Naval Aviation crisis 75 years ago

I found this drawing that I did when I was 16, in 1942. It is a portrait of John L. Smith who fought in an F4F on Guadalcanal when things were pretty desperate . His compatriot was Marion Carl and other Marine Corps pilots. At one point they were to 4 airplanes before reinforcements arrived. This was one of my better efforts, I think. It was displayed in the high school lobby beside the board listing kids that were in the service and the KIA list.
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Thanks, everyone. That piece is all about the great men who , at that time, stiffened our resistance to what then was an overwhelming threat. It isn't about who did the drawing but about a Medal Of Honor winner who fought along side Marion Carl and a lot of other great guys.

 

Yes, there was Smith, Carl, Galer, and Foss during that battle. They lost a lot of people, planes, and ships but eventually the Japanese withdrew from that group of islands and the withdrawal continued for another three years.

 

Having been under several strafing runs I clearly remember the trail of muzzle gas and the string of empty brass mixed with a guttural roar of the Cal. 50's. Early in the war (41-42) the fighters from Sarasota Airbase would practice by following the leader's splash of his shots in the water off shore from our house. Then they would come over in a string of maybe 10 P-40's and shoot at the "splash targets". Our little cottage just happened to be under them when they fired at an altitude of maybe 400 ft. The brass and links would land on our roof sometimes and I had a belt that I made of them that was probably 20 feet in length. The days of the war were sure different.

 

You're welcome. I have many fond memories of when the airbases were all activated . There were probably ten of them nearby we saw a lot of exciting stuff by just about every type of aircraft you could think of. Many mornings just after sunrise I would walk the beach after a swim and spot something coming up the beach way below the horizon and one time it was a Martin B-26 at 50 feet. I saw a P-47 at low enough altitude to be leaving a trail of twisted tip streamers as he did slow rolls. One of the most exciting shows was put together to impress military representatives from South America and they paraded everything that they could get into the air and had a HUGE flyby from south to north . They were just off the beach and not very high to impress the spectators assembled on Longboat Key, just north of us. The rumble was earth shaking and it took several hours of flying to complete it. I doubt that our visitors noticed that that the same airplanes flew by twice sometimes. I noticed the training numbers on them and saw them more than once. Sarasota Airbase had equipment parked in every bare spot that was available. It was quite a show. B-17's, P-38's, P-39's, P-40's, B-26's, B-25"s, B-24's , and P-47's took part. The P-51 wasn't on the scene yet. There were a few Navy plane mixed in, too.