Even though TBM-3Ws first went aboard a carrier in April 1945, few photos aboard carriers have survived. A TBM-3W of CVBG-3 is ready for launch on the port catapult of the USS ‘Franklin D Roosevelt’ in February 1947.

Для компенсации снижения запаса курсовой устойчивости, вызванного огромным обтекателем РЛС, самолет получил дополнительные кили-шайбы
BuNo 69476, bearing the ‘XA’ tail code of VX-1, off the Florida coast during operations from NAS Key West.

A TBM-3W2 flown by a New York reservist. The last TBM-3W2s in US service were phased out by the end of 1956.

ASW team: the TBM-3W2 was used for ‘hunting’ and the TBM-3S2 for ‘killing’. The tail code ‘SH’ identifies these aircraft as belonging to VS-26, a squadron decommissioned in July 1956.

In the United States, TBM-3W2s were last operated by reserve squadrons including that based at NAS Los Alamitos in southern California.

During the Anglo-French Suez operations in 1956, the TBM-3W2s of Flottille 9F were embarked aboard the carrier ‘La Fayette’.

Externally similar to the TBM-3W, the TBM-3Q was optimised for electronic reconnaissance. A pair of ‘Queer Turkeys’ over the Indian Ocean while assigned to CVG-1 embarked aboard the USS ‘Tarawa’.

After it had been called to active duty during the Korean War VS-931, the reserve squadron at NAS Willow Grove, was renumbered VS-20. A TBM-3W2 of the new reserve unit which was formed at NAS Willow Grove after the war is seen here at Love Field, Texas, on August 5, 1954.

During World War Two the Avenger was nicknamed ‘Turkey’ by US Naval Aviators. With its large radome for the AN/APS-20 radar the TBM-3W, and later the TBM-3W2, became known as ‘Pregnant Turkeys’.

Diagram showing the electronic equipment fitted to the TBM-3W. This illustration was in a report on AEW equipment published by the Radiation Laboratory at MIT on August 15, 1945 - the very day that Japan surrendered unconditionally.