War is the crucible in which a nation’s will and its resources are amalgamated by the heat of its fury. Nothing motivates a people to innovation and advancement more so than war, and World War II motivated American ingenuity and industry like no conflict before or since.
The Second World War was entered into with canvas biplanes and bolt-action rifles, and exited with jets and nuclear bombs. The race for newer and better weapons saw belligerents on both sides of the ideological divide develop and field machines that even now—eighty-years on—remain enshrined in memory, idiom, and myth.
Spitfire, Messerschmitt, Zero, Corsair, Mustang: the names evoke wonderment, curiosity, and passion in the pilot heart, and command respect even in the age of stealth, sixth-generation fighters, and inchoate space-weapons. Still, history’s gaze is humanity’s gaze, and the human eye is inclined to seek out and sanctify the beautiful while passing over the homely and awkward—even if the homely and awkward fought valiantly in and helped win the bloodiest of wars.
Among the homeliest, most awkward, and largely forgotten aircraft of the Second World War is Curtiss’s SB2C Helldiver. The airplane was rotund, handled badly, and was despised by pilots—who fashioned its alpha-numeric designation SB2C into Sonofabitch-Second-Class. So egregious were the aircraft’s design and production deficiencies that Curtiss, after myriad Helldiver program delays and budgetary overruns, was investigated by the Truman Committee—a Senate board tasked with finding and correcting the waste, inefficiency, and profiteering with which U.S. wartime industry was afflicted. The Committee’s findings contributed significantly to the decline of Curtiss as a company.
Despite its teething problems, the Helldiver, by war’s end, was the U.S. Navy’s main carrier-based dive-bomber and attack-aircraft. Helldivers took part in battles over the Marianas Islands, the Philippines, Taiwan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. They were also used in the 1945 attacks on the Ryukyu Islands and the Japanese home island of Honshu, where they attacked airfields, communications installations and shipping operations.
The SB2C remained in use with active-duty U.S. Navy squadrons until 1947 and with Naval Reserve aviation units until 1950. Surplus Helldivers were sold to the naval air-forces of France, Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Thailand.
Only a few Helldivers remain extant and airworthy. Among the best of these is the specimen owned and operated by the Commemorative Air Force—a Texas-based, non-profit dedicated to preserving and displaying historical aircraft. The organization—which boasts the world’s largest collection of airworthy warbirds—is a bastion of American resolve, patriotism, and aeronautical know-how. Among the CAF’s charmingly Southern traditions is its members’ rally cry of Semper, Mint Julep (Always Mint Julep).
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