Douglas TBD Devastator
Ordered in 1934 along with a raft of other new carrier bomber aircraft, the Douglas TBD Devastator would go on to be the first all-metal monoplane aircraft flown by the US Navy. The prototype flew […]
Articles by PE Matt
Grumman F4F Wildcat
The Grumman F4F Wildcat was the workhorse fighter of the US Navy in the first 18 months of the Pacific War. Designed as part of the competition for the Navy’s first monoplane fighter which was […]
Curtiss P-40 Warhawk/Kittyhawk
The Curtiss P-40 was a development of the company’s older P-36 Hawk design. The tenth P-36 was modified to replace the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 radial engine with a more streamlined Allison V-1710 inline engine. […]
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress
The Boeing B-17 was designed in response to any Army requirement for a long range heavy bomber to replace the existing B-10 and B-12. Due to a crash involving the first prototype the Boeing design […]
Yokosuka E14Y Type 0 “Glen”
Requested as part of the same 12-Shi requirements, issued in 1937, that produced the A6M Zero, the G4M “Betty” and the E13A, the E14Y was a small seaplane designed to be carried aboard the Imperial […]
Curtiss SOC Seagull
Ordered in 1933 as the primary reconnaissance seaplane for the surface fleet, the Curtiss SOC Seagull went on to have a long career with the US Navy. Originally it was designed for ‘observation’ only, in […]
Curtiss P-36 Hawk
The Curtiss P-36 Hawk was designed as part of a competition to replace the P-26 Peashooter. In that competition the P-36 actually lost out to the Seversky P-35, but was nevertheless ordered in limited quantities […]
Consolidated PBY Catalina
The Consolidated PBY Catalina was one of the legendary aircraft of World War II. In the late 1920s and into the 1930s the US Navy was interested in procuring long range patrol aircraft in order […]
Aichi E13A Type 0 “Jake”
The 1937 12-Shi requirements for new naval aircraft included a request for a new reconnaissance seaplane to be carried by cruisers and battleships of the Combined Fleet. This aircraft would replace the E7K and E8N […]
Operation 102: Storm Over Chungking
Despite mounting perhaps the longest and most sustained bombing campaign against a single city, the Japanese had failed to force China out of the war. Operations 100 and 101 had caused tremendous destruction to Chungking’s […]