Background

As described in Crecy Publishing information paper, “What manner of aircraft pioneered airborne radar and anti-submarine warfare, almost replaced the immortal Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, and yet disappeared from the annals of aviation history with not so much as a footnote in most authoritative histories of the WWII? The elusive B-18 bomber.

The very few stories that have appeared since the end of the war invariably spoke of the aircraft in crude and disparaging terms including ‘the bomber that nobody wanted,’ but more than 30 surviving crew members who served aboard the aircraft had no such disparaging words. How could so many people be wrong?

Developed in parallel to the DC-1, the B-18 and it’s obscure development, the handsome B-23 were precisely the right aircraft, at the right time, to help America defeat the serious Axis submarine threat in the Caribbean and train most of the B-17 crews who headed overseas.

Serving in every theater of war, from Iceland, Canada and the Eastern Seaboard, through the Caribbean and Latin America to the remote Galapagos, Alaska, Hawaii, Java, Australia and the Philippines, the B-18 was lauded by crew members as a superb anti-submarine aircraft. Indeed, some were amongst the first USAAC aircraft to strike back at the invading Japanese forces in the Far East, and others were lost to both aerial and surface combat. For the first time, this in depth study of the development, operational units, series colors, wartime activities and full production list of these 340 aircraft combine with over 350 drawings and photographs to reveal the true impact of America’s forgotten warriors.

Contents

• Development of the DB-1
• The Douglas DB-2 and B-18A (DB-5)
• Operational units, General Headquarters Air Force (GHQAF)
• Operational units, Air Force Combat Command (AFCC)
• Canada’s Digby, The Douglas DB-280 Digby
• Reinforcing America’s overseas outpost, The B-18 in Hawaii, Panama, Puerto Rico, the Antilles, Alaska, Newfoundland and the Philippines
• The B-18 goes to war, 1941
• Defending the Continental US and the anti-submarine campaign, The B-18 evolves into the B-18b and B-18c
• B-18 and Digby operational chronology
• Naming the B-18
• The Douglas XB-22 (DS-262)
• The Douglas B-18T and C-58
• B-18 series aircraft engaged in test work
• US B-18 series colors, markings and camouflage
• The B-18 in the movies and media
• Surplus, civil and survivors
• Foreign B-18 use
• The Douglas B-23, DC-266 and DB-320
• Footnotes
• Line art
• Index

What You Will Find

This book reminds me of the excellent Hunnicutt series covering American armored vehicles. It is that good. As illustrated in the list of contents above, the coverage of the B-18 and B-23 is extensive. The photographs are clear and include numerous detail photos of both the exterior and interior of the different variants. Charts are provided that account for the deployment of every B-18 and B-23 and list all types of aircraft assigned, at various times, to the General Headquarters Air Force and its successor, the Air Force Combat Command. In addition, the book provides numerous maps indicating deployment of the subject aircraft in several theaters of war. This volume not only discusses the military side of these planes but provides text and many photographs of aircraft sold as surplus to civilian airlines.

Conclusion

This book would be a critical resource for any modeler desiring to detail one of Valom’s B-18/Digby kits or even more for the hard core scratch building trying to build the old Execuform B-18 vacuform kit.

I highly recommend this book for not only modelers, but also for history buffs and anyone interested in aviation. I would like to think Specialty Press for the copy of this book.