Back at Palm Island, Australia, Patrol Bombing Squadron 52 under Lieutenant Commander
H. A. "Hal" Sommer had been readying itself to move north and relieve VPB-11.
Here, one of the war's more colorful Black Cat pilots, Lieutenant W. J. "Bill"
Lahodney, was deeply involved in a project which he hoped would substantially increase the
striking power of the Catalina. Something was needed, he felt, to enable a Cat to press
home an attack even after all bombs or torpedoes had been expended. Further, he knew that
they would encounter many targets, too small to waste bombs on, which would succumb to an
attack by concentrated gunfire.
In his quest for increased firepower, Lahodney made several flights in the Army's B-25
bombers and was impressed with their gunfire capabilities. These planes had 75-millimeter
cannon in the nose but also mounted several fixed-quad .50-caliber machine guns which were
of particular interest to the Cat pilot. He decided to with the same .50-caliber
installation in the nose of his PBY. It was a somewhat radical concept and, as might be
expected, there were many raised eyebrows. The PBY after all was a patrol plane, not a
fighter, and it was the opinion of some that the fifties would tear the nose off of the
airplane. The old Cat was simply not built to take that kind of abuse, they said. Others
thought the installation would have an adverse affect on aircraft weight and balance. Few
were optimistic that the idea would work.
Lahodney was not to be deterred. Removing the bombsight (which had not proven very
effective for the specialized work of the Black Cats) and the small bow plate window, he
bolted the guns, mounted two over two, to the keel of the big boat. The top set of two
were mounted forward of the lower set, so the muzzles of all four were aft of the angled
bow plate. An aluminum panel with four blast tubes extending forward for seven inches
replaced the window, and was all that was visible of the lethal addition from an exterior
view. An electric trigger on the pilot's yoke, and a selector switch which permitted the
pilot to fire the guns individually or together, completed the installation. Bill Lahodney
was confident that the Cat would not only withstand the vibration of the fifties, but that
the twin thirties normally mounted just above that spot could be retained along with the
gunner's position.
With a minimum volunteer crew, consisting of himself, a flight engineer, and a bow gunner,
Lahodney took off from the Palm Island seadrome to try out his idea. Dropping a floating
smoke light in the water for a target, he executed a wing-over and put the Cat into a
steep dive. Eyeballing the burning smoke light he pressed the trigger
and the fifties responded with a burst that churned the water and extinguished the smoke.
That was the kind of firepower he was looking for, he thought with satisfaction. During
the run he had also noted that the extra weight in the nose had no perceptible effect on
the aircraft's performance. The test was repeated with the same result and upon returning
to base, a careful inspection revealed that the old Cat had shouldered her new burden
without complaint. The experiment was a complete success, so much so that quad fifties
were installed in at least three planes in every succeding squadron.
Other tests also bore out Lahodney's views. They demonstrated that a gunner could straddle
the quad mount and operate the thirties with almost as much mobility as before. A burlap
pad was placed on the hot .50-caliber barrels to prevent the gunner from being burned.
One problem with the installation was that because of its positioning it was difficult to
keep salt water from getting into the muzzles. Rubber plugs were made to fit in the blast
tubes but they leaked badly. Then someone got the idea that the standard rubber devices
used for the prevention of venereal disease would be just the thing to make the blast
tubes watertight. And they were.
In preparing for the coming deployment, Lahodney flew over to Townsville on the Australian
mainland on a supply run. He picked up two additional quad mounts from the Army Supply
Depot and an unusually large quantity of condoms to protect the gun muzzles. The swells
were heavy that day and during the take-off run one bounced the Cat into the air
prematurely. The starboard wing dropped about forty degrees and full power on the
starboard engine would not bring it level. It hit the water and broke off and the rest of
the airplane came down hard. As it began to sink, Lahodney again applied full throttle and
ran the broken Cat up on the rocks of the Townsville breakwater. Incredibly, no one was
hurt.
With a heavy on-shore wind, the condoms were scattered about and it looked like there were
many thousands as they floated ashore. Lahodney recalls that since there were no women on
Palm Island there was much humorous speculation concerning the intended use of all those
contraceptives.
(The above section of text
was taken from "Black Cat Raiders of WWII" by Richard C. Knott, 1982)(now out of
print)