Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - pilot, author of The Little Prince - flew Saharan mail routes, survived a Libyan Desert crash, and vanished on a P-38 reconnaissance mission on July 31, 1944.
TaildraggerThe Flying Tigers were American pilots who flew combat for China against Japan before the U.S. entered WWII, achieving extraordinary kill ratios through Chennault's unorthodox dive-and-run tactics.
TaildraggerOn May 16, 1943, RAF 617 Squadron breached two German dams with engineer Barnes Wallis's spinning bouncing bomb in one of WWII's most precisely executed raids.
TaildraggerHow five minutes of SBD Dauntless dive bombing on June 4, 1942 sank three Japanese carriers and permanently shifted the balance of the Pacific War.
TaildraggerRichard Bong of Poplar, Wisconsin earned 40 aerial kills flying a P-38 Lightning over New Guinea - a record no American pilot has ever broken.
TaildraggerOn October 14, 1943, the Eighth Air Force lost 60 B-17s and 594 airmen in a single afternoon over Schweinfurt, ending unescorted deep-penetration bombing over Germany.
TaildraggerThe Memphis Belle's 13-year restoration at Wright-Patterson rescued WWII's most famous bomber from decades of outdoor decay in a Memphis city park.
TaildraggerThe Me 262 flew 100 mph faster than any Allied fighter, yet Hitler's bomber directive and production failures kept it from reaching the front until Germany had already lost.
TaildraggerOn April 18, 1943, sixteen P-38 Lightnings flew 400 miles over open ocean to ambush and kill Japan's most powerful admiral using a decoded schedule.
TaildraggerOn the night of October 13–14, 1942, Japanese battleships reduced Henderson Field to rubble - and nine Marine dive bomber crews flew anyway.
TaildraggerOn August 16, 1942, Navy blimp L-8 drifted back to shore near San Francisco fully intact - but without its two-man crew, who were never found.
TaildraggerThe Swamp Ghost B-17F Flying Fortress ditched in a Papua New Guinea swamp in 1942 and was recovered 64 years later, remarkably intact, preserved by the swamp's unusual chemistry.
TaildraggerThe F4U Corsair's inverted gull wing solved a propeller-clearance problem and produced the Pacific War's most feared fighter, known to Japanese pilots as 'Whistling Death.'
TaildraggerDouglas Bader lost both legs in a 1931 aerobatic crash at age 21, fought his way back into the RAF, and led Spitfire wings over occupied Europe during World War II.
TaildraggerThe Bristol Beaufighter was WWII's radar-equipped night hunter - combining airborne interception technology with devastating firepower to change the mathematics of nocturnal air war.
TaildraggerThe de Havilland Mosquito outran German fighters, flew on wood instead of aluminum, and became the most versatile combat aircraft of World War II.
TaildraggerThe Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment flew over 23,000 combat sorties in plywood biplanes against Nazi forces from 1941 to 1945, earning the name 'Night Witches.'
TaildraggerHow five minutes of dive bombing on June 4, 1942 - and the torpedo crews who made it possible - turned the tide of the Pacific War at Midway.
TaildraggerThe Avro Lancaster emerged from a failed twin-engine bomber to become WWII's most capable heavy bomber, culminating in the technically precise 60-foot dam-busting raid of May 1943.
TaildraggerThe B-29 Bockscar dropped the second atomic bomb on August 9, 1945, despite a broken fuel pump, a 45-minute rendezvous delay, and three failed bomb runs over its primary target.
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