Submarine Reconnaissance Missions

September 17, 2017 PE Matt 0

One of the lesser known aspects of the air war in the Pacific is the extent to which the Japanese made use of submarine-launched aircraft. Although several navies had experimented with submarine aircraft carriers between […]

Diego Suarez during Operation Ironclad

The Invasion of Madagascar

September 3, 2017 PE Matt 0

Plans to take the Vichy French island of Madagascar, codenamed Operation Ironclad, had been laid even before the Japanese fleet made their incursion into the Indian Ocean in April 1942. The fear was that the […]

Bristol Beaufort

Bristol Beaufort

September 3, 2017 PE Matt 0

The Bristol Beaufort origination from a 1935 request by the RAF for a twin-engine light reconnaissance and torpedo-bombing aircraft. Two competing designs, the Beaufort and the Blackburn Botha, were both ordered into production before a […]

Martin Maryland

August 29, 2017 PE Matt 0

In 1938 the US Army Air Corps issued the specifications for a new light bomber, and the subsequent design competition eventually produced 3 production bombers – the Douglas A-20, North American B-25, and the Martin […]

The Fall of Burma

August 27, 2017 PE Matt 1

After the fall of Rangoon in early March 1942, the remaining RAF and AVG aircraft withdrew to Magwe airfield in central Burma, from where they hoped to give what air cover they could to the […]

Boeing 314 Clipper

Boeing 314 Clipper

August 14, 2017 PE Matt 0

Pan Am approached several companies with a request for a large flying boat to augment their existing fleet of Sikorsky S-42s and Martin M-130s. The requirements specified an aircraft with enormous range, but still capable […]

Short S.23 Empire

Short S.23 Empire

August 11, 2017 PE Matt 0

In 1935 Imperial Airways, the British- government-backed service for air travel to the Empire, issued a requirement for a medium range flying boat capable of carrying up to 24 passengers, plus airmail and freight, at […]

Martin 130 China Clipper at Pearl Harbor

Martin M-130

August 8, 2017 PE Matt 0

1931, Pan Am president Juan Trippe requested proposals for a passenger aircraft capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean to Europe, a distance of around 2,000 miles from Newfoundland to Ireland. This was just 4 years […]

USS Lexington on fire and sinking in the Coral Sea

Coral Sea: After Action Report

August 6, 2017 PE Matt 0

Famously, the Battle of the Coral Sea was the first naval action where the opposition ships never saw each other. All of the offensive action was carried out by aircraft, particularly the carrier bombers of […]

1 2 3 4 5