U. S. Navy Dive and Torpedo Bombers of World War II

The book is organized into eight chapters. Each chapter discusses the planes in detail giving manufacturing history, sometimes the designer and usually indicating the specific number of planes produced. The chapter then goes on to describe the action the specific plane saw in WWII. I thought I knew a lot about the Battle of Midway, but it wasn't until reading this book, that I learned that our carrier killer, the Douglas SBD did not have folding wings. It seems ironic or perhaps unusual for a carrier plane to not have folding wings. But I'm not the only one who thought that; an incident is described aboard a CVL where the plane director told an SBD pilot to fold his wings after landing. The pilot told the director "This is an SBD". The director said "Well, fold 'em anyway".

As you read each chapter, much of what is described is illustrated by high quality photos. I think I spent as much time studying the photos as I did looking at the text. The title page has a huge picture of the Enterprise launching her SBD's 12/7/41. One doesn't often see a deck full of SBD's with red dots in the center of the stars, which were painted out mid-1942.

Although the book is loaded with technical language, most is easily understood by the context. The book also discusses other planes used in the south pacific, such as patrol bombers and some of the fighters. It tells of the use of navy planes on the Atlantic side of the WWII theater also.

Whenever possible, the author(s) use personal stories to give one a first hand experience in the cockpit. Mr. Tillman shares his own story helping to restore an SBD-5 in the early seventies. Most of the stories, though, are from 1941-1945. Many are from names I already knew, but I learned of a few more in this book. We had no shortage of heroes in WWII.