#Dauntless plane free

The most famous dogfighting Dauntless pilot who did live to tell his tale was the legendary Stanley “Swede” Vejtasa, who, as a young Lieutenant (j.g.), managed to score not one not two, but three kills in a single engagement against the vaunted Japanese A6M2 Zero, the most feared Japanese fighter plane during the war due to its combination of speed, maneuverability, and armament. Tragically, Leppla did not survive to see the end of the war, as he was KIA during the Battle of Santa Cruz in October 1942. Leska, who, during the Battle of Coral Sea, shot down a combined seven Japanese warplanes four for Leppla and three for Leska. The single most successful Dauntless crew in air-to-air engagements was the tag team (so to speak) of pilot then-Ensign John Leppla and his gunner Radioman 3rd Class John A. 30 caliber machine guns, but also by the pilots themselves who made good use of the plane’s forward-firing, cowling-mounted Browning. Mind you, this wasn’t just accomplished by the SBD’s rear gunners with their swivel-mounted.

The Douglas SBD Dauntless was officially credited with 138 air-to-air victories vs. Ergo, the Dauntless merited her “Slow But Deadly” sobriquet in more ways than one. Neither can either one of the Axis’ counterpart dive bombers, the aforementioned Stuka or Imperial Japan’s Aichi D3A1 “Val”. Not even the heavily armed B-17 Flying Fortress can make this claim. Yet amazingly the Dauntless stands out as the only WWII bomber with a positive kill ratio against enemy aircraft.

Scratch one flattop!”īeing built as a dive bomber, the SBD was definitely not intended by her designers to be a dogfighter. Herein, Dauntless pilots, in tandem with Douglas TBD Devastator torpedo bombers, sank IJN light carrier Shōhō, America’s first carrier kill of the war, thus prompting the famous radio broadcast “Dixon to carrier. One month before Midway, there was the Battle of the Coral Sea, which, though not as momentous as the Battle of Midway, nonetheless provided the United States with its first significant strategic victory against the IJN juggernaut. But this amazing warbird’s reputation was established even before Midway and continued to earn accolades in many a battle thereafter. For good measure, SBD-3 pilots also participated in sinking the heavy cruiser Mikuma and severely damaging the heavy cruiser Mogami. The Dauntless’ status as a game-changer was firmly cemented at the Battle of Midway in June 1942, whereupon the SBD-3 variant of this legendary warbird sank the four Imperial Japanese Navy (IIJN) aircraft carriers Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, and Hiryū, thus turning the tide of the Pacific Theatre of Operations in WWII.

#Dauntless plane free

The iconic plane also ended up seeing service with the Free French Air Force and the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Army Air Forces under the designation A-24 Banshee. The majority of aircraft went to the Navy and Marine Corps, but the plane was also adapted by the U.S. A total of 5,936 were built, spread out across six different variants. The deadly efficacy of dive-bombing, as proven by Nazi Germany’s infamous Junkers Ju-87 Stuka during Hitler’s invasions of Poland and France, instilled an additional sense of urgency in the U.S.

The SBD made her maiden flight on April 22, 1938, and officially entered service the following year.

No other naval aircraft represented that second component quite like the Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber.ĭouglas SBD Dauntless – “Slow But Deadly” battleships, the brunt of war fighting at sea would be taken up by (1) submarines and (2) naval aircraft. Instead of ship-to-ship gunnery broadside engagements between “capital ships,” i.e. The Second World War brought about a sea change-if you will-in the approach toward naval warfare tactics and strategy (Yes, starting off with a bad pun right off the bat.).