The one and only Kingfisher tailhook story. I guess it makes it carrier legal!
The strategists feared that we would need fighter facilities should Japan take a jab at North America through southeast Alaska as many thought they would. Engineers and workmen were moved in, and they built a short runway complete with catapult and arresting gear. The floats were taken off an OS2U, and the plane was equipped with its fixed land-plane wheels and a welded tailhook for the purpose of testing the land carrier. The catapult takeoff went well, but the trap was a disaster. The tailhook worked. It grabbed the cable, but it was far too taut. All the gear in the plane that was not nailed down flew out the front end, scattering navigation books, rubber rafts, thermos bottles and even the loop direction-finder antenna down the runway. The pilot and radioman received a few stitches and a week in sick bay, but they recovered. (The vegetation-overgrown runway is still in place against the hill at Sitka, but to this day that Kingfisher test is the only takeoff and landing ever made there.)