The Lockheed P-3 Orion often is extolled as the best antisubmarine warfare aircraft in the skies today, and the firm’s P-2 Neptune for many years was the backbone of Western airborne ASW forces. But Lockheed had much earlier produced the U.S. Navy’s first land-based ASW aircraft, the PBO-1 Hudson, which flew in the markings of several countries in a number of roles: ASW, bomber, photo reconnaissance, trainer, target tow, cargo, transport, and para- troop carrier.
This first Navy land-based ASW aircraft was adopted from the commercial Lockheed Model 14 Super Electra. That plane was a twin-engine, twin-tail aircraft that could accommodate up to 14 passengers. In April 1938, in preparation for a visit from the British Purchasing Commission, Lockheed engineers in just five days and nights produced a wooden mockup of a bomber-patrol variant of the Super Electra. The British liked it, but wanted a glazed nose for the navigator-bombardier; this change took just 24 hours.
The bomber configuration had an internal bomb bay and a defensive armament of five .30-caliber machine guns—two fixed in the nose, two in a dorsal power turret, and single, flexible gun in the belly. In June 1938, the British government placed a contract for 250 aircraft.
The plane, named the Hudson, was intended primarily as a coastal reconnaissance bomber for the Royal Air Force. (Since the merger of their army and naval air arms in 1918, the RAF had responsibility for coastal patrol and other land-based maritime air operations.) The first military variant flew on 10 December 1938, at Burbank, California. About 1,500 Hudsons were purchased for British and Australian service before the aircraft was included in American Lend-Lease (at which time the plane received the U.S. Army designation A-28; those with uprated engines were designated A-29 or B-34). Some of the early bombers could be fitted with benches for use as troop transports, being designated C-63. Lockheed also produced an improved variant of the design—the Model 18—as a military transport with the designations C-56, C-57, C-59, C-60, and C-66; the Navy called it the R50.
Some aircraft of the original British order were withheld for use by the U.S. Army Air Forces (AAF) and Navy. The U.S. Navy began flying the aircraft in October 1941 with the designation PBO-1, retaining the name Hudson and, initially, British markings. These were the U.S. Navy’s first land-based patrol aircraft, although early patrol planes with floats periodically had been fitted with wheels.
The PBO-ls were assigned to Patrol Squadron (VP) 82. During their short career with the squadron, the planes operated from Quonset Point, Rhode Island, and Argentia, Newfoundland, the latter one of the British bases made available in the 1940 destroyers- for-bases deal.
On 1 March 1942, southwest of Newfoundland, a VP-82 aircraft sank the U-656—the first German submarine destroyed by U.S. forces in World War II. Another PBO-1 from VP-82 sank the second, the U-503, on 15 March. The massive Army Air Forces ASW effort achieved its first U-boat score when an A-29 Hudson sank the U-701 on 7 July 1942, the third U-boat to be sunk by U.S. aircraft.
Meanwhile, RAF Hudsons also were sinking U-boats. And, in August 1941, a Hudson damaged the U-570, forcing her to the surface. The U-boat, unable to dive, promptly surrendered to the circling Hudson! (That submarine was taken in tow and subsequently recommissioned by the British as HMS Graph.)
In the event, only 20 PBOs were delivered to the U.S. Navy. VP-82 gave them up in October 1942. The U.S. Army Air Forces flew the Hudson in the bomber, ASW, photo reconnaissance, target tow, and trainer roles. And, a Lockheed Hudson even starred—well, co-starred—with Errol Flynn, Ronald Reagan, and Raymond Massey in the 1942 war thriller Desperate Journey.
When production ended in May 1943, a total of 2,941 Hudsons had been delivered, including the 20 Navy PBO-1 variants and 300 AT-18 training models for the AAF. The AAF flew about 1,200 Hudsons in various roles, and some 100 went to the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard for use as R50 transports. Wartime foreign users included Brazil and China as well as British Commonwealth air forces. Of the 112 commercial Model 14 aircraft built by Lockheed, the Japanese acquired 30 before World War II. Another 119 were built under license in Japan, being flown by the Japanese Army in a variety of roles, primarily to drop paratroopers. Because the Hudson was the principal RAF bomber aircraft for the first two years of war in the Far East, and the plane was flown by the Chinese and Japanese, recognition became a major concern for all fighting in that area.
The subsequent Navy PV-1 and PV-3 Ventura and PV-2 Harpoon productions ended in September 1945 with 2,162 of those PBO derivatives having been produced for U.S. service and 866 for the RAF and Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand air forces. (The Navy used the letter designations O and V for Lockheed aircraft, depending upon the producing factory.)
The Navy flew the PV-series aircraft mostly as patrol and photo aircraft. The Marines also used them as night fighters, although they were not pleased with the aircraft’s low operating ceiling of 15,000 feet. Still, a PV-1 from Marine night fighter squadron VMF(N)-531 made the first Marine night kill of the war in the Solomons on 6 December 1943. (The first successful U.S. night intercept of the Pacific War occurred on the night of 31 October 1942 in the Solomons when Marine ground controllers vectored a Navy F4U Corsair.) After the war a large number of Naval Air Reserve units flew PVs.
The Hudson and its successors, the Ventura and Harpoon, were highly successful aircraft, and splendid antecedents for Lockheed’s subsequent Neptune and Orion series of land-based maritime patrol/ASW aircraft.