In fact, it was Japanese interest in the tactic that led them to commission Heinkel to design a dive bomber to rival the American Curtiss F8C Helldiver, which became the He-50 biplane. and Japan experimented with diving delivery between the wars. The British were the first to try moderate-dive-angle attacks, during World War I, and both the U.S. Good hits were either on target or no more than 15 feet off-center.ĭive bombing was by no means a German invention, though they refined the tactic to a degree never seen before-or since. Republican anti-aircraft artillery was pretty primitive, so the Stukas bombed at will-as they were intended to-and even the worst drops typically landed within less than 100 feet of the target. When Bf-109Bs arrived on the scene, the Nationalist rebels soon claimed control of the air. The Spanish war did make it plain that the Ju-87 would be a useful weapon. Had Stukas been used to bomb the important bridge that was the primary target of the raid, the world would have long ago forgotten Guernica. It’s hard to cast a kindly light on any bomber, but the Ju-87 was designed to attack and destroy specific military targets, not civilians.
The small Spanish market town of Guernica, the subject of Pablo Picasso’s famous antiwar painting, was bombed by Heinkel He-111s and Junkers Ju-52s, horizontal bombers heedlessly killing civilians as they carpet-bombed, exactly the kind of mission the Stuka was not intended to fly.
Nine Ju-87s were also used at one time or another during the Spanish Civil War, but they were operated only occasionally and conservatively.Įven Spanish Nationalist pilots weren’t allowed near them, since they were still considered to be secret weapons. The Stuka’s ugly reputation was also influenced by the fact that the airplane is often envisioned-and frequently depicted in newsreels of the day-pummeling Warsaw and the Low Countries, its “Jericho Trompeten” sirens wailing. The Rolls-Royce Kestral-powered Ju-87 V-1 prototype first flew on September 17, 1935.
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