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DIVE BOMBER!
H/B(1) 1982 (ISBN 0 86190 062 6) H/B (2) USA Edition 1982 (ISBN 0 87021 930 3) New US P/B (3) Edition, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, April 2008; P/B (4) New UK Edition Casemate May 2008.
The most comprehensive history on dive bombers and dive bombing from 1911 onward, accompanied by deeply researched facts and a wide selection of photographs to give the full story for the first time. The author spent years culling obscure files and documents in archives around the world, and found an enormous amount of data that had lain, unread and unheeded since first written. From this rich and original fund of first-hand official accounts, enriched with tables, studies, conclusions and designs, the full and hitherto totally misrepresented history of the dive-bomber in the world's major air forces was revealed.
From the earliest efforts by American pilots in the war in Mexico in 1914; through the Allied experiments early in the First World War; the first true dive-bombing mission by the RAF on the Western Front in 1917 was located when the combat report of the pilot was unearthed; the RAF experiments during 1917-18 at the Orfordness Bombing Range; the U S Marine Corps experiments in Haiti and Nicaragua, so often still falsely claimed to be the first true dive bombing missions; the inter-war experiments by the RAF; the USAF on the Mexican Border in the 1920's; the rise of dive bombing in Germany and Japan; the attempts of Italy, the Soviet Union and lesser powers to adopt the type; the hidden pioneering work conducted in Sweden in the 1920's and 1930's; the rejection of the type and the subsequent total bankruptcy of RAF policy in the 1940 debacle in France; the repeated attempts by the Royal Navy to obtain the type, all of which were thwarted and frustrated by the RAF; the adoption of the US and Japanese Navy's of the dive bomber; and the battles of World War II and beyond. All are covered in this comprehensive volume, along with descriptions and photographs of the rarer dive bombers of the smaller nations and the post-war experiments and actions by the French and others. A unique coverage of an ignored facet of the history air warfare.