Lieutenants Kenneth Marlar Taylor and George Schwartz Welch, Air Corps, United States Army. (U.S. Air Force)
On the morning of December 7, 1941, very few American fighter pilots were able to get airborne to fight the Japanese attackers. Ken Taylor and George Schwartz were two of them.
Distinguished Service Cross
Second Lieutenants Kenneth Marlar Taylor and George S. Welch took two Curtiss-Wright P-40B Warhawk fighters from a remote airfield at Haleiwa, on the northwestern side of the island of Oahu, and against overwhelming odds, each shot down four enemy airplanes: Welch shot down three Aichi D3A Type 99 “Val” dive bombers and one Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0 (“Zero”) fighter. Taylor also shot down four Japanese airplanes.
Although both officers were nominated for the Medal of Honor by General Henry H. (“Hap”) Arnold, they were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
During the War, Welch flew the Bell P-39 Airacobra and Lockheed P-38 Lightning on 348 combat missions. He had 16 confirmed aerial victories over Japanese airplanes and rose to the rank of Major.
Suffering from malaria, George Welch was out of combat and recuperating in Australia. When North American Aviation approached General Arnold to recommend a highly experienced fighter pilot as a test pilot for the P-51H Mustang, Arnold suggested Welch and authorized his resignation from the Air Corps.
Aichi D3A Type 99 dive bomber, “Val”. (San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives)
George Welch tested the P-51H, XP-86 Sabre and YF-100A Super Sabre for North American Aviation. Reportedly, while demonstrating the F-86 Sabre’s capabilities to Air Force pilots during the Korean War, he shot down as many as six MiG 15s.
George Welch was killed while testing a F-100A Super Sabre, 12 October 1954.
A Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0 Model 21, A1-108, flown by PO2c Sakae Mori, takes of from IJN Akagi, an aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 7 December 1941. (U.S. Navy)
Ken Taylor scored two more victories at Guadalcanal before wounds received in an air raid sent him back to the United States. He remained in the Air Force until he retired in 1971 with the rank of Brigadier General. He died in 2006.
Curtiss-Wright P-40 Warhawk, circa 1940. (Rudy Arnold Collection/NASM)
The Curtiss-Wright Corporation Hawk 81B (P-40B Warhawk) was a single-seat, single-engine pursuit. It was a low-wing monoplane of all-metal construction, and used flush riveting to reduce aerodynamic drag. It had an enclosed cockpit and retractable landing gear. Extensive wind tunnel testing at the NACA Langley laboratories refined the airplane’s design, significantly increasing the top speed.
The P-40B Warhawk was 31 feet, 8¾ inches (9.671 meters) long, with a wingspan of 37 feet, 4 inches (11.379 meters). Its empty weight was 5,590 pounds (2,536 kilograms), and 7,326 pounds (3,323 kilograms) gross. The maximum takeoff weight was 7,600 pounds (3,447 kilograms).
The P-40B was powered by a liquid-cooled, supercharged, 1,710.60-cubic-inch-displacement (28.032 liter) Allison Engineering Co. V-1710-C15 (V-1710-33), a single overhead cam (SOHC) 60° V-12 engine, which produced 1,040 horsepower at 2,800 r.p.m., and turned a three-bladed Curtiss Electric constant-speed propeller through a 2:1 gear reduction. The V-1710-33 was 8 feet, 2.54 inches (2.503 meters) long, 3 feet, 5.88 inches (1.064 meters) high, and 2 feet, 5.29 inches (0.744 meters) wide. It weighed 1,340 pounds (607.8 kilograms).
Allison Engineering Co. V-1710-33 V-12 aircraft engine at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. (NASM)
Heavier than the initial production P-40, the P-40B was slightly slower, with a maximum speed of 352 miles per hour (567 kilometers per hour) at 15,000 feet (4,572 meters). It had a service ceiling of 32,400 feet (9,876 meters) and range of 730 miles (1,175 kilometers).
Armament consisted of two air-cooled Browning AN-M2 .50-caliber machine guns mounted in the cowlingabove the engine and synchronized to fire forward through the propeller arc, with 380 rounds per gun, and four Browning M2 .30-caliber aircraft machine guns, with two in each wing.
Curtiss-Wright produced 13,738 P-40s between 1939 and 1944. 131 of those were P-40B Warhawks.
A flight of six Curtiss-Wright P-40B Warhawks of the 44th Pursuit Squadron, 18th Pursuit Group, over the island of Oahu, Territory of Hawaii, 9:00 a.m., 1 August 1941. (U.S. Air Force)
Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0 Model 21 (“Zero”) fighters ready for takeoff aboard an aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 7 December 1941. (Imperial Japanese Navy)Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0 Model 21 (“Zero”) fighters prepare for takeoff aboard IJN Akagi, 7 December 1941. (Imperial Japanese Navy)A Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0 Model 21, A1-108, flown by PO2c Sakae Mori, takes of from IJN Akagi, an aircraft carrier of the Imperial Japanese Navy, 7 December 1941. (U.S. Navy)
The Shikishima Kamikaze unit is offered a toast of water as a farewell, 25 October 1944. At left is Lieutenant Yukio Seki (with cup in his hands). Commander Asaiki Tamai, with his back to the camera, is next to him. At center, also facing away from the camera, is Vice Admiral Takjiro Onishi.
25 October 1944: During The Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Divine Wind Special Attack Unit (Shinpū Tokubetsu Kōgekitai, or 神風特別攻撃隊) carries out its first mission, an attack on two task groups of United States Navy escort aircraft carriers near the island of Samar in the Philippine Sea.
Prior to the Kamikaze attack of 25 October 1944, there had been other suicide attacks by Japanese pilots, possibly beginning as early as the attack at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, 7 December 1941. But the idea of intentional suicide attacks was proposed by Captain Motoharu Okamura, IJN, and studies began 15 June 1944.
Midshipman Yukio Seji, IJN,1939.
The first unit of 23 pilots, Unit Shikishima, was selected by Commander Asaichi Tamai. Lieutenant Yukio Seki (29 September 1921–25 October 1944) was appointed the unit’s commanding officer.
At 7:40 a.m., 25 October, six Japanese airplanes from Davao, Mindanao, attacked three Sangamon-class escort carriers of Task Group 77.4.1 (called “Taffy 1”), under the command of Rear Admiral Thomas Lamison (“Tommy”) Sprague, USN.
One airplane struck USS Santee (CVE-29) on the forward port side of the flight deck and continued through, blowing a 15 foot × 30 foot (4.6 × 9.1 meters) hole in the hangar deck. Fortunately eight 1,000 pound (454 kilogram) bombs located there did not explode. The resulting fire was extinguished by 7:51 a.m. In addition to the airplane’s pilot,16 sailors were killed and 27 wounded.
Five minutes later, at 7:57 a.m., Santee was hit on the starboard side by a torpedo launched by the Japanese Type B3 submarine, I-56.
USS Santee (CVE-29) being hit by a torpedo fired from the Japanese submarine I-56, 0757, 25 October 1944. (Naval History and Heritage Command NH 71526)
Immediately after the crash aboard Santee, another Kamikaze circled USS Suwanee (CVE-27). It was hit by antiaircraft gunfire and headed toward USS Sangamon (CVE-26). A 5-inch shell fired by Suwanee brought it down short of Sangamon. At the same time, another Kamikaze nearly hit USS Petroff Bay (CVE-80), a Casablanca-class escort carrier, but was shot down by antiaircraft fire.
Suwanee shot down a second Zero and damaged a third. This airplane rolled over, and trailing smoke, hit the escort carrier’s flight deck forward of the aft elevator. Its bomb exploded between the flight and hangar decks.
“Effect of a crash dive on Suwanee flight deck. A 250 kilogram (551 pound) bomb has just exploded between flight and hangar decks and fire billows out, 25 October 1944. (Naval History and Heritage Command NH 71528)
Within two hours the flight deck damage had been repaired, though the elevator remained inoperative. Flight operations resumed at 10:09 a.m.
Five Mitsubishi A6M2 Type 0 Model 21 Reisen fighters (commonly referred to as the “Zero”, and also known by the Allied reporting name Zeke) led by Lieutenant Seki departed Malabacat, Luzon, and headed toward Task Force 77.4.3 (“Taffy 3”), under the command of Rear Admiral Clifton Albert Frederick (“Ziggy”) Sprague, USN. (Ziggy Sprague was not related to Tommy Sprague.)
Prior to this mission, Lieutenant Seki was interviewed by war correspondent Masashi Onoda. Seki is reported to have said, “Japan’s future is bleak if it is forced to kill one of its best pilots. I am not going on this mission for the Emperor or for the Empire. . . I am going because I was ordered to!”
Most of Taffy 3 had just survived an attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy’s overwhelming Center Force, consisting of the Japanese super battleship Yamato, battleships Nagato, Kongo, Haruna, cruisers Haguro, Chokai, Kumano, Suzuya, Chikuma, Tone, and two destroyer squadrons, in The Battle off Samar.
The Kamikazes approached the task group at very low altitude, avoiding radar, then climbed to 5,000–6,000 feet (1,524–1,829 meters). They appeared so suddenly that the fleet’s combat air patrol was unable to intercept. At 10:50 a.m., the first Zero attacked USS Kitkun Bay (CVE-71), apparently aiming for the carrier’s bridge. It missed, but passed over the island, crashed the port catwalk, and bounced into the sea. The bomb it carried exploded and seriously damaged the ship.
“A Japanese kamikaze pilot in a Mitsubishi A6M5 Model 52 Reisen (“Zero,” or “Zeke”) crash dives on the U.S. Navy escort carrier USS White Plains (CVE-66) on 25 October 1944. The aircraft missed the flight deck and impacted the water just off the port quarter of the ship.” (Naval History and Heritage Command 80-G-288882)
Two Zeros attacking USS Fanshaw Bay (CVE-70) were shot down. Two more dived on USS White Plains (CVE-66) but were driven off by the carrier’s 40 millimeter Bofors antiaircraft guns. One, smoking from a hit, turned away and dived toward the escort carrier USS St. Lo (CVE-63). At 10:51, St. Lo‘s guns opened fire, but this fighter, identified as a Mitsubishi A6M5 Type 0 Model 52 Reisen, crashed through the flight deck and exploded in flames.¹
An explosion aboard USS St. Lo (CVE-63), immediately after being hit by a kamikaze, 10:51 a.m., 25 October 1944. Photograph taken from USS Kitkun Bay (CVE-71). (National Archives and Records Administration 80-G-270513)
In his classic 15-volume History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Rear Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, USNR, describes what followed:
“Quickly there followed seven explosions of torpedoes and bombs on the hangar deck. Great sections of the flight deck and elevator and entire planes were hurled hundreds of feet into the air. The ship blazed from stem to stern, and at 1125 the unluckily renamed ² St. Lo foundered under a cloud of dense smoke.
“The second member of this pair partly circled the formation, turned, and started a run on White Plains, which maneuvered to evade with hard left rudder. The plane came weaving under fire of all after guns; a torrent of blazing tracers could be seen entering its fuselage and wing roots. When only a few yards astern, it rolled over and dove, missing the port catwalk by inches and exploding between that level and the water. The flight deck was showered with debris and fragments of the pilot, and eleven men were injured.
RADM S. E. Morison, USNR, ca. 1953
“As Kitkun Bay was steaming on course 200° at 1110, she sighted 15 Judys [Yokosuka D4Y Suisei dive bombers]approaching the formation from astern, distant about five miles. She launched twoWildcats by catapult for combat air patrol, but not in time. She and the three remaining carriers, Fanshaw Bay, White Plains and Kalinin Bay were without screen, owing to rescue work. One of the three Kamikazes got through the C.A.P. and dove at Kitkun Bay from astern. Its wings were shot off as it neared the ship, and just in time, for the bomb struck the water 25 yards on the starboard bow and parts of the plane hit the forecastle. Kalinin Bay received a crash dive on her flight deck which damaged it badly, but the fires then started were quenched in less than five minutes. A second plane crashed after her stack and two others dove but missed. AdmiralSprague’s flagship, the lucky “Fannie Bee,” alone alone sustained no damage in this assault.”
—History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume XII, Leyte—June 1944–January 1945, by Rear Admiral Samuel Elliot Morison, USNR. Chapter XIII, Section 3, at Page 302. Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1988
“10:55 a.m. A major explosion occurs on USS St. Lo (CVE 63).” (National Archives and Records Administration 80-G-27051)
Of St. Lo‘s crew of 889 men, 113 were killed or missing, and another 30 later died of wounds.
Taffy 3’s remaining screening ships,³ the Fletcher-class destroyer USS Heerman (DD-531), with the Butler-class destroyer escorts USS John C. Butler (DE-339), USS Dennis (DE-405) and USS Raymond (DE-341), searched for survivors of the sunken St. Lo. They recovered 754 men.
USS St. Lo (CVE-63) burning in Leyte Gulf, 25 October 1944. (National Archives and Records Administration 80-G-47041)The remains of a Yokosuka D4Y Suisei dive bomber aboard USS Kitkun Bay (CVE-71), 25 October 1944. (United States Navy)Damage to the flight deck of USS Kalinin Bay (CVE-68), 25 October 1944. (National Archives and Records Administration 80-G-270510)
Just after noon on 26 October, another group of Kamikazes attacked Taffy 1. The task group’s combat air patrol saved Santee from 12 Judys. Sangamon and Petroff Bay were narrowly missed.
A Zeke crashes into the flight deck of USS Suwanee (CVE-27), 1240 hours, 26 October 1944. (National Archives and Records Administration 80-G-270613)
At 12:40 p.m., a Zero crashed onto Suwanee‘s flight deck and hit a torpedo bomber which had just landed. Both airplanes exploded. Nine more of Suwannee‘s airplanes caught fire. 85 sailors were killed, 58 were missing and 102 wounded, some of whom later died of their injuries.
USS Midway (CVE-63) at San Diego, California, April 1944. It is painted in a three color disruptive camouflage. The ship would be renamed USS St. Lo three months later. (National Archives and Records Administration 80-G-47028)
USS St. Lo (CVE-63) was a Casablanca-class escort aircraft carrier. Originally designated an auxiliary aircraft carrier, USS Chapin (ACV-63), the ship was laid down by the Kaiser Shipbuilding Co., Vancouver, Washington, 23 January 1943, under a Maritime Commission contract (M.C. Hull 1100). Chapin was renamed USS Midway (CVE-63) on 3 April 1943.
Midway was launched 17 August 1943, and commissioned 23 October 1943. Captain Francis Joseph McKenna, USN, was in command. The ship cost $6,033,429.05.
On 10 October 1944, Midway was renamed USS St. Lo (CVE-63), just 15 days before she was sunk.
St. Lo had an overall length 512 feet, 3 inches (156.14 meters), beam of 65 feet, 2 inches (19.86 meters) and maximum draft of 22 feet 4 inches (6.81 meters). The extreme width of the flight deck was 108 feet, 1 inch (32.95 meters). The ship had a full load displacement of 10,902 long tons (11,077 metric tons). It was powered by four Babcock & Wilcox boilers of 9,000 shaft horsepower (6,700 kilowatts), feeding two Skinner Unaflow vertical reciprocating steam engines, which turned two screws capable of driving it at 19 knots (22 statute miles per hour/35 kilometers per hour). The carrier had an unrefueled range of 10,240 nautical miles (11,784 statute miles/18,965 kilometers) at 15 knots (17 statute miles per hour/28 kilometers per hour).
“St. LO (CVE-63) slows to a stop as she is abandoned in an orderly manner. Note the men going down lines into the water.” (National Archives and Records Administration 80-G-270511)
The flight deck was equipped with one steam catapult and two elevators.
St. Lo was armed by one 5-inch, 38-caliber (127 millimeter) dual purpose naval gun, sixteen 40 millimeter Bofors automatic antiaircraft guns, and twenty 20 millimeter Oerlikon autocannon. She carried 672 rounds of 5-inch, 3,298 rounds of 40 millimeter cannon shells, and 7,440 rounds of 20 millimeter shells. The carrier also carried 1,350 rounds of .45 ACP small arms ammunition.⁴
St. Lo carried 27 aircraft, including Grumman F4F or General Motors/Eastern Aircraft FM Wildcat fighters and Grumman TBF or General Motors TBM Avenger torpedo bombers.
The wreck of USS St. Lo is located near N. 11° 1′ 12″, E. 126° 2′ 24″.
¹ Historian John Toland named Lieutenant Seki as the pilot of this airplane, but Lieutenant Junior Grade Hiroshi Nishizawa, IJN, flying one of the A6M5 escorting fighters, reported that Seki’s airplane bounced off the deck of the carrier and its bomb did not explode. It crashed into the sea. He observed a second plane crash onto St. Lo, and its bomb did explode. Nishizawa was killed the following day, 26 October 1944.
² It is an old sailors’ superstition that it is unlucky to rename a ship. USS St. Lo had been laid down as USS Chapin Bay in January 1943. On 3 April 1943, it was renamed USS Midway. In order to free the name Midway for the new large aircraft carrier CVB-41, as well to commemorate the Battle of Saint-Lô, USS Midway was renamed USS St. Lo on 10 October 1944.
³ Along with USS Gambier Bay (CVE-73), Taffy 3’s escorting Fletcher-class destroyers, USS Hoel (DD-503) and USS Johnston (DD-557) and the Butler-class destroyer escort, USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413), were sunk several hours earlier by enemy naval gunfire during The Battle off Samar, when they heroically counterattacked the Center Force.
⁴ Naval History and Heritage Command, “Midway II (CVE-63)”
The pilots of Torpedo Squadron Eight (VT-8) aboard USS Hornet (CV-8) shortly before the Battle of Midway. Only Ensign George H. Gay, front row, center, would survive. (U.S. Navy photograph published in LIFE Magazine)
4 June 1942: At the Battle of Midway, beginning at 0702 hours, fifteen Douglas TBD-1 Devastator torpedo bombers were launched from the United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8) along with squadrons of Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers and Grumman F4F Wildcat fighters.
Lieutenant Commander John Charles Waldron, United States Navy. (U.S. Naval Institute)
Led by Lieutenant Commander John C. Waldron, Torpedo Squadron Eight (VT-8) flew at low altitude toward the expected position of the attacking Japanese fleet, while the fighters escorted the dive bombers at high altitude. Waldron sighted the enemy fleet at a distance of 30 miles and ordered his squadron to attack. Without any fighter escort, the slow flying torpedo bombers were attacked by Japanese Navy A6M2 Type 0 fighters and defensive anti-aircraft fire from the warships. All fifteen TBDs were shot down.
A detachment of VT-8, flying Grumman TBF-1 Avengers, had been sent ahead to Midway from Pearl Harbor. These six torpedo bombers, led by Lieutenant Langdon K. Fieberling, also attacked the Japanese fleet. Five were shot down by intercepting Zero fighters. The sixth, flown by Ensign Albert Kyle Earnest, was badly damaged and its gunner killed. The torpedo bomber was able to return to Midway but crash-landed. It was the only aircraft of Torpedo Eight to survive the Battle of Midway.¹
Only one man, Ensign George H. Gay, of the thirty pilots and gunners of Torpedo Eight who had launched from USS Hornet, survived. Ensign Earnest and Radioman Harry Hackett Ferrier, were the only survivors of the 18 men from the Midway detachment of VT-8. The torpedo bombers failed to score any hits on the Japanese ships, and their machine guns did not bring down any of the Zeros.
Ensign George H. Gay, Jr., United States Navy, and radio operator/gunner ARM3c George Arthur Field, with their Douglas TBD-1 Devastator, Bu. No. 1518, May 1942. (U.S. Navy)The crew of Grumman TBF-1 Avenger 8-T-1 (Bu. No. 00380), left to right, Chief Aviation Ordnanceman Basil Rick, Ensign Albert K. Ernest, and Aviation Radioman 3/c Harry H. Ferrier. On 4 June, Rick’s gun turret was operated Seaman 2/c Jay D. Manning, who was killed in action. (U.S. Navy via Things With Wings)
In the enigmatic ways of warfare, the attack by Torpedo Eight caused all of the Japanese fighters defending their aircraft carriers to descend to low altitude in their efforts to shoot down the American torpedo bombers. When the SBD Dauntless dive bombers from USS Enterprise and USS Yorktown arrived a few minutes later, there were no Japanese fighters at high altitude to interfere with their attack.
The dive bomber attack was devastating. The aircraft carriers Akagi, Kaga and Hiryu were bombed and sunk. Soryu received major damage, and was sunk by its escorting destroyers later in the day.
The Imperial Japanese Navy, up to this time on the offense all over the Pacific and Indian Oceans, never recovered from the loss of the experienced pilots that died when those carriers went down.
One of Torpedo Eight’s Douglas TBD-1 Devastator torpedo bombers, Bu. No. 0308, marked 8-T-5, aboard USS Hornet (CV-8), mid-May 1942. (U.S. Navy)
In his After Action Report, Hornet‘s commanding officer, Captain Marc A. Mitscher (later, Admiral) wrote:
Beset on all sides by the deadly Zero fighters, which were doggedly attacking them in force, and faced with a seemingly impenetrable screen of cruisers and destroyers, the squadron drove in valiantly at short range. Plane after plane was shot down by fighters, anti-aircraft bursts were searing faces and tearing out chunks of fuselage, and still the squadron bored in. Those who were left dropped their torpedoes at short range.
A Douglas TBD-1 Devastator, Bu. No. 0308, of VT-6 (Torpedo Six) drops a Mark XIII aerial torpedo during practice, 20 October 1941. (U.S. Navy)Grumman TBF-1 Avenger Bu. No. 00380 (8-T-1), the only aircraft of Torpedo Eight to survive the Battle of Midway. (U.S. Navy via Things With Wings)
¹ In a 2008 U.S. Naval Institute article, survivor Commander Harry H. Ferrier (then Aviation Radioman 3/c) wrote that following the Battle of Midway, TBF-1 Bu. No. 00380 was returned to Pearl Harbor for inspection. It had been hit by at least nine 20 mm cannon shells and sixty-four 7.7 mm machine gun bullets.
Midway Atoll, looking from east to west. Eastern Island in foreground, Sand Island in background. (U.S. Navy)
4 June 1942: The Battle of Midway: The Japanese naval task force (First Mobile Force) under Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, consisting of the aircraft carriers IJN Akagi, IJN Kaga, IJN Hiryu and IJN Soryu, along with their escorts of battleships, cruisers, destroyers and supporting tankers, launched the first attack at 0430 against the United States base at Midway Island. The attackers consisted of 36 Aichi D3A dive bombers, 36 Nakajima B5N torpedo bombers and 36 Mitsubishi A6M Zero fighters as escort.
The incoming aircraft were detected by radar on the island and defending U.S. Marines fighters—obsolescent Grumman F4F Wildcats and obsolete Brewster F2A Buffalos—were launched to defend the island’s airstrip and facilities. 15 U.S. Army Air Force B-17E Flying Fortress heavy bombers and 4 Martin B-26 Marauder medium bombers took off to attack the Japanese carriers.
The Marine fighters were outnumbered and technologically inferior. 4 of the F4Fs and all 12 F2As were shot down. The Japanese lost 4 torpedo bombers and 3 Zero fighters. Facilities on the island were heavily damaged by the dive bomber attack, but it was not put out of action.
IJN Hiryu evading B-17 bomber attack at Battle of Midway, 4 June 1942. (U.S. Air Force)
The Curtiss-Wright Corporation Hawk 81B (P-40B Warhawk) was a single-seat, single-engine pursuit. It was a low-wing monoplane of all-metal construction, and used flush riveting to reduce aerodynamic drag. It had an enclosed cockpit and retractable landing gear. Extensive wind tunnel testing at the NACA Langley laboratories refined the airplane’s design, significantly increasing the top speed.
The P-40B was powered by a liquid-cooled, supercharged, 1,710.60-cubic-inch-displacement (28.032 liter) Allison Engineering Co. V-1710-C15 (V-1710-33), a single overhead cam (SOHC) 60° V-12 engine, which produced 1,040 horsepower at 2,800 r.p.m., and turned a three-bladed Curtiss Electric constant-speed propeller through a 2:1 gear reduction. The V-1710-33 was 8 feet, 2.54 inches (2.503 meters) long, 3 feet, 5.88 inches (1.064 meters) high, and 2 feet, 5.29 inches (0.744 meters) wide. It weighed 1,340 pounds (607.8 kilograms).
