Grumman TBF Avenger

The Grumman TBF Avenger and the Douglas TBM Avengers were the navy's torpedo bombers in WWII. The planes were introduced on December 7, 1941, the same day as the attack on Pearl Harbor. They were slow and outdated when they arrived in the fleet.

The Avengers were supposed to be the main attack arm in the battle of Midway island, but their slow flying and long steady approach pattern along with no fighter cover made them easy targets for Japanese gunners on the 4 Japanese carriers involved in the battle. The Avengers also had faulty torpedoes so the ones that did hit the Japanese carriers did not explode. All but 2 Avengers from the 3 squadrons of the USS Hornet, USS Enterprise and USS Yorktown were shot down by the Japanese. While the Japanese were busy shooting down Avengers, the dive bombers of those same carriers swooped down and sank the Japanese carrier fleet.

The planes did have 2 later celebrities though, future president George H. W. Bush as a pilot and a then unknown young man named Paul Newman, radio man and gunner.