Island Doll History

PV-2 Historical Timeline

The United States Navy Bureau of Aeronautics Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon 37396 (BuAer37396) was built at

the Lockheed plant in Burbank, California with its first flights on March 11, 1945. March 16th it was

ferried six minutes and seven miles west to Lockheed’s Van Nuys facility for delivery to the Navy and for

further outfitting and testing. April 9 th and 10 th saw the last of the flight testing, ending up at San Pedro

Naval Air Base on Terminal Island, which is now part of the Long Beach harbor complex. Over the 11th to

13th the aircraft was ferried to Naval Air Station (NAS) Quonset Point, on Narragansett Bay in Rhode

Island.

At Quonset point the Navy did a test flight, a number of repairs, updates and inspections over the span

of two months, another test hop, and then transferred the plane back to the factory for modifications.

That trip ran from June 11 th through the 14th , modifications and a test flight were made, and the aircraft

was returned to the Navy July 21 st . The plane immediately left for NAS Whidbey Island in Washington

state, arriving the next day, where it was assigned to Fleet Air Wing 6 (FAW-6), Patrol Bombing Squadron

136 (VPB-136).

VBP-136 had brought their Lockheed PV-1 Venturas, an earlier design, down from the Aleutian Islands to

exchange for and train on the new PV-2 Harpoons. The training had been in full swing when the atomic

bombs were dropped on Japan in early August, but the aircraft apparently suffered significant damage

about the same time resulting in entire tail section being replaced by August 8 th . The war ended on

September 2, 1945, and with it any urgency to get the airplane into active service.

FAW-6 was ‘de-established’ on December 1 st and the aircraft was transferred to FAW-4. More, and

extensive, repairs were completed on December 4 th , apparently due to a tail wheel collapse. December

5 th saw a test flight, and on the 7 th the engines were preserved for storage.

February 7, 1946 saw the Harpoon make a short ferry flight to NAS Seattle on Puget Sound where the

plane sat for an extended period and on September 27, 1946 it was administratively transferred to Fleet

Aircraft Service squadron 112 (FASRON-112). On May 17, 1947 it was ferried to NAS Alameda and

preserved for storage.

July 13 and 14 1948 saw short flights, and July 20 th an overhaul of the aircraft was completed, with

overhauled engines and props installed. August 3 rd and 4 th the plane ferried back to its old squadron at

NAS Seattle, Washington. The squadron had been redesignated as Patrol Squadron 136 (VP-136), and

the plane was busy through early October with crew training and checking, reconnaissance, anti-

submarine patrols, and personnel transport. However, the aircraft suffered significant damage, perhaps

through an accident on the ground, as the plane did not fly again until December 22 nd . In the interim a

section of the left wing, the wing tip, aileron, left horizontal and vertical stabilizers and the left rudder

were all replaced and multiple lesser repairs were made.

January and February 1949 were quite slow but the second half of March was very busy with the plane

being airborne 10 to 12 hours per day on multiple occasions, perhaps due to a conflict in South Korea.

At the end of May the Harpoon was transferred again, this time to NAS Los Alamitos in the Long Beach,

California area. There it was moderately busy training and had its planned retirement postponed

several times. At the end of April 1951 it had another overhaul and engine and propeller swap.

Immediately following the overhaul, it transferred to NAS Willow Grove, just north of Philadelphia, PA.

There the flying, mostly training with some operational work, was busy one month and slow the next. It

also received a complete repainting March 6 th , 1953. It stayed active through October, when it received

another service tour extension, but structural damage was found in the aft of the aircraft. A temporary

repair was made and the plane was transferred to NAS Corpus Christi, Texas, for another overhaul. Post

overhaul test flights were made in February 1954, and the aircraft was immediately ferried to Naval Air

Facility Litchfield Park, now the Phoenix Goodyear airport, where it was put into long term storage on

February 20 th with a grand total of 1,551.1 hours of Navy service over nine years.

The Harpoon started its civilian life in November 1957 with a ferry flight to Douglas Arizona, on the

Mexico border. It sat there until July of 1969, when it ferried to Bainbridge, Georgia. Sometime after

that it was used to spray chemicals for fire ants before it spent some time at a museum in Houston for a

bit, ultimately coming to Indianapolis in the 1980’s.