Osprey's examination of the PV Ventura/Harpoon Units and of their participation in World War II (1939-1945). A development of the successful Lockheed 'medium twins' of the late 1930s, the PV Ventura/Harpoon family of patrol bombers saw widespread service with both the US Navy/Marine Corps and the TAF and Commonwealth from October 1942 onwards. The USAAF also used surplus Venturas originally ordered by the RAF, designated B-34 Lexingtons, in the bomber training and coastal patrol roles. The final variant in this family was the larger PV-2 Harpoon, which was built to a US Navy requirement from March 1944 onwards. Used primarily in the Pacific, 470 Harpoons saw frontline service on anti-shipping and submarine patrols through to VJ-Day. This book covers each of these variants in complete illustrated detail.

The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest campaign of World War II, lasting the entirety of the war in Europe from September 1939 to May 1945. It was also one of the war’s most complex campaigns, involving strategy, operations, tactics, logistics, politics, diplomacy, and alliances. During the war’s first two years, the United States was drawn deeper into partnership with Great Britain, and closer toward conflict with Germany, in the waters of the North Atlantic. Franklin Roosevelt realized this theater’s importance: “I believe the outcome of this struggle is going to be decided in the Atlantic.” And so American, British, and Canadian forces battled Germans at sea and in the air to protect the flow of first materiel and then men from the United States to the United Kingdom. The sea part has been well covered: how German U-boats and other warships hunted Allied convoys and how the Allies ultimately turned the tide. Not so much the air war. In Six Air Forces over the Atlantic, Joseph Molyson tells the story of the Battle of the Atlantic from the perspective of the air forces—and airmen—who waged it from the skies above the icy waters of the North Atlantic. He blends big-picture attention to strategy and tactics with dramatic episodes of air-to-air and air-to-sea combat, including the engagement in which a British light bomber captured a German U-boat near Iceland. He details the close eye Franklin Roosevelt kept on the campaign, the effect B-24 Liberator bombers had, and the rise of the Royal Air Force Coastal Command as a true U-boat-busting force. The result was victory in the Atlantic, as well as a significant contribution to victory in World War II.

A historian examines the U.S. Navy’s efforts to stop Axis forces from attacking Allied merchant ships providing supplies during World War II. During the Second World War, a battle was waged to cut the lifeline of food and armaments sailing across the Atlantic from North America. It evolved into a far-ranging conflict beyond the North Atlantic and the eastern seaboard of the United States. It covered the frigid waters off Iceland down to the warm waters of Florida, through the Caribbean Sea, across the ocean to the Bay of Biscay, the Mediterranean Sea, down to Africa, and across the South Atlantic to Brazil’s southern tip. Nazi Germany’s efforts to deny supplies from reaching Europe came at a high price, losing 783 U-boats and approximately 30,000 men between 1939 and 1945, with land and carrier-based naval air units sinking 83 German submarines of the 159 sunk by American aircraft. Axis forces saw their submarines targeted as well in the Atlantic, with Imperial Japanese submarine I-52 and the Italian Archimede falling victim to American naval aircraft armed with depth bombs or acoustic homing torpedoes. All the dramatic action is captured in Sighted Sub, Sank Same. This book contains over 200 color and black and white photographs, as well as personal interviews, interrogation reports, personal correspondence, and after-action reports, weaving a fascinating history about the naval air campaign in the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean Theaters during World War II. Praise for Sighted Sub, Sank Same “Richly illustrates the navy’s battle for the Atlantic from the air.” —The National WWII Museum “Gives the reader a real feeling of that relentless hunt.” —Baird Maritime

Several books have been written about US naval air patrol operations in World War II (1939-1945), but none do full justice to the role played by patrol squadrons of the US Navy in the longest, most bitterly fought campaign of the war, the Battle of the Atlantic. From the Arctic to the Equator, anti-submarine aircraft of the US Navy patrolled both sides of the stormy Atlantic alongside their Allied counterparts. They escorted merchant convoys through the submarine-infested waters, protecting the crucial lifeline from the United States to Great Britain and the Mediterranean that carried troops and supplies for the ultimate liberation of North Africa and Europe. The PBY Catalina, in which most of these vital missions were flown, was the most successful flying boat ever designed. Built in greater numbers than any other, it served the maritime air forces of all principle Allied nations, as well as the four branches of the US military. Except for a handful of Martin PBM Mariners, the Catalina was the only long range patrol bomber in the US Navy's inventory when the USA entered World War II. Though considered obsolete in 1939, it served in significant numbers until war's end and for many years after. Its total contribution to victory can only be surmised and the number of ships and lives saved by the PBY's mere presence over convoys will never be known. However, US Navy PBYs sank 19 Axis submarines, all identified by the author from contemporary evidence. Photographs of the Catalina in service in the Atlantic are rare but the author has assembled over 80 through research in official archives and private collections. Related Titles PV Ventura/Harpoon Units of World War II (Combat) Kriegsmarine U-boats 1939-45 (New Vanguard) Sunderland Squadrons of World War II (Combat)

The Third Reich's last ditch efforts to sweep the massed Allied bomber formations from the skies of Germany centred around the new crop of jet 'wonder weapons' that were issued to the Jagdwaffe from mid-1944 onwards. Far in advance of anything the Allies had even in the experimental phase, types like the Me 262, He 162, Me 163 and the Ar 234 could perform their combat sorties with relative impunity. However, paucity in numbers and unreliable jet engines eventually cancelled out any technological edge that these aircraft offered.