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Douglas SBD “Dauntless” Diving Bomber
This is a typical Pacific sky “workhorse”. This aircraft didn’t have any extraordinary characteristics, which could bring it worldwide glory. So it had to fight hard for this glory against the Japanese fighters, AA gunners and weather. It happened so that since the first days of war between Japan and USA, this aircraft was the only worthy representative of the marine diving bombers, as all other such aircraft were morally obsolete and quickly disappeared from the carriers’ decks.
The aircraft’s moment of glory came during the Midway battle. All 4 Japanese carriers were destroyed by these aircraft. At the whim of fate, 50 SBD-3 from “Enterprise” and “Yorktown” did not encounter any resistance, and could freely drop their bombs on “Akagi”, “Kaga”, and “Soryu”, with fully fueled air groups standing on their decks. Due to the colossal fires these carriers were sunk. Later the “Hiryu” carrier met similar end.
Americans loved this easy to pilot and reliable aircraft, jokingly deciphering the SBD acronym (Scout Bomber by Douglas) as “Slow But Deadly”.
Until November 1943, this was the only American marine diver, when the successful combat debut of the SB2C “Helldiver” came. Despite the success, James Wause later confessed: “were it up to me, I would choose SBD!”
However, the perfect weapon left terrible scars. These are hundreds of thousands of the Japanese civilians, who died in the dreadful city fires, and in the scorching heat of atomic blasts.
SBD “Dauntless” Diving Bomber in the "Pacific Storm"
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