My father flew in the belly of TBMs and TBFs. His job was to man the radio, radar and, when necessary, use the 30cal rear machine gun or "Stinger". The 30cal was so ineffective that they were dropped in later variants. My dad got his civilian pilot's license after the war but let it lapse due to the expense.
Um. Sort of somehow missed seeing any mention of the physics of dive bombing promised by the title. The physics, engineering and flying of such planes truly is fascinating. Perhaps Smithsonian might consider making such a video-this one certainly is not.
fun fact, Stukas had a diver recovery system that engaged at 700m. if the pilot blacked out the stuka at 700m would automatically release the bomb and the elevators would mechanically pitch up and pull the aircraft from its dive
@@leander2843 how is talking about our dive-bomber rewriting history? If you are German, and you want to talk about German dive bombers, talk about the Stuka. If I am from Indiana, and I talked about Hoosier history, is that really me rewriting history? If you're European, please shut up. I have never met a bunch of people who have no position to lecture anyone else but yet constantly do.
@@leander2843 Number of people citing the movie "Midway" as accurate history is frightening. On the plus side, most of those people won't even remember the fictional details.
Just as the Sherman tanks were known as 'Ronson lighters' to the German infantry. The Yanks very convenienty placed a white star over the fuel tank for the German anti-tank gunners to aim at.
My dad was a rear-gunner. He saw the target only after they pulled out of the dive. You had to be very young to withstand the forces that existed in a straight dive toward the target and all that water.
Actually in dive you are not exposed to any high forces, forces become significant when you pull out of the dive and this is very dangerous part about dive bombing this couple of seconds after you drop the bomb until plane is leveled out.
@@sawomirmiszczak134 tbh, you could consider the acceleration from the dive as a high force, since its pretty hard to experience that level of acceleration anywhere else
@@caralho5237 When you dive a plane you don't feel acceleration, you feel weightless this is magic of gravity :) The highest forces are exerted while plane is pulling out of the dive, very high speed induce very high G even at slightest pull rate.
@@sawomirmiszczak134 if the plane was just falling out of the sky, then you'd experience weightlessness. but in a dive, the plane accelerates faster than that, so assuming the plane is upright and not inverted, the pilot would experience negative g forces (eyeballs up), which the human body has a lower tolerance, compared to positive gs.
Seth Rich ..you must be really dum, you have to know what time to drop, how fast to go, how close, while watching your speed, and all the other stuff on the dash, also it physics because, you need to know momentum, and there friction involved so there for it’s called physics. Sooooooo
My grandfather was a SBD tail gunner in the war. He kept a journal documenting everyday life, including hits, and fatalities. He was deeply traumatized by war, and would have nightmares
@@MilitaryHistoryUnveiled I’ve tried typing everything from the journal, which has been difficult as his cursive is very hard to read, but I’m planning on revisiting it later
Actually, dive bomber pilots of various nations often dived at angles of over 80 degrees- and some of them dove straight down at 90 degrees. One thing not mentioned in the video is that the rapid loss of altitude followed by the stress of pullout caused some capillaries (small blood vessels) in the lungs of the crews to burst- which shortened the lives of the crews.
@@manilajohn0182 I read my father's pilot manual for the SBD-5 he flew in the South Pacific. It had perforated flaps that could be extended at full dive speed. I stood next to an SBD-5 in a museum and those things were *monsters*.
@Curious Well, there would be the sound of the aircraft engine as it approaches. Being under attack from just about _any_ aircraft if you don't have the means to fight back or take effective cover is terrifying. It doesn't matter whether it's an A-10, a Ju 87, an SBD Dauntless, Il-2, or a Fokker III--if you don't have anything besides your rifles and machine guns, you won't be having a good day. As a fun fact, the Stuka's sirens only made it even _more_ terrifying to those on the receiving end. Remember that between 1939 and 1941, most soldiers were conscripts. It is quite likely that none of them had ever seen an airplane before, much less flown on one. And now they are being attacked by one which is emitting this hellish scream on top of the noise from its engine? That's a real pants-filling moment. Moreover, none of the videos can really convey just how loud the noise would have been. To us, some of the more terrifying sounds of WWII like the Stuka's Jericho trumpets or the howl of Katyusha rockets are _not_ particularly scary as we don't associate those sounds with impending death and mutilation like those men on the receiving end would have.
@@BP-1988 I believe most planes in a dive at extreme or terminal velocity make some kind of aerodynamic whine the "trumpet of Jericho" is louder and more shrill than the sounds of most of the other planes
@@davidpowell3347 As I recall, my father said that when he dove an SBD it did make a unique sound because of its airbrakes, but definitely not the sound of a Stuka
@Multiple internet personalities How proud you must be of yourself to know these little tidbits, some here actually put themselves in harms way so you can sit in mommy's basement and preen
I saw a documentary on television about Admiral Yamamoto in the 1970’s. I think it was, The Commanders. It was an anthology series that explored the biographies of notable WW2 military leaders. I remember an interview where an older man recalled that Yamamoto had organized a practice dive bombing demonstration for some government officials. During the exercise, some of the civilian officials were chatting amongst each other, and ignoring the demonstration. He became angry at this and berated them openly by informing them that although this is just an exercise, many of the men came back from these missions with splitting headaches, ruptured blood vessels on their eyes, and coughing up or vomiting blood. He stated that although they were young and tough, he was certain that this was shortening their lives. But this was an important skill to become proficient at and their country needed them to do it, so they volunteered and did not complain. He concluded his chastisement by offering that the least they could do is pay attention out of respect. There afterwards, he had a silent and attentive audience.
I knew a Dauntless dive bomber rear machine gunner that fought at Midway. His name was Ben and he lived in Chula Vista, Ca. I hope he is still with us. I tried to get him to sit down with me for an interview (for historical purposes) but he refused to because he said it's too painful to talk about. Love you bro. Godspeed sir. You are my hero.
My husbands 6th grade Sunday school teacher was a gunner on either a dive bomber or a torpedo plane during WW2. He was an amazing man! One story he told them was that he'd gone from zero to One hundred twenty mph backwards when they flew off the carrier!
E-on While not many folks have done a dive bomb, there are lots of us that have experienced that terrifying experience (only not with your ex, but ours) I did 2 tours on that one!
Balls is right. You had 18 to 20 year olds going almost straight down faster than a hotrod. No way I could do that. They have my respect, and thanks and appreciation.
My father in law was a gunner in a SBD stationed on the Lexington until it was sunk at Coral Sea. He then was assigned to the Saratoga for the rest of the war. He saw a lot of combat and the only thing he ever mentioned about the physics was, "I never rode a rollercoaster that was even close".
As long as you aren't being shot at, it is really great fun. I would imagine the pilot was too busy concentrating on hitting the target that he doesn't have the spare brain power to devote to anything else. This is especially true for the first few missions. I can attest to this in a very minor way and while doing something extremely safe. After a while it just becomes second nature but then you just concentrate all that much more on hitting the target.
@Luther Blissett Must have powered descent,not just dropping near vertical due to gravity? Coasters I have rode generated their thrill by steep near vertical drop but unpowered on that part of the track. So approaching 0 G.
A friend of mine is 96 years old and was a bombardier aboard a B24. He was stationed out of Manduria Italy. He is so interesting to listen to his stories. He flew after the war and got lucky. He got bumped off a plane on New York and had to take the train back to Michigan in the late 50"s. The plane crashed at Tri City airport on Easter Sunday killing all aboard including four of his co-workers. He still knows all of their names.
Frank Macauda I truly believe that those who are/were quiet about their war experiences, are the ones who saw the real horrors of war...My Dad was like that and I regret sometimes not asking him about it more, but he has since passed on, but now I’m researching myself as more WWII records are declassified and after reading what went on in the Pacific area where he was, l now understand a little better why he didn’t talk about it...
@@larryponder9334 same experience here, there was that silence or sometimes a look and everyone got quiet and then the tension in the room would dissapate. Personally i just learned not to talk about it, and be respectful. Always felt safe when those guys were around though.
My father and Grandfather ( mothers side) are/were the complete opposite. Don't get me wrong they never glorified war. Most of their stories were about funny things that happened to them or their mates away from the "battlefield". But they also didn't shy away from the bad things either. Well my Grandfather never told me about how he would take Japanese prisoners into the jungle and drown them. I didn't find that until my great uncle told me about it at my grandfathers wake.
@@larryponder9334 when my father was a young kid in late 50s and early 60s, there was a Finnish WW2 veteran in his hometown who said he could hear his lost comrades talk to him and sometimes he could hear the screams of his wounded/dying comrades crying for a medic. He got traumatized from the Winter War.
@@larryponder9334 My father was a WW II vet. He never ever spoke of his experiences except for one time when I asked him what it was like. He said, "War is a terrible thing." That's all he ever said about it.
My father flew an SBD at Midway, Battle of Santa Cruz, Truk Lagoon and the Battle of the Philippine Sea for which he was awarded the Navy Cross. I still think about him everyday.
"In 1942, the Dauntless dive bomber is a newcomer to the Navy. Largely untested in battle." Aaaand right from the first sentence it's already horribly inaccurate. This is garbage-tier content.
My friend's dad flew a dive bomber in WWII. He said they trained them to tense up and scream as they were pulling up after they released their bomb, to keep their blood pressure up and keep blood flowing to the brain. Later in the war they put him to strafing enemy positions. He ended up with a lot of psychological issues, pretty messed up.
My father was an RAF pilot who flew the Vultee Vengeance dive bomber in Burma. He flew 104 ops in the Vengeance. It had cheese-grater air brakes which also came in useful when avoiding a Zero. As the Zero came from behind, the rear gunner would tell the pilot when the Zero was getting too close, the pilot would put the nose down and pull on the air-brakes. The Zero would over shoot, the pilot would bring the nose up and rake the belly of the Zero with his guns. My father stayed on in the RAF, flew Canberras, Meteors, and ended up flying Vulcans out of Scampton. Couldn't get him to talk about the war, and never pushed him. The only thing he did say, one day, was that at the end the only survivors from the original squadron were the CO, the MO, his gunner and himself. The rest had been replaced three times over. All you idiots commenting on whether an adoptive father is a step-father, and making other, fatuous remarks about the sound-track, etc., really have missed the point.
The technique continued on into the 1960's in ASW, except instead of bombs we were using HVARs and about a 60 degree dive in a twin engine S-2E. The HVARs were out of production, but we were still using them in practice rocket runs. Of course the ones we used as training rockets did not have an explosive head, but sent up a white cloud to let the plane behind us know we hit the target (as by then we were making sure we didn't impact the water. We also didn't start at 20K as that was above our ceiling, but started about 10K. Still a hairy run, not from the dive, but from the recovery from the recovery.
After D-Day many RAF fighters were made to do ground attack. They did as steep a dive as they could, not having dive brakes and at a chosen altitude pulled up counting for three seconds before releasing the bombs. After training they were surprised by the achieved bombing accuracy. No ejection seats for all those WW2 ground attack pilots, they were all brave.
@@DariViol off the top of my head the SBD was not a newcomer to the navy by 1942. In fact, it was so old and out of date that the navy was actively seeking replacements and considering retiring the SBD.
A few years back we did the Restoration shops tour at the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. I noticed in one corner of the shop was a recently completed restoration of a Blue painted US Navy Dauntless dive bomber. I asked the tour guide what the heck a Navy Dauntless was doing at the Air Force Museum & he said they had just restored it as a favor & it was heading for Midway Airport in Chicago to hang from the ceiling there. It was a beautiful plane just looked lonely amoung all those green & silver air force planes.
@@StevenTheAristolianNerd He's not wrong though. We can blame the Bureau of Ordinance for covering their ears and going "Lalalala" anytime doubts were raised about torpedo effectiveness. Killed a lot of good men and wasted a lot of taxpayer dollars.
From a veteran of these dive bombers - he said that on diving, the weightlessness of free fall caused the gravity fed carburetors to stop feeding fuel and the engine stalled. The solution was to slightly invert at the start of the run instead of just pushing foreword on the stick to dive. Having to fly inverted, line up the target, start the descent, roll back to 12, make corrections, ignore incoming fire, release the bomb, pull out if the aircraft is still responsive, return for re-armament, and do it again! These vets were the greatest generation. And I miss his quiet humbleness.
Diving 20'000 feet at 275 mph gives you about than 45 seconds to aim, release at 1500 feet, and pull up. It took me longer than that to click comment, do the calculation, write the comment, and enter the comment.
My grandfather's first cousin flew a dauntless. He told my grandfather there's a fine art to dive-bombing. If you did it right, you were pinned against the back of your seat. If you did it wrong, you were basically completely weightless with your belts pulling on your shoulders. It had to do with how you entered your dive. Wish I could have talked to him myself. The man died of cancer in the 1960s.
This was quite misleading. Dive bombing was around before the Dauntless, this implied it wasn’t and Im sure you can hear a Stuka dive bomber siren in the footage thats been added to it.
The guy called the plane an SBD-2. This model is actually an SBD-3 dauntless, as only after the 3rd model is a double .30 caliber machine gun in the rear. The SBD-2 has one .30 cal.
My Dad went through Navy pilot training, flew PBYs for a short time, then was transferred to a newly forming dive bomber squadron. When the squadron commander announced that their group would perfect night dive bombing, Dad put in for a transfer to the Marine Corps, and flew the PBJ (B-25) in the Solomons.
¿ They Hadn't Invented a 'Candle' that Could Fly Upside Down Yet ? Besides They Would Have Burned the Pilot's Nose . At Least He Became a Marine { No Offense Intended , Just Bad Joke }
Victor Canfield II Hey, I just wanted to send you a message letting you know that the Smithsonian has full length documentaries about all of these subjects, so in case your interested you can check them out. I’m sure they are on the Smithsonian website or if you google Smithsonian documentary steaming you can find them. I don’t know if you have to pay for a subscription or if you can get a free trial or if they are all free, but you may find them to be very entertaining especially if you love history. I thought I’d share that in case it’s helpful to you!
The SBD-2 Dauntless seen at 0:16 is SBD-2 Dauntless BuNo. 2106. It saw combat at Pearl Harbor, the action where Butch O'Hare became the Navy's first ace, the March 10, 1942 shipping raid (its crew Mark Whittier/Forest Stanley received a Navy Cross and Distinguished Flying Cross respectively), while it served with USS Lexington (CV-2). It was then transferred to VMSB-241 on Midway where it was flown by Daniel Iverson/Wallace Reid at Midway (Iverson/Reid were awarded the Navy Cross and Distinguished Flying Cross respectively at Midway). This aircraft was photographed during the Battle Of Midway. I also made a 1/700 scale replica of this aircraft using Starfighter Decals.
My grandfather did a lot of dive bombing in his P-47 I remember him talking about the key was to make the bomb skip in to the target. He did have one experience were one of the bombs wouldn't disengage no matter what he tried (His wingman couldn't even nudge it off) When he went to land right as his wheels hit the ground he heard a loud thud and the bomb fell off. Thankfully since it was a low impact it didn't go off I vaguely remember him saying he had to walk to the base as no one wanted to get near him.
Geez, 200 bullet holes. Probably large caliber if they were antiaircraft gun rounds too. Incredible that it could make it back to the carrier. That’s one heck of a tough aircraft.
My dads cousin was practicing dive bombing in 1942 when he pulled out of the dive his P40 rolled over and slammed upside down into Sarasota Bay. He died instantly. They think the canopy crashed in on him. A unsung hero of WWII. He was 19. War is INSANE!
@@Barri2410 The Japanese Taiho was also sunk by a single torpedo but that was mostly due to very poor damage control that made a little problem into a very big problem
@@christopherrogers7034 whoa, 1 torpedo from Sub too, eh? (I don't know for this part. Though i know about the poor maintenance, which contributed to her sinking-and this give her poor luck in KC :P)
Christopher Rogers I think Submarine-Torpedo are 2 times heavier than Aircraft-Torpedo. Taiho was hit at 7:45 a.m., later the explosion at 2:30 p.m. and sinks at 4:30 p.m.
Barri 2410 Btw. USS Franklin was hit by 2 Bombs it didn’t sunk, but extreme heavy damage ~800 death and could never be repaired, USS Princeton was sunk by one bomb.
Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown test flew a Ju-87 Stuka after the war and found that the Stuka actually felt comfortable when screaming down at an angle of 60 to 70 degrees. He came away deeply impressed with this aspect of the Stuka, but not so much with the rest of the flying envelope.
You guys know what a historian is... Right? So you think your history teachers were actually fighting in the civil war? Or asking the crowd when the Magna Carta was signed?
They have to have women in the show to keep the appearance of equality... even if she's dumb as a box of rocks and every second she talks her verbal diarrhea makes me want to shut the video off.
@Dan Gurău They removed them because they were making a slow aircraft even slower by causing more drag. The Stuka was already dead meat if there was any sort of fighter opposition. It also didn't help that the opposition had gotten used to the sirens, so they weren't having quite the psychological effect as they were at the beginning of the war. I wouldn't be surprised if some Luftwaffe units ditched the sirens well before they were officially phased out.
In War Thunder I became a master at dive bombing in a Stuka. If I targeted a tank it was dead. However, I did occasionally crash into the ground (usually because from 5,000 feet up I couldn't see the slight rise in the ground) I cannot imagine how nerve wracking that must have been for pilots who don't respawn if they die.
There's a Dauntless hanging at Midway airport near Chicago. I marveled at how small the plane is, esp. compared to the Avenger or even fighters. My coworker's late father in law flew Dauntless against Japanese carriers at Midway. They still have his flight jacket and other mementos and he apparently always modest about his involvement saying that he was just doing his job and at the time you don't know that it's this special event.
Well currently our "President" doesn't even read security briefings and they have to put his name into it frequently to keep his attention. Draw your own conclusions 🤔 . . .
Tom Eversole mentioned near the end of the video was a torpedo bomber pilot. He was close friends with Dusty Kleiss who sank multiple ships at Midway. On Eversole's last mission, he and Kleiss exchanged looks knowing Eversole was almost surely going to die needlessly due to the inefficiency of the torpedoes he was carrying. Unfortunately, he was right. He never returned. Read the book by Kleiss. Very interesting and informative.
Not only were physics not mentioned but the fact that it wasnt just "playing chicken with the ocean", but tons of anti aircraft artillery exploding shrapnel all around them.
Dive bombing: putting a hole in a ship above the water line in order to sink it. Torpedo: putting a hole in a ship below the water line in order to sink it.
you bomb a ship with the aim to it out of action and start internal fires which you hope will course nether damage to sink it. Being that a fire on broad a ship if it Achilles heel
The typical dive bombing mission parameters created about 5 g's of force. The manufacturer's tests concluded that most pilots were able to withstand 6 g's before experiencing grey out vision impairment and 7.5 g's before passing out.
Ju-87 had automatic plane leveling system for going out from dive - Ju-87 leveled himself out automatically after pilot released bomb(s) and even pilot blacked out, Ju-87 would fly away, adjusting automatically throttle, propeller pitch and ailerons for keeping plane’s nose over horizon.
I've had two friends follow their bombs in. Both were in jets. Pilots still black out about the same Gs. But today's jets accelerate down hill faster and pull out Gs are probably higher. Dive bombing is a risky business.
I'm sad that they didn't explain the use of the "cheese" holes in the flaps. Those were speed brakes meant to facilitate maneuvering during and after a dive bomb.
I don't think they help with maneuvering, I think they only slow your speed down enough that you don't lose control. Not sure if the holes allow enough air through the flaps so that they are not torn off, or if they introduce turbulence, which would also presumably help to slow the decent.
What I've always found fascinating is that the Japanese Navy back then had so much pride that they had to put a HUGE flag/symbol on the decks of carriers that made a perfect target 🎯🎯
@@happydogmachine I do know that the Japanese called the F4U Corsair "the whistling death" because of the sound it made in a high speed dive, but it was more whistle than siren.
What I find really curious is that... there's only ONE movie where we can see such a dive from the perspective of the pilots... and that movie is MIDWAY by Roland Emmerich
What few people know is that the Spitfire was used for dive bombing and it was not bad at it, some very accurate bombing and the ability to fight both going to and from the target, something that purpose built dive bombers could not do very well. No dive brakes meant it was the fastest dive bomber by a long way and harder for anti aircraft fire to hit.
Akhil Ghosh its actually the sound of whats known as a “Jeriko” (thats not how its spelled, its 4 am, sorry) trumpet. Its an effect many organizations use in movies and such, but in fact no american planes were outfitter with them, the only known planes to have a jeriko, or “stuka siren” are the Junkers 87, and only on earlier models were they made with, as it actually made the pilots themselves annoyed, because the earliest version of these horns were just a propeller strapped to the gears of the Junkers, making it impossible to shut off after the planes reach a certain speed. In fact, the jerico was not even in the flight manual to build the stuka, it was an optional fitting, you’re welcome
@@popepuro8267 Hi, Pope Puro. You are exactly correct about the Jericho Trumpets or Sirens the Luftwaffe installed on some of their Stuka dive bombers. What caused me to respond was the original comment asking about the humming sound made when prop aircraft were diving.
If you really want to know what it was like being a Diver Bomber at Midway read Dusty Kleiss book "Never call me a Hero". Kleiss won the Navy Cross and was the only pilot with 3 ships hit.
Yes but did he ever pull.out of a dive , switch targets ( from Kaga to Akagi ) and wipe out one carrier all by himself ..??? Then assist with another direct hit 6 hours later on the Hiryu ???. Lt Com Richard Halsey Best
@@17donhol Kleiss and Best were in the same squadron. Kleiss was the only pilot to hit 3 targets with a Dive Bomber (Kaga, Hiryu, and cruiser Mikuma). You should read his book Best is mentioned quite a bit.
@@stevenroland7472 yes, Kleiss hit Kaga and Best got Akagi and the both ganged up on Hiryu at around 1700 hours... Such a beautiful thing... I will read his book...Big admirer of Dusty, American hero and Patriot.... Does he mention McClusky's massive and almost fatal mistake of diving on the wrong target ( Kaga)...???? Boy if Akagi escaped , she would have come back and taken out many American sailors and planes .... That's why I love Lt Best so much...He realized what would have happened had she escaped.... That was Kido's flagship and not only had arguably the best torpedo squadron on earth but the architects of Pearl Harbor aboard her... Best must have taken unbelievable pride in landing that bomb in the hangar deck to prevent any more damage being done to our carriers and planes and ultimately destroying her with just ONE 1000 pound bomb...!!!! WOW !!!
