One of the most significant carrier aircraft of World War II was the Avenger torpedo bomber. The Grumman TBF-1 reached the fleet in mid-1942, just as the torpedo bomber was discredited at the Battle of Midway in June. But the ungainly aircraft proved effective in operations against the Japanese in the Pacific, fighting German U-boats in the Atlantic, and as the world’s first carrier-based airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft.
When World War II began, the Navy’s principal torpedo plane was the Douglas TBD-1 Devastator. The aircraft had entered service in 1937, but was soon obsolete because of rapid progress in aviation.
In April 1940 Grumman received a contract for two prototypes of a replacement torpedo bomber to be designated TBF (the letter F indicating Grumman). It was that company’s first torpedo plane, after having achieved an excellent reputation for carrier-based fighters. Seven months before the flight of the first XTBF-1 prototype on 1 August 1941, the Navy ordered 286 production aircraft.
The first were to go to Torpedo Squadron (VT) 8, assigned to the carrier Hornet (CV-8). But the ship was already in the Pacific. With her aircraft stuffed in her hangar, the Homet carried 16 Army B-25B Mitchell bombers under Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle on her flight deck. She rendezvoused with the carrier Enterprise (CV-6), and with a cruiser-destroyer screen steamed toward the Japanese home islands. On 18 April, Doolittle led his 16 planes in their celebrated raid against Japan.
Meanwhile, a VT-8 detachment of approximately 80 officers and enlisted men left at Norfolk, Virginia, took delivery of the squadron’s TBF-1 Avengers. They flew the new planes across the United States and loaded 21 aboard the aircraft transport Kitty Hawk (APV-1) on the West Coast. The ship arrived at Pearl Harbor on 17 May, as intelligence reports were revealing a major Japanese thrust toward Midway Atoll.
Meanwhile, following the Doolittle raid, the Hornet raced toward the Coral Sea, but she was too late to participate in the carrier battle of 7-8 May, history’s first carrier-versus-carrier action. After returning to Pearl Harbor, the Hornet soon departed to engage the Japanese carrier force in the Battle of Midway.
The Avengers were not embarked in the Hornet, because their pilots lacked carrier qualification in the aircraft.
Pacific Fleet commander Admiral Chester W. Nimitz sent 115 aircraft, including six of the VT-8 Avengers, to Midway. The six TBFs, with two PBY Catalina navigators on board, took off for Midway on 1 June and made the eight-hour, 1,100-mile flight without incident.
On 4 June the Japanese carriers launched a major air strike against Midway (unaware that three U.S. carriers, including the Hornet, were waiting in ambush for them). In anticipation of the Japanese raid, the TBF-Is, led by Lieutenant Langdon K. Fieberling, and four Army B-26 Marauder bombers were ordered to fly over the island. Each Avenger carried a Mk 13 aerial torpedo.
The ten torpedo planes were ordered to attack the Japanese carriers—without fighter escorts. As they attacked the Japanese carriers, Zeros pounced on them, and antiaircraft guns blazed away. Several of the attacking planes were shot down before they could release their torpedoes. Japanese carriers easily avoided torpedoes that were dropped. Only one badly damaged Avenger—with its gunner dead and radioman wounded—and two damaged B-26s survived to return to Midway. (The next day, one of the B-26s was flown to Oahu, where word spread that Army bombers torpedoed a Japanese carrier.)
Ensign Albert K. Earnest piloted the surviving TBF. He received two Navy Crosses for this action: one for his attack on the Japanese carrier force and one for bringing back his damaged Avenger. The plane was struck by at least 64 7.7-mm machine gun rounds and nine 20'mm cannon rounds. (Earnest later received a third Navy Cross when flying from the escort carrier Manila Bay [CVE-59].)
The Hornet went into the Battle of Midway with VT-8 flying TBD Devastators. In the carrier battle of 4 June, all 15 TBDs of VT-8 from the Hornet were shot down. Again, no torpedoes scored hits.
The next major action for the Pacific Fleet’s Avengers was the invasion of Guadalcanal in early August 1942. The carriers Enterprise, Saratoga (CV-3), and Wasp (CV-7) each carried a squadron of 10 to 16 Avengers at the start of the operation. The Avengers had an important role in the subsequent Solomons campaign. During the Pacific campaigns they served in torpedo, low-level strike, night bomber, antisubmarine, photo-reconnaissance, and long-range scouting roles. As the war progressed the fleet carriers normally operated a 15-plane Avenger squadron while the light carriers each had about nine Avengers.
In the last major attack on Japanese warships, 7 April 1945, 98 Avengers flew in a 280-plane strike against the Japanese super battleship Yamato. The dreadnought sank after being struck by ten torpedoes and five direct bomb hits. (The previous October, her sister ship, the Musashi, had required 11 torpedoes and 16 bombs to send her down.)
In all, Grumman produced 2,290 of the barrel-shaped Avengers and Eastern built another 7,546. Of both types, the Royal Navy acquired 921 for carrier use, and the Royal New Zealand Air Force received 63. The kamikaze threat to U.S. carriers led to the TBM-3W AEW variant, fitted with AN/APS-20 long-range search radar to provide early warning of air attacks. Marines flew Avengers from shore bases and from escort carriers.
After World War II Avengers flew in several other air forces. In U.S. markings, they were mainly antisubmarine aircraft. Several were modified as personnel transports and some performed carrier on-board delivery (COD). The latter were TBM-3R Avengers, used to carry plutonium cores for atomic bombs from bases in the Mediterranean to carriers.
The last Avengers in an active Navy squadron were the TBM-3E variant in antisubmarine squadron 27, which were grounded in October 1954- They flew on with the reserves until early 1956. Although ungainly and relatively slow, the Avenger was an important U.S. naval aircraft for more than a decade.
Meanwhile, Grumman ceased producing Avengers. Priority at the “Grumman Iron Works” was in producing F6F Hellcat fighters. Instead, the Eastern Aircraft Division of General Motors began turning out the identical TBM series. TBMs went aboard escort or “jeep” carriers in the Atlantic and Pacific. In the Battle of the Atlantic the escort carriers had a key role in defeating the U-boats with their Avengers teaming with Wildcat fighters to make a highly effective antisubmarine team.
