Peter C. Smith - Combat Biplanes of World War II

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Curtiss SB2C Helldiver

Dive Bomber!

Dive Bombers in Action

Douglas AD Skyraider

Douglas SBD Dauntless

Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt-II

Fist from Sky

Impact! the Dive Bomber Pilots Speak

Into the Assault

Junkers Ju87 Stuka

Kamikaze!

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Luftwaffe Colours Stuka Volume 1

Luftwaffe Colours Stuka Volume 2

North American T-6

Petlyakov Pe-2 Peshka

Royal Air Force Squadron Badges

Ship Strike!

Skua! The Royal Navys Dive Bomber

Straight Down!

Stuka at War

Stukas over the Mediterranean

Stukas over the Steppe

Stuka Spearhead

Stuka Squadron

T6 A Pictorial History

The Sea Eagles

The Stuka at War

Torpedo Bombers

Vengeance!

Zero!

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by
Pen & Sword Aviation
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
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Copyright Peter C. Smith 2015

ISBN: 978 1 78340 054 6
PDF ISBN: 978 1 47387 426 8
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47387 425 1
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47387 424 4

The right of Peter C. Smith to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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an even match for the Gloster Gladiator. In her brief appearance at the tail end of the Battle of Britain, however, she was completely out of her depth.

and the Mediterranean. These aircraft also rescued many Allied aircrew as well as German, but Churchill ordered that they all be shot down and many were.

.

(N.B. All the above images were originally created prior to 1 August 1989; none are engravings; all are photographs and therefore in the Public Domain. Of those taken by representatives of the United Kingdom Government and taken prior to 1 June 1957 HMSO has declared that the expiry of Crown Copyrights applies worldwide.)

T he biplane age is principally associated with the Great War (along with the triplane) and its immediate aftermath. Images of the Red Baron and other fearless aces duelling in almost medieval aerial aerobatics over the stagnant Western Front are the images that first come to mind. Or whirling battles with vividly coloured aircraft enmeshed in swirling dances of death in a circus of swarming aircraft. In truth the chivalry associated with these first air warfare combats was never that widespread while the carnage and slaughter inflicted was, pro rata, on the same ghastly scale as the rest of that hideous conflict. Over the years, in the 1920s barnstorming era of the biplane the image changes from dedicated one-on-one legalized murder to derring-do of a different calibre with crazy and fearless men (and women too) dicing with death in aerial gyrations of a different nature, and daring flights around the world in machines composed of flimsy wires and struts, much as in the pioneering days of aviation.

By the time the Second World War broke out in 1939, the biplane in most countries national air forces was a relic of that past age. The monoplane dominated both the fighter and the bomber arms, whether it be the British Hurricane and Spitfire, or the German Messerschmitt Bf.109 and 110 in the Battle of Britain; the British Blenheim and Wellington or the German Junkers Ju88, the Heinkel He111 and the Dornier Do.17, or even the crank-winged Junkers Ju87 it was monoplanes that opened the war in the air and even Poland offered combat with the parasol-winged PZL P7 and P11 fighters and ground attack units equipped with the PZL 23 Kara and the 37 Los.

In Italy, it was the mass ranks of the Caproni, Fiat and Savoia-Marchetti monoplanes that Mussolini promised would dominate the skies over the Mediterranean. In the Soviet Union it was the same with the Rata fighter cutting her teeth in the Spanish Civil War and against the Japanese in the Far East in a couple of little undeclared incidents, while the Japanese themselves were drubbing the Chinese with the Mitsubishi Type 96 monoplane, and were soon to introduce the world-beating Mitsubishi Rai-sen, soon to earn fame as the Zero fighter, but still employed the Nakajima E8N floatplane aboard their heavy warships in the early stages of the Pacific War. In the United States the Curtiss Company was replacing its biplane Hawks with monoplane types, the Lockheed P-38 Lightning and Bell P-39 Airacobra, while the little Boeing P-26 Peashooter had been in service many years.

However, some biplanes did linger on in front-line service in many nations. It is to the shame of British politicians of this era that the majority of them were in RAF or RN service, showing just how neglected our defences had become. Indeed, in 1940, Britain was still designing warplanes of the biplane type, viz the Fairey Albacore! But if the British led the way in retaining obsolete machines, other nations also contributed to the total, surprisingly, the Luftwaffe of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Air Force as well. Even the Americans were still flying biplanes (the Curtiss Hawk) in 1939 and 1940, although these were replaced before she herself was forced into the war in December 1941, whereas the British continued to use such aircraft until 1945 and beyond.

Just as remarkable as their continued employment and longevity in combat roles was their resilience. Totally outclassed they might have been, but somehow biplanes continued to be of value, and some, like the Walrus, continued to be employed into the immediate post-war years.

It should also be stressed that this book does not pretend to list each and every biplane that took part in World War II; even the most fanatical rivet-counter among the critics would be hard-pressed to do that. I am well aware that the RAF still flew the Hawker Hind with No. 609 Squadron at Yeadon and the Hawker Hardy was still serving with No. 6 Squadron in Transjordan, the Blackburn Shark was with No. 4 AA Co-Operation Unit in Singapore as late as 1942, and with the Royal Canadian Navy until 1944, and that the Hawker Hart still flew in some services air forces. The old Saunders-Roe London biplane flying boats served at Gibraltar in 1940 as did No. 240 Squadron, which also used some Supermarine Stranraers. Another seaplane survivor was the Supermarine Sea Otter, which was still in production in January 1946, a true survivor. Antique Fairey Gordons of No. 4 FTS helped rout the Iraqi Army at Habbaniya in May 1941. Also that the Fairey Fox was operational in May 1940 with the Belgians and others, that the French Breguet Bizerta flying boats were used by both their owners and requisitioned for operational use by the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain and that the Luftwaffe also used the Heinkel He.60 float-plane in Norwegian waters in 19412; also that the Dutch in the Netherlands East Indies still had the Koolhoven FK-51, and even that the Philippine Air Force was still flying the Keystone B-3 in 1942. One could go on, but the aircraft in these pages are the ones I have selected as meriting fuller descriptions and lack of space meant the line had to be drawn somewhere.