April 30, 1944, the island-hopping campaigns of the Pacific Theatre raged on. Navy Lieutenant John A. Burns, piloting a Vought Kingfisher floatplane from battleship North Carolina, approached the perilous waters of Truk Lagoon, where American and Japanese troops were still fighting each other.
In a daring display of bravery and skill, Burns executed a mission that would become legendary: he landed in the middle of the maelstrom of fire and began rescuing every American pilot he saw stranded in the ocean.
One after another, Burns picked up men as his Kingfisher navigated through the destroyed remains of the American fighters. Suddenly, he had five men aboard, some above the wings, others below, grabbing the landing gear with relief.
Enemy rounds were still flying around him, but Burns did not flinch. There were more men to be saved. That was his job. As he taxied around the warzone, Burns retrieved five more men.
The Kingfisher, now overloaded with ten new passengers, could not fly. Instead, Burns traversed the harsh waters to link up with the submarine USS Tang, where he delivered his precious cargo.
The exhausted brave pilot, with his battered Kingfisher armed with two Browning machine guns, prepared to take to the skies again in search of more fellow airmen stranded in the ocean. Kingfisher pilots saved men, and there were surely more of them down there in the lagoon. Burns was their only salvation.
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one of your best vids. thank you for this!
Are there any still flying, or on display? Amazing aircraft.
Excellent!
My 99 year old dad and Lt. Cmndr of the US Merchant Marine always spoke affectionately of the King Fisher. If a King Fisher was around there was a better chance of survival.
Watched from Old Harbour Jamaica. VS-60,a Kingfisher squadron was based a Vernam Field in my country mid 1943 and they conducted antisubmarine patrol and even claimed the sink 2 sub while based there but I could not confurm the claim. I know 2 were lost while based there the first was lost during a training mission and was never found and the other was crashed in shallow waters searching for the lost one. One was also based on another US base in Jamaica call USNAVAL AIR STATION LITTLE GOAT ISLAND but it was assigned to Lt. Com. David N. Morris the commander of the base.🇯🇲
A nervous and gabbled narrator, shame , it spoils it all
The USS Tang has an interesting history on its own. It was sunk by one of its own torpedoes. A defective torpedo was launched from a front tube and went into a constant turn. It hit the submarine on the stern after a full turn.
Kingfisher has always been one of my favorites. Would like to have a restored one, but there are very few left.
The Ultimate Lifeguard plane.
good story
I've always thought that the Kingfisher was an unheralded plane and I'm happy to see it getting its due.
I love your videos. They are concise and have no extraneous garbage. Thanks
Suddenly, he had 5 men on board. They must have just appeated out of nowhere!!!
1:27 min. Sikorsky Kingfisher? Please tell me it was a honest mistake, not a new way of presenting history?
The Kingfisher could easily have flown with five men on the wings! Unfortunately the men wouldn't have been able to hold on and would have been right back in the "Drink"!
How can this aircrafts can carry 3 tons of bombs and fly without no problem but they pickup 4 or 5 survives and now they are too over weight to fly what?
This reminds me of the story of the PBY that rescued 33 survivors of the USS Indianapolis in 1945. Both seaplanes and submarines performed vital and heroic duties rescuing downed pilots in the Pacific war. George HW Bush was rescued by a submarine in the battle of Chichi Jima. The courage those pilots and crews displayed was awesome.
In contrast, the Japanese didn't do much rescuing of stranded men (at least to my knowledge). Maybe failure to conserve valuable pilots who lost their planes was a factor in the outcome of that war.
And today we're told by some, that America cannot even manufacture another million of artillery rounds per year…
If I remember correctly 2 of the men Burns rescued and brought to Tang were another Kingfisher crew. They had landed to pick up a downed aircrew. When trying to get the men aboard the extremely light, top heavy and not really buoyant kingfisher flipped over.dumping its crew into the sea and sinking. Burns went out to rescue everybody. Carefully directing everyone to balance the plane before taxiing it out of harms way to the Tang.
The story is fine but I’ve unsubscribed because of your clickbait AI drawn lying thumbnail image
Can somebody tell Dark Skies to stop those stupid video's? It is bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla blaaaaah.
On the wings was how Russia paratroopers first started out.
Now do one about the Catalina that so heroically assisted after the sinking of the cruiser Indianapolis!