A ready room on board the aircraft carrier Yorktown (CV 10) is alive with activity as pilots return from a strike against Wake Atoll in October 1943. In the foreground, air intelligence officers debrief an aviator while a squadronmate in the background excitedly tells about the mission. Note the aircraft recognition model hanging from the overhead (ceiling), a common adornment of ready rooms so that pilots could become familiar with the Japanese aircraft they would face in aerial combat. (Image courtesy of National Archives)

Gunners of Bombing Squadron (VB) 87 relax in their ready room on board the carrier Ticonderoga (CV 14) operating off the coast of Japan during 1945. The flight equipment hung on the bulkheads (walls) and closely packed rows of ready room chairs were staples of wartime ready rooms.

Aircrewmen assigned to Carrier Air Group (CVG) 2 relax with a game of cards in their ready room in the carrier Princeton (CV 37) shortly after World War II. In addition to serving as the location for official briefings and debriefings, ready rooms were places where flight personnel relaxed, building the camaraderie so important to the success of a squadron.

Cartoonist Robert Osborn entered the Navy early in World War II and put his talents to work creating training posters centered on a pilot named "Dilbert," who could never do anything right. He also sketched other subjects, this being a humorous interpretation of the happenings in a typical aircraft carrier ready room. Click on the image at left for a larger view of the cartoon.