How to Use the Images

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Photo 4: Dive-bombers attacking a Japanese ship, 1942.

Questions for Photo 4

1. Photo 4 shows dive-bombers attacking a Japanese cruiser. These were not large planes (about 32 feet long, with a wing span of 41 feet 6 inches). The crew consisted of a pilot and a rear seat observer/gunner, both in an open cockpit. Can you find the gunner's machine gun in this photo?

2. American pilots had pioneered the kind of dive-bombing where planes released their bombs at the end of a steep, high-speed dive. They preferred to attack from the direction of the sun. Why would this help them? What do you think piloting a dive-bomber would have been like?

* The photo on this screen has a resolution of 72 dots per inch (dpi), and therefore will print poorly. You can obtain a larger version of Photo 4, but be aware that the file will take as much as 53 seconds to load with a 28.8K modem.