The Navy's first all-metall monoplane, the TBD Devastator when introduced in 1937 was a contemporary of Japan's famous "Kate" and Britian's Swordfish. It was conceived in 1935, and a total of 129 planes of the type were build. It was sadly obsolete in 1941 - so obsolete, indeed, that it should not have achieved the successes it did. It was thanks to Devastators that the light carrier Shoho was put under so easily at the Coral Sea, and the plane had effectively less losses than the SBD Dauntless - until Midway. In the morning attacks on June 4th, 37 out of 41 Devastators (92.5%) were shot down without scoring a single hit on Kido Butai. It was summarily retired after the battle, the TBF Avenger replacing it in the two months between Midway and Guadalcanal.

    The Devastator's failure was partially to the Mk-13 torpedo it carried, but with a maximum speed of 105 miles when lugging a torpedo, it had quite some time to go until overtaking a fleeing enemy; and likely, it would not if the enemy had a chance to evade, since every turn of 90° would give him a enormous time advantage. 
Together with the Mk-13, requiring a drop from 50ft at 100mph, the Devastator was a sitting duck during its attacking run. Three crewmen were carried when excuting bombing runs, vice torpedo attacks.