Paul Elliot wrote:
Steven P. McNicoll wrote:
"Enzo Matrix" wrote in message
...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Emperor_(D98)

http://www.navsource.org/archives/03/034.htm

One of the photographs here clearly shows a Hellcat with invasion
stripes, although the carrier was engaged on Operation DRAGOON at
the time.

The presence of invasion stripes does not indicate an aircraft
participated in the D-Day landings, it just indicates it operated over
western
Europe on June 6 1944 or later.


http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avf6f.html#m4




From http://www.navsource.org/archives/03/034.htm comes this quote:

HMS Emperor was outfitted as a strike/CAP carrier. Provided fighter
cover for a strike on German battleship Tirpitz;

served as an ASW patrol ship at Normandy and supported invasion of
southern France before transferring to the Pacific.

which does support Enzo's statement that the ship was at Normandy on
D-Day.

Steven's link http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avf6f.html#m4 states "The Hellcat
Is did not participate in the Normandy invasion in June 1944".

It seems most unlikely that a valuable resource such as a squadron of very
potent fighters would have sat out the biggest operation of the war. It may
be splitting hairs, but there is a way that we can *both* be right. It is
possible that Emperor's Hellcats were directly involved in fighter cover for
the ASW screen, either in the Western Approaches or in the English Channel
itself, and so did not actually make an appearance over the Normandy beach
head. Therefore, they didn't actually *participate* in the invasion, but
they did *support* it.

--
Enzo

I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.