Professional Reading

Royal Navy Torpedo-Bombers vs Axis Warships, 1939-45 (Duel, 124)  

By Matthew Willis, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK. 2022. Ill.    

Swordfish Units of World War 2 (Combat Aircraft, 157)  

By Matthew Willis, Osprey Publishing, Oxford, UK. 2025. Ill. 

Review by Cmdr. Peter B. Mersky, USNR (Ret.) 

The category of torpedo bomber is archaic in these modern times. However, three of the main World War II major combatants (the UK, U.S. and Japan) had several carrier-based torpedo bomber squadrons, often with more than 12 individual aircraft, and assigned replacement crews of more than three to four individual men. These two books, by the same author, are on two very successful and related national categories of the same basic subject. While the first book is a general description of the same category, the second focuses on one specific aircraft flown by Britain’s Royal Navy throughout the war. The Fairey Swordfish, one of several aircraft that used one basic airframe characteristic: they were all biplanes, which even by World War II, was a basic design that was well on its way out of use throughout the world. 

Although the two-winged biplane had served long and well since World War I, beginning in early World War II, its performance numbers were usually well below those of its more modern aircraft, especially in speed and load-carrying capability. By the early 1930s, it was obvious to most military members, no matter their age or rank, the biplane had seen its best years and was slower, less capable in load-carrying capability and less able to cope with newer monoplane wing designs that were rapidly becoming part of most modern squadrons. 

Yet, both designs, which came from the veteran Fairey Aviation Company, used available modern design and construction concepts in the Swordfish, which first flew in April 1934, and its intended successor, Albacore, which first flew in December 1938, and were involved in several intense actions and longer campaigns throughout the war. Their designs might have been somewhat outmoded compared to later aircraft such as the Grumman Avenger, which became the U.S. Navy’s torpedo bomber beginning with the Battle of Midway in June 1942, replacing the rapidly aging Douglas TBD Devastator, which still saw combat in the first months of the Pacific War, including at Midway. The crews of the older two-winged generation of aircraft were just as skilled and courageous, fighting well-armed German and Italian ships in the northern and Mediterranean seas, including the vaunted battleship Bismark in May 1941 and the legendary Channel Dash of February 1942. The latter involved two German battleships that were trapped in the English Channel with the German hierarchy, including Adolf Hitler, desperate to get them to safer waters, especially after the loss of the Bismark. 

Well supported by period photos and the usual Osprey artwork we have come to know, these two related softcover books provide an intimate look into the naval air wars that are often overlooked by readers of 1940-1945 literature.