Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW)
Not Your Mother's Submarine
In World War II, submarines accomplished tactical jobs - attacking military vessels, interfering with supply shipping, surreptitiously transporting agents, even surfacing near shore to strafe targets. By 1950, however, people realized that the next generation of subs would be used more strategically. Someday, a submerged nuclear submarine might remain untraceable for months, and then launch a missile attack on an inland target. This was not some hypothetical notion - the U.S. was about to construct the first nuclear submarine, and within five years, the Soviet Union would effect the first underwater launch of a missile.
Obviously, the ability to detect and disable enemy submarines was becoming critically important.
First Steps
Up to that time, locating and sinking enemy subs was a slow process. It usually involved sending multiple reconnaissance aircraft (often slow, lumbering airplanes that could cover great distances without refueling) on sub-hunting missions. If one of them located a sub, it circled above it, reported its discovery, and tried to mark the spot for the attack aircraft that would be dispatched, usually from a distant location. With luck, the sub would still be nearby when the attack plane(s) arrived.
The Navy now redeployed some of its existing aircraft into dedicated ASW teams. A team consisted of a Hellcat and an Avenger, both of the aircraft having been modified for their new jobs. One served as a "hunter," the other as a "killer". The team approach promised quicker action once a submarine was located.
As the Navy gained experience using teams, it learned a number of things. The most significant was that the amount of 1940s-sized electronics it had crammed into the lean WW II combat planes was insufficient, for they were too small. Larger airplanes, with more room for electronic equipment, were needed.
Guardian
Meanwhile, as demand for specialized ASW aircraft grew, the Navy's requirements for some of its traditional types of aircraft ebbed. Among the several projects it canceled was one for a large carrier-based torpedo bomber. Grumman proposed that the spacious airframe it had been developing for the now-discontinued bomber would work for an anti-sub aircraft, and that by capitalizing on the work already done, development of a "pure" ASW plane would be accelerated. The Navy agreed, and the Guardian program was born. Although Guardian would continue the two-airplane "hunter / killer" approach, the capability of both aspects would be improved substantially.
The first test flights of the resulting aircraft occurred in 1945, but Guardians were not operational until late 1950. Hicksville's quiet potato fields witnessed many low flights of the new planes during these years of development.
Grumman Guardians
"Hunter" (front) and "Killer" (rear)
Flight Journal, flight.journal.com
The bulging aircraft in the foreground above was stuffed with electronic surveillance equipment - and also with some human operators, who coordinated the work of the two airplanes in the team.
Incidentally, the airplane's size may not be apparent from this photograph. When these aircraft were introduced, they represented the largest single-engine airframe ever to have flown from an aircraft carrier.
Tracker
The Guardian was a quickly implemented improvement that adequately housed early stages of electronic surveillance systems. The Navy's experience with it soon led to a more powerful, longer-term solution, one which would give the Navy the all-in-one ASW weapon it desired. The new aircraft was the twin-engined Grumman Tracker.
Grumman two-page advertisement in National Geographic, April 1955
The presence of a prominent advertisement for strategic weaponry in
a magazine like National Geographic was symptomatic of America's
1950s fears. At any time, the Cold War might suddenly turn very hot.
Although the Calverton manufacturing site was operational by now, there still would be continuous work to do at Bethpage while manufacturing proceeded. The need for more R&D into ASW seemed to never stop. In consequence, even as Trackers became operational, one or two always seemed to be around Bethpage (and thus, over Hicksville) to test new ideas. It was hard not to notice Trackers - like many carrier-based aircraft, they were remarkably noisy things, emitting a loud buzz of rapid, crisp, sharp sounds at take-off. Many a window on 7th Street rattled when they flew overhead.
Eventually, Trackers would be used by a wide range of friendly forces, including those of Australia, Turkey, the Netherlands, and Argentina. One of the early foreign adopters was Japan, which under the terms of the 1945 peace treaty had been limited with respect to possessing military aircraft for its own purposes. In 1957, it acquired several Trackers, which were categorized as defensive aircraft.
I can remember the day when I first became aware of that. My class at Lee Avenue was out in the large grassy yard behind the school, and not for the first time, things suddenly got loud. The school was directly in the path of traffic from the main Grumman runway, and brief but intense aircraft noise was common (e.g., if classroom windows were open, a teacher sometimes had to stop speaking until a plane was gone). This time, the noise was louder than usual. When I looked up, I saw two Trackers approaching in tight formation, one diagonally behind the other; they must have taken off simultaneously. What struck me instantly was neither the racket nor the tight proximity of the aircraft, but their markings - they bore the large red disks that signified Japan.
In Japanese service, the Tracker was called "Aotaka," which means
"Blue Hawk." Its time in the Japan Air Self-Defense Force complete,
this unit is now displayed at Kanoya Air Base Museum.
Wikimedia Commons, photographed/contributed by Hunini
Momentarily, that insignia gave me pause. My father, like the fathers of many of my fellow students, often watched Victory at Sea and other post-war documentary television programs, and I usually watched with him. To now see Japanese aircraft approaching low over the schoolyard briefly brought to mind black-and-white scenes of wartime attacks.
A quick look around showed me that no one else in the schoolyard had looked up at the Trackers. I watched them fly overhead harmlessly, shrugged, and went back to whatever I'd been doing, but I never forgot that moment.
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