8 Nov 1942 : Freak accident during Torch operation when Wildcat fighter 29-GF-10 landed on USS Santee (name referred to Santee river of North Carolina) escort carrier and suffered catastrophic tail separation after its arrestor gear hooked onto the landing cable. Allied airpower quickly negated Vichy French airforce during the first 24-hours of invasion, French planes were either shotdown - destroyed on ground - or defected to Allied side. USS Santee (CVE-29) - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Santee_%28CVE-29%29

Plane code 29-GF-10 referred to aircraft number 10 in VGF-29 squadron. Note VGF specifically referred to escort carrier squadrons, compared to VF title for regular carrier squadrons, VGF title used from 1942 to 1943. U.S. Navy Squadron Designations and Abbreviations - www.history.navy.mil/branches/squades.htm

USS Santee (CVE-29) was 2nd US Navy vessel to carry its name, acquired as fleet oiler (AO-29) in October 1940, converted into escort carrier in August 1942. These ships were small aircraft carriers (carried some 30 aircrafts compared to 90 aircrafts on larger carriers) tasked to protect convoys from submarine attacks, support invasion landings, and combat air protection over invasion fleet. This enabled regular Allied fleet to hunt and engage the enemy fleet, which could be hundreds of miles away from actual invasion beachhead. Both US Navy and Britain's Royal Navy utilized these vessel types. Escort aircraft carrier - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escort_aircraft_carrier

Inset 1 : Flight deck men scrambled past F4F fighters and SBD dive-bombers when lookout spotted possible submarine presence during Torch operation. Whether enemy sub actually existed is open to debate, for we know Americans were considered Green (American euphuism for lack of combat experience) during this first European theater offensive, hence prone to be Trigger-Happy (American euphuism for Shoot First Ask Questions Later). This was primary reason behind painting large yellow outlines around US national insignia, thus enabled fleet gunners to quickly identify incoming aircrafts before opening fire, but a few friendly-fire incidents still occurred. Battle Fatigue, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Combat Stress - www.schwab-writings.com/bm/bf/Fatigue.html

Inset 2 : Shoot First Ask Questions Later, carrier Flak guns open fire into open ocean where possible enemy submarine was located. Dramatic as it may be, in purely tactical terms an enemy submarine need not come this close to a carrier for either recon or torpedo attack, hence tense lookouts may have mistaken a whale or rolling wave as an enemy submarine. Linguistic note, for the word Reconnaissance, US abbreviated term as Recon (due to hard-consonant German language influences), while British preferred term Recce (due to soft-consonant French language influences).

Rollover : 28 Feb 1942, F4F Wildcats from VF-8 fighter squadron parked on USS Hornet (CV-8) deck as she arrived state-side, the fighters were flown off carrier and parked on land . In its place, twin-engine B-25 bombers were hoisted onto flat-top in preparation for US Doolittle Raid against Japan on 18 April 1942. Doolittle Raid - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolittle_Raid

Note early US national insignia of blue roundel - white star - red dot design on both wings, this was modified in Summer 1942 to prevent ease of enemy targeting. White color has long wavelength, from a distance the embedded blue and red colors increased white color intensity, hence enemy would see two white dots on US planes and use it as targeting reference. This problem also encountered by German Panzer forces during 1939 Polish Campaign when their large solid white cross insignia enabled Polish anti-tank gunners to gain target acquisition advantage. Modern Air Force & Navy Roundel Insignia - www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0269.shtml