Dive-Bombers—The First Precision-Guided Munitions

Mention dive-bombers in any gathering of World War 2 enthusiasts, and you will instantly conjure up images of the ugly, bent-wing Ju88 Stuka, the German Luftwaffe’s primary close-support aircraft. Fighter pilots will sneeringly call dive-bombers, “A fighter pilot’s dream,” because they believe they are easy to shoot down. Very few people in and out of the military are aware of the critical role that dive-bombers played in winning the Second World War for the Allies.

The term, “dive-bombing,” is precisely descriptive. To execute such an attack, a pilot flying at an altitude of anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 feet altitude puts his aircraft into a steep dive and aims it directly as the target. U.S. Navy procedure called for a 70˚ dive. German and Japanese aircraft were limited to 65˚ dives. Using special dive brakes to maintain control during the high-speed dive, the pilot drops down to 1,000 to 2,000 feet above the target before pulling the his bomb release. As the bomb rotates out on its “crutch” to clear the propeller and falls away, the aviator pulls back on his controls, experiencing a force of six times normal gravity as the plane levels out at low altitude. Five seconds or less after bomb release, it strikes the target. The bomb has been controlled by the pilot’s brain to within seconds of impact.

Dive-bombing was first tried above the trenches in WW1. Heavy losses of aircraft and aircrew discouraged widespread adoption of the technique. European air forces largely ignored the concept in the interwar years. But as carrier-borne naval aviation developed rapidly in the 1920s, naval air forces revived the idea. Hitting a fast-moving and maneuvering ship in the open sea presents a complex problem. With both aerodynamic and weather forces acting on both aircraft and missiles, hitting a moving ship from a horizontal bombing position remained an unlikely proposition. The USN pressed forward with development of dive-bombers to solve the problem.

In 1931, the famed American Director, John Ford, released a film called Helldivers. Clark Gable and Wallace Berry portrayed two chief petty officers that flew dive-bombers. A typical Hollywood action film of the time, it did feature American naval aviation at that time and brought dive-bombing to the attention of all naval powers. That same year, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) issued its specification for a carrier-based dive-bomber.

At the 1931 Cleveland Air Races, German ace Ernst Udet observed a dive-bombing demonstration by Helldivers. The concept soon enthralled him. He convinced his WW1 commander, Hermann Goering, to buy two export versions of the Curtiss F11C-2 Goshawk Helldiver, for evaluation by the fledgling Luftwaffe. Later put in charge of aircraft development by Goering, Udet ordered that all German bombers be capable of dive-bombing. This requirement hindered development of a strategic bombing force in the Luftwaffe.

The spectacular successes of Germany’s Panzer columns operating with continuous dive-bomber support are a matter for separate discussion. The dive-bomber’s critical contributions to final victory were in the realm of naval warfare. Dive-bombing proved key to successes of both the USN and the IJN during the Pacific War.

In 1941, over half the aircraft on USN carriers were SBDs (Scout-Bomber-Douglas Aircraft) Dauntlesses. Thirty-six SBDs were divided into two squadrons, a Scouting squadron (VS) and a Bombing squadron (VB). In practice the squadrons were used interchangeably.

For a plane approaching obsolescence in 1941, the Dauntless was a remarkably capable warbird. Thirty-three feet long with a wingspan of almost 42 feet, the SBD had a 1,200 horsepower, 9-cylinder radial engine. It had a range of over 1,000 miles and aerodynamically pleasing shape. A long greenhouse canopy housed the pilot and radio operator/gunner. A 1,000-pound bomb could be carried on a “crutch” beneath the fuselage, and hard-points on each wing could bear 250-pound bombs. A typical combat load was either one 1,000-pounder or one 500-pounder and two 250-pounders. The Dauntless had a significant gun armament. The pilot controlled two .50-caliber machine guns firing through the propeller. The rear gunner had a pair of .30-caliber guns on a flexible mount. The pilot’s guns actually outranged those on a Japanese Zero fighter. The Dauntless was even frequently used in combat air patrol situations against slower torpedo bombers. It had a combat kill ratio of 3.2 to 1—better than some fighters.

In the first year of the Pacific War, SBDs sank six aircraft carriers, one battleship, three cruisers, a submarine, and fourteen transports, approximately 20 percent of IJN prewar tonnage. Of IJN warship losses during the Pacific War, dive bombers sank over 170. Submarines accounted for another 140 sinkings, and surface ships about 40 others.  Dive-bombers thus proved crucial to final victory by the USN.

SBDs will figure prominently in my next two novels about the Pacific War. I am currently writing about the Battle of the Coral Sea in Endure The Cruel Sun, sequel to my bestselling novel Hold Back the Sun. The Americans have just found the IJN light carrier, Shōhō.  Japan has won every battle to date. How will this one turn out?

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Warren Bell is an author of historical fiction.  He spent 29 years as a US Naval Officer, and has traveled to most of the places in the world that he writes about.  A long-time World War II-buff, his first two novels, Fall Eagle One and Hold Back the Sun are set during World War II.  His third novel, Asphalt and Blood, follows the US Navy Seabees in Vietnam.  His most recent novel, Snowflakes in July, was released on September 15, 2015.  He is currently working on a new novel, Endure The Cruel Sun, the sequel to his best-selling novel, Hold Back the Sun. For more about Warren Bell, visit his website at: wbellauthor.com or see him on twitter @wbellauthor.  

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When Weapons and Equipment Become Characters

Until the last quarter of the Twentieth Century, weapons and equipment in novels were usually only vaguely described. C. S. Forester proved an exception, as did F. Van Wick Mason. Forester described the vessels, cannon, and small arms of the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars in some detail. Mason did likewise in his historical novels about the American Revolution.  This was one reason I was drawn to their work. However, they remained the exception rather than the rule.

In 1984, the Naval Institute Press published Tom Clancy’s novel, The Hunt for Red October. In 1986, the publisher followed up with Stephen Coonts’s Flight of the Intruder.  Rich in detailed descriptions of up-to-date military weapons and equipment, these books issued in a new genre, the techno-thriller.  Both became runaway best sellers.  Dozens, perhaps hundreds of authors emulated their style. I confess to being one of them.

When I began my first novel, Fall Eagle One, I set out from the beginning to write a World War II techno-thriller.  During the latter years of the war, Germany made giant leaps in aviation and weapons technology. Many historians believe that, had Hitler encouraged rather than hindered these developments earlier, the tide of battle might have turned.  His insistence that the Me-262 jet fighter carry bombs delayed its widespread introduction by at least a year. The specter of hundreds of jet fighters attacking our 8^th Air Force bombers as early as 1943 is not pleasant to contemplate. He even initially cancelled production of the MP-44, the world’s first assault rifle. He considered nuclear physics to be “Jewish physics,” and therefore to be spurned.  Germany’s failure to speed development and deployment of all these new “cutting edge” technologies presents many “what-if” ideas for novelists.

The inanimate protagonists I chose for Fall Eagle One are the Messerschmitt-264  inter-continental bomber (Amerika Bomber) and two radio-controlled bombs, the Ruhrstahl  FritzX and the Henschel Hs 293. The Me-264 bore a striking resemblance to the Boeing B-29 and had a range to reach the U.S. East Coast. Both the glide bombs sank major warships, including the Italian battleship, Roma. Fall Eagle One marries these weapons in a mission to the U.S. to kill FDR. I purposefully included the level of descriptive detail employed by Clancy and Coonts. Since I am an engineer, I felt confident in fictionally equipping the bomber with more powerful engines and using actual in-flight refueling technology from the era to extend range. During my extensive research on these weapons, I realized that they were becoming major characters of the novel.

Most of the 5-star reviews of FallEagle One on Amazon.com specifically praise my level of descriptive detail. A few of the less-than-flattering 3-star reviews criticize it. With about a 7:1 ratio of 5-star to 3-star reviews, I can live with that ratio.

My second novel, Hold Back The Sun, is set in the Western Pacific during the opening months of the Pacific War. In relating the heroic battles of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet against the Japanese Navy, I describe the ships and aircraft in a fashion similar to that of C.S. Forester.

I believe that the concept of weapons and equipment as major characters is here to stay in the historical and thriller genres. I hope it at least lasts as long as I am able to continue writing and reading.

Eyewitnesses Are a Priceless Resource

In his review of FROZEN IN TIME by Mitchell Zuckoff in this morning's WASHINGTON POST, Joseph Kanon points out that, "World War II remains the motherload of war adventure stories." For those of us who write in this genre, direct eyewitness accounts from the mouths of actual veterans has always been a priceless resource.


My own fascination with the events and technology of WW2 was sparked by the stories told by my cousin, Gordon Bell. Gordon served for three years in the China-Burma-India Theater. He was a fighter crew chief, and he worked with P-40s, P-38s, P-47s, and P-51s. His first pilot was a member of the original Flying Tigers. His tales of flying into Myitkyina, Burma, on the first day after Merrill's Marauders siezed it from the Japanese were hair-raising to an Arkansas pre-teen. The P-40s bombed enemy targets right off the end of the runway.

My brother-in-law, Edward Cook, flew and commanded B-24s in the 8th Air Force in England. He led many missions over Germany before the Nazis capitulated. Edward was the source of my knowledge about the difficulties of flying the B-24. It took a lot of muscle, but he was a big, strong man who grew up on a farm.

Much of the technical and operational detail in my novel, FALL EAGLE ONE, came from actual Luftwaffe veterans with whom I made contact on the 12 O'Clock High Luftwaffe and Axis Air Forces Discussion Board on the Internet. The details of German aircraft intercom chatter in my book came from this source, as did details of the German blind landing system.

The death of 89-year-old Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey last week was a grim reminder that we are rapidly losing our WW2 veterans.  Press reports tell us that they are dying at a rate of about a quarter of a million a year, over 700 per day. Gordon and Edward are both gone now, although both lived long and productive lives. At least Edward's experiences are not lost to posterity. His son, Charlie, talked him into giving an oral history at the WW2 Museum in New Orleans.