Before 1946 or so, heavy and light U.S. Navy cruisers were designed and built with two rotating floatplane catapults on the stern, along with a large aircraft crane. By the time of the Korean War in 1950, the floatplanes and the catapults were gone. The crane held on for a few years more but its days were numbered.
The replacement for the floatplane was the newfangled helicopter.
Here's a Sikorsky HO3S operating from the stern of the heavy cruiser USS Saint Paul (CA 73) near Wonsan, Korea, in 1951. The superfluous crane would soon be gone.
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'22 G80 M3 6-sp Portimao Blue/Tartufo
Last edited by Llarry; 04-20-2024 at 09:41 AM..
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