Dive Bombers in Action

The German blitzkrieg of 1940 cut its way through Belgium and France, terror reigned from the air. Screaming earthwards, the Stukas spread mayhem and destruction before them. A new, dynamic force had entered warfare.
In the early days of military aviation it soon became apparent that precision bombing was exceedingly difficult. The movement of the aircraft, the trajectory of the bomb's descent path, the time delay between release and impact, plus the natural hazards of crosswinds and other air elements — all these factors militated against accurate level-flight bombing. A daring alternative was to dive directly at the target, releasing the bomb straight at the enemy.
The dangers of the new technique were all too apparent. The RAF carried out trials in Suffolk during 1918/19, but between the wars the long-range level-flight bomber reigned supreme in the world's air forces. It was in the late 1930s and in the Second World War that the dive bomber came into its own, contributing its special, spectacular form of destruction to the battlefield — attacking pin-point targets such as bridges, command posts and artillery positions, and harassing a retreating enemy.
Most famous of the dive bombers was the Ju 87 Stuka, which was adopted by the Germans in 1936 and made its notorious mark in the Spanish Civil War. In Poland and in the 1940 campaign in the West it proved again its worth as a close-support ground-attack aircraft. Meanwhile in China the Japanese were also experimenting and succeeding with dive bombing; and the British Skua dive bombers early in the Second World War achieved a notable triumph in sinking the German cruiser Konigsberg. Dive bombers spearheaded the Japanese sweep across the Pacific; while in later campaigns, a host of United States dive bomber types — including the Helldiver, Dauntless and Vindicator — provided valuable 'aerial artillery' against both land and sea targets.
The dive bombers — as operated by all the combatants in the Second World War — is the subject of this exciting and action-packed book. Included are the ideas behind the aircraft, the experimental work, trials and improvisations — as well as detailed accounts of the operations of dive bomber squadrons in all theatres of the world war. The theory and practice of dive bombing are explained as well as the methods and experiences of each of the major protagonists — including the little-known operations of the French dive bombers in 1940.
First-hand accounts provide vivid and exciting witness to the reality of what it was like to fly dive-bombing missions — plummeting at hundreds of miles per hour towards the enemy, in the face of all the firepower he could muster for those long, long seconds of descent before releasing the bombs and pulling up to the safety of the skies. . . .




by Peter C. Smith
Published by Blandford 1988 1st edition. 160pp profusely illustrated, index, appendix. 23x28 fine, including d/j.





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