This was taken from a post on April 15, 2006.
Mark E. Horan wrote:
The Lexington Strike Group, 7 May 1942:
Lexington ranged 50 aircraft for the Air Group strike force on 7 May: 10 F4Fs (VF-2) 28 SBDs (10 VS-2, 3 CLAG, 15 VB-2) & 12 TBDs (VT-2) with aircraft arranged in that order. Doctrine called for the squadron aircraft to be spotted in, and thus take off, in reverse order (rear of formation first, leaders last). For the SBDs & TBDs, the numbers in parenthesis are division organization (division # - aircraft #). Unfortunately, no record exists for the individual plane numbers in VF-2. Remember, only the TBDs had folding wings, and they would be tightly packed as far aft as possible. Given that the aircraft were spotted correctly, the order was as following, forward to aft:
VF-2, 10 F4Fs: CLAG escort (2 a/c), VB-2 escort (4 a/c), VT-2 escort (4 a/c)
VS-2, 12 SBDs w/1x500# & 2 100# bombs: S-17 (2-5), S-16 (2-4), S-8 (2-3), S-9 (2-2), S-10 (3-1), S-12 (1-5), S-13 (1-4), S-3 (1-3), S-2 (1-2), S-1 (1-1), S-4 (Ault-3), CLAG (Ault).
[CLAG section (Ault) has been included with VS-2 (2) & VB-2 (1)]
VB-2, 16 SBDs w/1x1000# bomb: B-12 (Ault-2), B-5 (3-5), B-16 (3-4), B-18 (3-3), B-14 (3-2), B-13 (3-1), B-11 (2-5), B-10 (2-4), B-9 (2-3), B-8 (2-2), B-7 (2-1), B-6 (1-5), B-4 (1-4), B-3 (1-3), B-17 (1-2), B-1 (1-1).
VT-2, 12 TBDs w/1xMkXIII torpedo: T-12 (2-6), T-11 (2-5), T-10 (2-4), T-9 (2-3), T-8 (2-2), T-7 (2-1), T-6 (1-6), T-5 (1-5), T-4 (1-4), T-3 (1-3), T-2 (1-2), T-1 (1-1).
In addition to the above, the air group had 19 more aircraft, 11 F4Fs and 8 SBDs. Of these, 10 were in the air: 4 F4Fs (VF-2) on CAP and 6 SBDs (2 VB-2, 4 VS-2) on IAP (inner air patrol). The 4 F4Fs (VF-2) of the relief CAP were likely spotted forward of the island on the starboard deck edge where they did not interfere with the launching of a strike group - the ship routinely spotted four relief fighters here. The remaining 3 F4Fs (VF-2: 1 spare, 2 unserviceable) and 2 SBDs (VS-2 - unserviceable [S-7 was lost on 4/30]) were spotted below
Hope this helps. Also, thanks for all the nice comment made on the prior pages
Mark E. Horan
The above was reposted verbatim from a print out, with the correction of one typo and the inclusion of an explanation of IAP (Inner Air Patrol), for those who might not know what that meant. Any new typos above are my fault and not the fault of the original poster.
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Martin"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne
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