1946 for transfer via the U.S. Navy to the Coast Guard to be used as search and rescue aircraft.[14] Such a flight is depicted briefly in the 1954 film The High and the Mighty.[15]