Edit: Looks like the pics from navsource online are not linking properly.  
Edit2:  Photos have been replaced-- cannot get any from the navsource.org to hotlink.  Sorry!


During World War II, there was a great need to train and qualify naval aviators on carrier takeoff and landing operations, but the Navy needed the carriers they had for combat operations.  The solution to this problem was to build 2 training aircraft carriers and run training ops out of Chicago, which had a fairly low enemy submarine threat level.

To avoid having a TL/DR original post, we'll split the initial subject into 3 parts: 1) the ships themselves, 2) training operations, 3) recovery efforts of lost planes.

Part 1- the ships

The USS Wolverine (IX-64) was commissioned on 12 August 1942, converted from a Great Lakes passenger liner originally built in 1913.

The SS Seeandbee, as originally built:



During conversion:




Conversion complete, August 1942:




The USS Sable (IX-81) was commissioned 8 May 1943, after conversion from the steamer SS Great Buffalo.

SS Greater Buffalo before conversion:



After completion:




Sable and Wolverine docked in Chicago:




Further references:

Wikipedia article on USS Wolverine

NavSource Online article, USS Wolverine

Wikipedia article on USS Sable

NavSource Online article, USS Sable

Part 2: training operations

Propective carrier aviators were sent to NAS Glenview for training, and then embarked on Wolverine or Sable in order to log their needed 8-10 takeoffs and landings.  About 17,000 aviators made over 120,000 successful landings.








Next photos from Warbird Information Exchange--












Further references:

Defense Media Network military history article

Warbird Information Exchange forum thread with lots of pics

The Paddlewheel Aircraft Carriers blogspot

Part 3: recovery efforts of lost planes

In the course of training operations, there were about 200 accidents, with the loss of over 120 planes into Lake Michigan.  As these old warbirds are scarce now, and the cold fresh waters of the lake preserved them rather well, there are efforts to locate and recover the planes.






Accidents will happen:









Recovered:





Further references:

Navy history article on recoveries

NOAA article on helping with searches for lost planes

CBS News article on plane recovery

Website of A&T Recovery, who have pulled 30 planes out of the lake



A final thought--- operations continued even in the winter.  Brrrr.

Damn cool history. Thanks for sharing.





*Pics in first post broken.
 

Awesome thread!  I never knew they had those flat top trainers.

Thanks for sharing. I like the old news reels

the bottom of lake Michigan is littered with trainers. We are very lucky that we have this massive inland sea system for training our Navy on.

Me too.


Very cool stuff.

Freaking awesome.  Nice thread OP.

Love it!
This kept me from working for hours.

Another neat bit of trivia is that the Navy tested carrier ops of radio-controlled drones from these ships.

The TDN-1 was developed by the Navy in WWII.  



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TDN-1

Video of carrier ops on USS Sable included in this clip.  No sound, and starts off with bad quality, but gets better.

I like how they use a rotary dial phone to help signal the drones.  

Indeed

Very cool and thanks for posting it.