Navy pilot John Leppla was credited with shooting down five Japanese aircraft in aerial combat before he was shot down and ...

Explore the controversial legacy of the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, often regarded as one of the most challenging dive bombers ever produced. Despite its troubled history, this aircraft played a pivotal ...

France was not the only European power to fly the Vindicator, for with the fall of France occurring before another shipment of 50 dive bombers could arrive from America, the Royal Navy’s Fleet ...

By mid-1942, half a year after America entered the war, however, the U.S. Navy needed its own land-based ... Sixteen of these twin-engine bombers famously flew in the Tokyo Raid of April 18 ...

(U.S. Navy/National Archives ... team whose activities seemed just as much devoted to fighters as to dive bombers. John Arthur Leppla was born in Lima, Ohio, on May 7, 1916.

(U.S. Navy/National Archives ... Saneyasu Hidaka, leading nine of Zuiho’s Zeros to escort Japanese torpedo and dive bombers, let the first wave of Americans pass, but was unable to resist ...