Armed: F4U-4 Corsair 005 🦅
F4U-4 Corsair 005
Armed: F4U-4 Corsair 005 on gray concrete at dawn, VMF-214 markings. Sky Sirens nose art with space-themed decals near HELLO, MAJ. SCOTT L. on the rail, full load of eight 5-inch HVAR rockets and bombs. Six .50 cals in the wings, ready for Vella Lavella.
Sky Sirens - TBM Avenger HELLO 005
Aircraft: Grumman TBM-3E Avenger, 005 - "HELLO 005" / "Sky Sirens" - Flown by MAJ. SCOTT L.
Ordnance: MK 13 Aerial Torpedo
During the Pacific campaign, the Avenger was the fleet's hammer. Flying low, slow, and straight on its torpedo run, it was devastating to enemy shipping — but highly vulnerable without air cover.
This image captures that doctrine in action. Down low over the water, Avenger 005 makes its approach with a live MK 13 torpedo. Up high, three F4U Corsairs — 17, 86, and 32 — fly top cover, their job to keep enemy fighters off the torpedo bombers so they could complete their run.
The nose art "Sky Sirens" was the crew's morale. Two pinups in a water fight — a joke about who was really doing the soaking. The three skull-and-crossbones under the art mark three ships claimed. The shark mouth on the cowl, the "HELLO 005" on the nose, and the lucky symbols around the lettering were all personal touches from Maj. Scott L. and his crew.
Corsairs cleared the sky. Avengers sank the ships. Neither could do the job alone.
TBM Avenger "HELLO 005"
TBM Avenger — HELLO 005
In 1944, a TBM Avenger wasn't yours. The Navy gave you a bureau number, painted the same dark sea blue as 7,000 other Avengers. You didn't own it.
The art is what made it yours.
Maj. Scott L., "Sky Sirens," "HELLO 005," the shark mouth, the water balloon fight — that was the crew's inside joke turned into armor. Superstition mattered. If you put your name on it, if you put your luck on it — the pinups, the dove, the planets — maybe it brought you home. A lot of crews believed the plane wouldn't let you down if you gave it a personality.
The pinups came straight from home — Esquire's Vargas Girls in every barracks and footlocker. For three kids who hadn't seen a woman in months, those two laughing girls weren't just decoration. They were summer. A reminder of what you were fighting for, painted on a machine built to sink a battleship.
Officially, the Navy banned it. Unofficially, commanders let it slide. Morale was a weapon.
And that weapon was carrying 2,216 pounds of Mark 13 torpedo — 13 feet long, bigger than a man — hanging on a single shackle under the belly. You had to fly straight, low, and slow to drop it, right through the flak.
The Corsairs on top — 17, 86, 32 — flew clean and anonymous, like knights. The Avenger below flew superstitious and human — loud, lucky, and desperate to remember what it was like to be a kid, while carrying two thousand pounds of death to drop on a battleship.
TBM Avenger ☠️ 🎬
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