Clear the Deck!: Aircraft Carrier Accidents of World War II

Aircraft carrier operations were a dangerous business, especially in wartime. When air operations are confined to a flight deck of 50,000 square feet (escort carrier size), it was one of the most hectic and hazardous places on earth. Accidents were bound to happen. In wartime, the stakes were even higher as heavily loaded and armed combat planes went about their missions in unprecedented numbers. Commonly, there was no alternate airfield, no time to lose, and absolutely no room for error.
Clear the Deck! showcases many never-before-published amazing and dramatic World War II-era, U.S. Navy battle damage, accident, and flight operations photographs gathered from the National Archives, National Museum of Naval Aviation, the Seattle s Museum of Flight, and numerous other collections.
This book features U.S. Naval aircraft in action from Eugene Ely to the Brewster Buffalo, to the ultimate fighters of World War II Corsairs, Hellcats, Tigercats, and Bearcats many coming to grief on pitching, rolling carrier decks. The action begins in the 1920s, heats up during the carrier battles of 1942-44, and concludes in the waters off the Japanese home islands as damaged fighters and torpedo bombers come back aboard ship often times with disastrous consequences.