The Dauntless in Battle

“[An] extensively researched complete history of the famous SBD Dauntless dive bomber, hero of the Battle of Midway. Very Highly Recommended.” —Firetrench
 
The Douglas SBD Dauntless, a monoplane dive-bomber designed by Ed Heinemann for the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps, arrived in service in the months just preceding America’s entry into World War II. The first such aircraft were being shipped out to the USMC units just as the Japanese Task Force arrived in position to launch their attack on Pearl Harbor, while those Dauntless embarked aboard the American aircraft carriers of the Pacific Fleet became among the very first casualties of that surprise attack.
 
Very quickly the Dauntless established herself as a highly accurate naval bomber at sea. In the early raids on Japanese-held islands—and in 1942 at the naval battles of the Coral Sea and Midway, Eastern Solomons and elsewhere—she proved herself a key and decisive instrument to first halt and then turn the die against Japanese expansion. The SBD (nicknamed “Slow But Deadly”) fought ashore the bitter fighting at Guadalcanal and the subsequent Solomon Island campaigns working from both shore and carrier bases.
 
The Dauntless continued to fight at sea until right up to 1944 and then carried on with the Marine Corps to provide the American Army with close air support in their conquest of the Philippines.
 
In The Dauntless in Battle, Peter Smith “traces its illustrious history throughout the second world war and beyond in vivid detail” (Books Monthly).
 
“Lots of fine detail on both the aircraft and the crews who flew them in action.” —Military Model Scene