Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "The Sikorsky JRS-1, the Forgotten Heroes of Pearl Harbor" video.

  1. A small correction. All the PBYs with the exception of one that were destroyed at Pearl were PBY-4 and PBY-5 flying boats. The PBY-5A was the first amphibious version that was just entering service in November of 1941. One 5A was at Pearl as an evaluation aircraft and it too was destroyed in a bombed out hanger at Ford Island. One of the things that made the JRS-1 so valuable in those early days of the war was it could land on the water or a runway. It could land on water and then quickly scoot out of the water into a camouflaged position onshore. It took about a half hour to install the beaching gear on a PBY, and the Japanese were trained to look for PBYs at seaplane bases. Even though the JRS-1's never had anywhere near the defensive armament of a PBY, I remember reading the story of a couple Marine armorers that rigged up a system of pulleys and cables that were clipped onto a pair of Browning Automatic Rifles (BARs) that could fire, one per side, from the aftmost portholes on the aircraft. The BARs were rifle caliber machine guns that used 30 round magazines, not an ideal setup for an aircraft machine gun, but it beat using bolt action Springfield rifles. Each gun had a large round spider sight bolted onto the barrel to give a gunner at least a vague hope of being able to hit an enemy aircraft.
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