The Most Unexpected Killer of WW2

[Sedalia Dave]

 

 

 

[Eyesa Horg]

Always thought biplanes were just cool! If I could own a plane, that's what it would be!

[Alpo]

I read the title and thought

 

Malaria? Dysentery?

[Chantry]

Cooks! 

 

And the Fairey Swordfish biplane had far more of an impact during WWII:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Swordfish

 

 

[Trailrider #896]

4 hours ago, Chantry said:

Cooks! 

 

And the Fairey Swordfish biplane had far more of an impact during WWII:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Swordfish

 

 

Effectively "sank" the Bismark by jamming the rudder so she went in circles, allowing British battle ships to finish her off.

[Cypress Sun]

5 hours ago, Alpo said:

I read the title and thought

 

Malaria? Dysentery?

 

I thought it was going to be about disease carrying mosquitos.

[Red Gauntlet , SASS 60619]

There were many advanced biplanes designed in the interwar years, and several gave valuable  service in WWII despite being 'obsolete'. An airplane, like a firearm, can be both obsolete and very effective at the same time.

 

In 2002 I personally met Air Commodore Sir Archie Winskill DFC*, who was a Spitfire ace in the War. He personally shot down two Fiat CR-42 Italian airforce biplanes in the late days of the Battle of Britain. The Italians had believed their German comrades' lies that the Brits had been beaten, and wanted to be 'in at the kill'.

 

Sir Archie told me that the CR-42 was relatively slow, but had a tight turning radius and was dangerous in combat. One of them shattered his canopy with machine gunfire, and could easily have killed him, but it ended the other way.

[Chantry]

14 hours ago, Trailrider #896 said:

Effectively "sank" the Bismark by jamming the rudder so she went in circles, allowing British battle ships to finish her off.

 

That's probably what the Stringbag is most famous for, but it started the war in front line service and in many respects it was still in front line service when the war ended.  Some other things of note:

Attacked the Italian fleet at Taranto, effectively ending the the threat of Italian battleship fleet

Based at Malta, sank numerous enemy ships transporting supplies to Rommel's Afrika Corps from Italy and France to Northern Africa. "While there were never more than a total of 27 Swordfish aircraft stationed on the island at a time, the type succeeded in sinking an average of 50,000 tons of enemy shipping per month across a nine-month period."

Swordfish sank a greater tonnage of Axis shipping than any other Allied aircraft during the war

Was used on small escort carriers to hunt submarines during the Battle of the Atlantic and the convoys to Russia and could take off and land in weather that grounded every other carrier based aircraft and all land based aircraft except the Catalina PBY

 

From everything I've read the Swordfish was very easy to fly and loved by it's pilots, although weight increases on the MKIII made the plane a bit sluggish.

 

 

 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

My first thought was the Soviet Night Witches.

[Utah Bob #35998]

22 hours ago, Alpo said:

I read the title and thought

 

Malaria? Dysentery?

I was thinking STDs

[Utah Bob #35998]

I wonder why they used US M1919 guns. I assume they were converted to .303.

[Chantry]

3 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

I wonder why they used US M1919 guns. I assume they were converted to .303.

 

Much higher rate of fire compared to the Vickers machine gun

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1919_Browning_machine_gun#Browning_.303_Mark_II

[Sundog]

I was hoping that it was not venereal disease.