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What was that mysterious plane swooping down out of the night sky on unsuspecting Japanese ships and bases, hundreds of miles from any known American airstrip? The answer was, as youll see in this good humored, affectionate film, the slow, ungainly, but deadly Black Cat PBY. Originally designed primarily as a reconnaissance and antisubmarine amphibious patrol plane, the big twin engined Catalinas super long range, all weather capability, capacity to lug both bombs and radar, ability to loiter for hours hunting convoys and operate from anywhere in the watery PTO, made it an ideal naval night attack bomber. One of the least known stories of the war in the Pacific, these black painted PBY VPB Patrol Bombing squadrons spread destruction and chaos far out of proportion to their relatively small numbers. A frequent tactic was to cut their engines and float in almost silently on their prey. As this film shows, night ops were very risky, but the rewards could be huge, including the sinking of a 6,000 ton Katori class light cruiser by Lt. William B Sumpler, of VPB-33, for which he was awarded the Navy Cross.
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