I'm always interested in how things that we do in the game were really done historically, particularly carrier air operations. How did they do their landing patterns? How did they rendevous? etc. Since it was not uncommon for a naval aviator to have to operate on a carrier other than his home carrier, you know the procedures had to be highly standardized. And if the procedures were highly standardized, you know they had to be written down in some manual. Every now and then I'll go out and wander the internets looking for this kind of information. I haven't had much luck finding any official navy documents dealing with WWII air operations. But recently I stumbled on this scan of USF 77 - Current Tactical Orders Aircraft Carriers US Fleet:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_c6FlIgz3gLbWRIcFQ1dDV0SzAUSF 77 might be the primary document describing carrier air procedures. This version is March 1941 (prior to Pearl Harbor), so I would bet the procedures changed a lot once the shooting started. It would be great to see a late-war version of this.
Another document I'd really like to get ahold of is USF 74 - Current Tactical Orders and Doctrine US Fleet Aircraft Volume One Carrier Aircraft. I haven't found a copy of the document itself, but I did find a scan of the table of contents:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B_c6FlIgz3gLRmdod3k0N2E3dFEThis is also a March 1941 version. I'm sure this changed a lot as the war progressed too. It's possible USF 74 superseded USF 77, I don't know.
If you know about any other docs that describe carrier air operations, let us know!
