Review by Cmdr. Peter B. Mersky, USNR (Ret.)
Editor’s Note: In this issue’s column, we are reviewing books on a very important but often overlooked craft, the flying boat, each from one of the opposing warring powers, Great Britain and Japan. After the successful launch of the first powered manned aircraft, the Wright Flyer in December 1903, much of subsequent aviation development in the next five to 10 years was based on water-borne types. In particular were flying boats, where the fuselage was also a boat-shaped hull that was the base to hold two large-span wings that could offer the required lift obtained from the relatively low-horse-power engines of the time while bearing the weight of one or two crew members, pilot and observer/mechanic and fuel.
World War I also saw the development and use of flying boats as anti-submarine weapons. By World War II, every major power involved in the conflict had several indigenous flying-boat designs and, before the war, a few countries used the design as a long-range commercial aircraft, especially the U.S., to cover the vast distances of the Pacific Ocean to reach Hawaii and the Orient. Here, we have a recent book both England’s currently most prodigious publisher, Osprey.
— Cmdr. Peter B. Mersky, USNR (Ret.)
The primary British flying boat of World War II, the Short Sunderland was a large, long-range maritime reconnaissance bomber with many roles. It first flew in 1937. Capable of carrying different weapon loads, including 2,000-pound bombs, as well as three Boulton Paul turrets, each usually, but not always (especially in the bow turret) equipped with four 0.303-inch Browning machine guns. Attacking the “Fliegendes Stachelschwein” (Flying Porcupine), the nickname the Luftwaffe gave it, was not something to be taken lightly, especially when the big “boat” was down low to the water and its dorsal-mounted turret, tail and bow turrets were a major defense.
Of course, the Royal Air Force (RAF) also flew the iconic Consolidated Catalina, the early war U.S. Navy flying boat, which was also part of other countries’ maritime lineup and figured in such important early war campaigns as Midway and Guadalcanal.
Not many full-length books about the Sunderland have been published over the years. One that comes to mind was published by Airlife in 1994 in England, then republished by Pen & Sword in 2012. The title was “Short Sunderland, the ‘Flying Porcupines’ in the Second World War,” by Andrew Hendrie, a former RAF Lockheed Hudson and Sunderland test pilot. Osprey contributed a larger book—No. 19 in its Combat Aircraft series in 2000, by veteran author and artist Jon Lake—“Sunderland Squadrons of World War 2.”
This new Osprey offering by Lardas describes the efforts of RAF Sunderland crews against the German submarines in the area off France’s west coast during the mid-war phase of WWII. The U-boat danger, which had been so much a part of the early naval war, was slightly diminished but nonetheless still dangerous concerning naval traffic endeavoring to bring supplies to Allied forces as their leaders considered how best to invade and conquer the Nazi menace.
The book contains a lot of narrative and photographic detail on what both the Sunderland and U-boat crews went through to train and then fly these mid-war missions.
Thanks to Robin Wane of Bloomsbury, New York, and Tony Holmes of Osprey, UK, for their help with this column.