The basic idea developed by Captain Chambers is still used in Navy catapults. In the modern device, the airplane rests on a car riding on a catapult rail which can be mounted on all types of surface craft. The rail is so constructed that it can be swung in any direction, permitting the plane to be launched into the wind. The power that shoots the catapult car and sends the plane off the rail is furnished by a five-inch shell fired in a mechanism at the rear of the rail. It was this idea of Captain Chambers’ that originally gave the Navy a start on the device enabling our battleships, cruisers, and destroyers to take observation planes to sea with them. This was the idea which furnished the “eyes of the fleet” and gave admirals and captains the power to see what lay beyond the horizon. The development of naval aviation marched step by step with the development of aircraft. The year 1940 saw the introduction of one of the best carrier-based fighters ever built, the Grumman F4F _Wildcat_. This stubby-winged craft was a radical departure from previous carrier-fighter design and became the first successful monoplane to go to sea on the carriers. Wing-flaps lowered landing speeds and shortened take-off runs. This permitted the use on the carriers of the fast fighter, since the flaps acted as brakes and reduced the plane’s speed for deck landings. The F4F had a wingspan of 38 feet but this was decreased by the folding of its wings to 14 feet 6 inches. This device reduced the space necessary for storage in the carrier’s hangar deck and permitted the use of additional fighters on the ship. The F4F’s landing gear retracted completely into the fuselage, thus aiding in streamlining and increasing the speed of the fighter. It was powered with a 1,200-horsepower Pratt 81 Whitney air-cooled radial engine and had a speed of about 350 miles per hour. [Illustration: CATAPULT LAUNCHING] Experiments with the use of aërial torpedoes brought about the development of the Douglas TBD-1 torpedo plane. Though not so fast as a fighter, the three-place TBD-1 _Devastator_ carried a deadly torpedo load. The Douglas SBD _Dauntless_ was designed for dive-bombing and was the first low-wing monoplane to be used as the standard dive-bomber on our carriers. The Douglas SBD _Dauntless_ was the first Navy dive-bomber to get into action in World War II. In fact it went into action a few minutes after the first Jap shot was fired at Pearl Harbor, on the morning of December 7th, 1941. SBD’s from the carrier Enterprise, steaming toward Hawaii, were the first planes in action on that fateful morning. From that day on our war in the Pacific was one of attack. The dive-bomber is an attack weapon and the sturdy SBD’s led the attack from Pearl Harbor down to Guadalcanal and on up the Pacific to the Philippines and victory.