Winning warbird
Air power came to the fore in World War II, and a certain number of airplanes ultimately tipped strategic balances. Britons revere the memory of the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane for their Battle of Britain roles that saved the nation from Nazi invasion. In the bitterly fought Pacific campaign, a less glamorous aircraft blunted the Imperial Japanese samurai sword, halting the Rising Sun’s advances that had seemed inexorable until the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The Douglas SBD Dauntless ultimately paved the way for the full roll-back of Imperial Japanese war aims, but wasn’t an obvious candidate for such a heroic status. Officially the SBD designation stood for ‘Scout Bomber Douglas’, but the popular nickname of ‘Slow But Deadly’ sums up the scout/dive bomber’s abilities.
The supreme achievement of Douglas SBD Dauntless was to wipe out at a single stroke the Imperial Japanese Navy’s aircraft carrier force, their bombs taking to the bottom of the sea the very vessels from which the ‘Day of Infamy’ Pearl Harbor attack had been launched. Historians and strategists recognise this battle as the tipping point in the Pacific War, the Japanese forces never being able to recover from their losses.
Chicago’s Midway Airport (MDW) honours that 1942 battle, and features a surviving Douglas SBD as part of a display that commemorates the battle. It was an expensive battle in terms of lives lost, with US casualties totalling around 307, while the Japanese lost 3,057 killed. It is worth pausing a moment when passing through MDW to pay homage to those lost lives.
Winning warbird
Air power came to the fore in World War II, and a certain number of airplanes ultimately tipped strategic balances. Britons revere the memory of the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane for their Battle of Britain roles that saved the nation from Nazi invasion. In the bitterly fought Pacific campaign, a less glamorous aircraft blunted the Imperial Japanese samurai sword, halting the Rising Sun’s advances that had seemed inexorable until the Battle of Midway in June 1942. The Douglas SBD Dauntless ultimately paved the way for the full roll-back of Imperial Japanese war aims, but wasn’t an obvious candidate for such a heroic status. Officially the SBD designation stood for ‘Scout Bomber Douglas’, but the popular nickname of ‘Slow But Deadly’ sums up the scout/dive bomber’s abilities.
The supreme achievement of Douglas SBD Dauntless was to wipe out at a single stroke the Imperial Japanese Navy’s aircraft carrier force, their bombs taking to the bottom of the sea the very vessels from which the ‘Day of Infamy’ Pearl Harbor attack had been launched. Historians and strategists recognise this battle as the tipping point in the Pacific War, the Japanese forces never being able to recover from their losses.
Chicago’s Midway Airport (MDW) honours that 1942 battle, and features a surviving Douglas SBD as part of a display that commemorates the battle. It was an expensive battle in terms of lives lost, with US casualties totalling around 307, while the Japanese lost 3,057 killed. It is worth pausing a moment when passing through MDW to pay homage to those lost lives.