Not so noticeable, but they saved (or took) many lives, cars.
When you raise the issue of flying boats, the interlocutor is usually a little lost. The most that comes up is Catalina. Very few people know about our heroic "Ambarch", but a separate article is being prepared about it. Of course, aviation enthusiasts and aficionados know about German boats.
In fact, there were a lot of flying boats. Not as many as seaplanes, but nonetheless. They were, they flew, they contributed to that war. And therefore - to raise the anchor and take off!
1. Beriev MBR-2. the USSR
I will tell you briefly about the legendary "barn", because there is a long article ahead. Unfortunately, this plane was outdated long before the start of World War II, but alas, it flew from the first to the last day.
This was Beriev's debut plane, the beginning of a long journey for the entire Beriev Design Bureau. For the car, the scheme of a single-engine cantilever monoplane and a two-legged boat was chosen, which had a large lateral deadrise.
The choice was not accidental, the MBR-2 had good seaworthiness for those times and could take off and land on water in waves up to a meter high. The M-27 engine was planned as a power plant, but as in those days we usually succeeded with motors, the MBR-2 went into production with completely different engines, the weaker M-17 and AM-34NB.
It was assumed that the MBR-2 would have an all-metal structure, but Beriev, assessing the situation with the production of aluminum in the country, made the plane wooden and as simple as possible. Moreover, the plane turned out to be very technological, from the moment of laying to the fly-over it took 3 months.
It was worse with the equipment for the scout. Many MBR-2s surrendered without radio stations and aerial cameras, which were sent and installed in units.
There were a lot of shortcomings. About them at the end, but I wanted to mention one. From the front firing point, aimed shooting was possible only up to a speed of 200 km / h, then the air flow simply did not allow the shooter to work normally, pressing it against the rear wall of the cockpit. It turned out that at a speed above 200 km / h, the plane was generally defenseless in the front hemisphere.
In general, the "barns" were the coveted prey of German fighters in all coastal directions. A minimum of stress - and another victory in your pocket. The plane was extremely defenseless.
These simple but reliable flying boats became the main seaplanes of the Soviet naval aviation at the beginning of the war. By that time, the MBR-2 had been well mastered by the crews of combat units, having received the ironic-affectionate nickname "barn" for their angular forms.
Flying boats were durable and reliable, simple and pleasant to fly, had good seaworthiness and did not cause much trouble for the pilots. The simple wooden structure allowed the technical staff to carry out repairs of almost any degree of complexity directly in the parts. However, the tree required special care. After rolling out the MBR-2 ashore, the boat had to be thoroughly dried, for which a variety of methods were used: hot sand poured into covers, which was applied to damp parts of the aircraft, electric lamps, hot compressed air or cans of hot water.
And these, already thoroughly outdated aircraft, had to carry the cargo of the main sea plane. Moreover, not a scout, but actually a multipurpose vehicle.
In addition to reconnaissance and aerial photography, the MBR-2 searched for and bombed submarines, attacked ships and ports of the enemy, took out the wounded, looked for their ships (the same PQ-17), covered their ships (it was generally nonsense, so the Black Sea Fleet lost half of the crews).
Sometimes there were completely non-standard tasks.
In September 1944, the MBR-2 had to evacuate the crew of the English Lancaster, which had taken part in the air raid on the battleship Tirpitz. During the flight from the target to the Yagodnik airfield near Arkhangelsk, the crew did not reach the refueling point and landed their plane on the "belly" directly into the swamp near the village of Talagi.
To get the British out of this wilderness, they had to parachute a guide who took them to the nearest lake, where the MBR-2 was waiting.
On October 20 of the same 1944, the German seaplane BV.138 made an emergency landing in the area of about. Morzhovets. The Germans began to call their own on the radio, but the work of an unknown radio station attracted the attention of our sailors. The MBR-2, which flew to that area, found its unlucky colleagues and pointed the hydrographic vessel Mgla at the BV.138, which hijacked both the plane and the crew.
2. Consolidated PBY Catalina. USA
There is no doubt that the PBY Catalina was a very successful flying boat. One of the best. Produced continuously for ten years, it became the world's most massive seaplane.
Incredibly, out of 3,300 Katalin produced (built in the form of a flying boat and amphibious), about a hundred continue to fly today.
The PBY flying boat was named Catalina in the UK in November 1940, shortly after the RAF received the first of these machines, which were subsequently purchased in large quantities.
The plane was named after a resort island off the coast of California. The name "Catalina" fully corresponded to the system of naming foreign aircraft adopted in the RAF. When the United States officially introduced the naming system for its aircraft in 1941, it borrowed many names from the British, including the Catalina.
PBY in the version of a flying boat, built by the Canadians for their Air Force (RCAF), received the designation CANSO, and in the amphibious version, CANSO-A. Another little-known name for this aircraft was "Nomad" (Nomad - nomad).
In general, by the beginning of the war, by order of the US Navy, so many Catalin were produced that the boat became the main seaplane of the American fleet.
Naturally, as soon as hostilities began against Japan, "Catalina" was drafted into service. The flying boat had to try on the role of a multifunctional aircraft of the widest scope, since the PBY-4's range was simply luxurious.
However, the first clashes between the Catalinas and Japanese aircraft exposed the vulnerability of American flying boats. The lack of armor protection for the crew and protected fuel tanks made them relatively easy prey for the Japanese.
In the few surviving accounts of attacks on PBY groups, it is never mentioned that the Americans tried to maintain formation and mutually support each other with fire.
And the point here was not the lack of experience of American pilots, with this just everything was fine. The plane had a different problem: a very unfortunate location of the shooting points. Plus store food for Browning heavy machine guns. Through huge blisters, the Japanese pilots saw perfectly well when the shooter begins to change the magazine and learned how to use the moment, mowing down the shooters.
Plus the Catalin pilots had no rear hemisphere view at all.
All in all, both the Catalina bombers and torpedo bombers ended very quickly.
But the rescue Catalins have become a symbol of life for the crews of downed planes, sunken ships and ships. The rescue operations were codenamed "Dumbo", after the flying baby elephant from the Walt Disney cartoon. Initially, this name was used in radio negotiations, but then it was firmly entrenched for the rescuers.
It got to the point that the Catalins, during the campaign in the Solomon Islands, were allocated to help strike groups, patrolling in the area near the target.
We also worked PBY-4 in the Russian north as a reconnaissance and rescuer. In addition, there was the Soviet "Katalina", aka GST (Hydro Aircraft Transport), manufactured in Taganrog under license, but not with conventional engines, but licensed Wright Cyclones.
3. Short S.25 Sunderland. United Kingdom
The coolest British sea lion. You can, of course, argue in terms of who was more effective, Sunderland or Valrus, but the weight categories are different, and the guys at Sunderlands have done more things.
So, such a hefty flying boat. The boat here is somehow not in the weight category.
It should be said here that Sunderland was created on the basis of the already well-proven S.23 Empire mail-passenger aircraft. That is, we can say that a civilian plane was called up for military service and adapted to the conditions of military life.
In fact, the mail plane turned out to be a wonderful patrolman. It is not surprising that this boat already had all the necessary qualities: a large double-decked fuselage, due to which the long flight range was combined with good habitability.
Not only could the plane take a lot of fuel, it also had just magical conditions for the crew: on board there was a galley, a dining room and a sleeping compartment for six beds. It is no wonder that envious people gave this plane the nickname "the flying hotel".
Total: long flight duration, excellent conditions for the crew, pretty good maneuverability for such a large vehicle, good visibility and the ability not to save on every kilogram of cartridges - all these components made Sunderland an excellent patrol-anti-submarine aircraft.
Sunderland had one very funny feature. The front gun turret could slide back along the rails, inside the fuselage. At the same time, something like a small deck with a fence was formed in the bow end of the boat, from which it was convenient to moor.
Just a few words about weapons. The mountain of 7, 7-mm machine guns was, of course, a good thing, but over the course of the war, rifle-caliber Vickers were gradually replaced by large-caliber Browning, which played a very positive role.
In general, "Sunderland" was a very difficult target, and the Germans and Italians did not rub their hands happily at the sight of this car. The S.25 could easily fight off anyone, another question is that not everyone was eager to fly as far from land as the Sunderland pilots did.
The battle score S.25 was opened on September 17, 1940, when one of the aircraft of the 228th AE shot down the Italian flying boat "Kant" Z.501.
The bombs turned out to be more difficult. In general, the load in numbers looks very modest, and it is clear that such an aircraft could take on board much more. British engineers categorically did not want to violate the strength of the boat bottom and tightness. Because the bomb bays were made … on the sides!
The bombs were electrically advanced through hatches in the fuselage under the wing and dropped there. Then the drive rods were pulled in for new bombs. Quirky, but justified.
Naturally, the Sunderland showed itself very well as a transport seaplane. More precisely, a tow truck. For example, of the 28,000 Britons evacuated from Crete, 14,500 were taken out of these flying boats.
But the main combat mission for the Sunderlands was to patrol the sea and ocean areas in search of enemy submarines. And in this the S.25 have more than succeeded.
And the appearance in 1943 of the new ASV Mk. III anti-submarine radar allowed anti-submarine aircraft to switch from escorting convoys to offensive tactics, that is, to attempts to find and intercept enemy submarines before they entered the areas of combat deployment.
In total, the Sunderlands destroyed 26 German U-bots (21 of them on their own). And how many attacks were thwarted by the presence of the S.25 in the area of the convoy's movement is hard to say. The fact is that the German submarines, which had radar signaling equipment on board, were in no hurry to launch an attack.
And they served the S.25 for a very long time. In Argentina, they carried mail until 1967, and the record belongs to a former Australian seaplane that flew in French Polynesia back in 1970.
4. CANT Z.501 Gabbiano. Italy
The Italian "Seagull" somewhat repeated the fate of its Soviet land namesake. That is, it was completely and irrevocably outdated by the beginning of the war and was actually knocked out by enemy fighters, because it really could not oppose anything to them.
Nevertheless, the plane fought the entire war, from the first to the last (for Italy) day.
Before the outbreak of World War II, the Italian fleet had more than 200 Z.501 aircraft at its disposal. The configurations are different, which is quite normal for a flying boat. These are scouts, bombers, and evacuators. There were even attempts to adapt the Z.501 to search and destroy enemy submarines, but somehow it did not work out.
In general, the aircraft was uncharacteristic for the Italian aircraft industry. On the one hand, a beautiful body, narrow and dynamic, on the other - a huge awkward wing, flopped down from above. But this disharmony worked pretty well, the car flew well for its time.
But the boat was often called not "Gabbiano", but "Mamayuto", "Oh, mommy!". According to legend, a child who saw this plane for the first time shouted like this. It's hard to say whether it's true or not.
But the combat effectiveness was very low. And the reason for this was not aerohydrodynamics, but mainly the low survivability and low reliability of the engines. The armament also left much to be desired, but for lack of the best, the "Seagulls" flew over the waves until the end of the war.
After the surrender, 30 seaplanes remained in the Italian aviation. By May 1944, their number had dropped to 24 - the rest remained in Nazi-occupied Northern Italy.
But the surviving planes flew until 1950. Not ideal, but still.
5. Latecoere Loire 130. France
With a little bit of regret, I state that the most widespread French flying boat during the war was the Loire 130 monoplane.
It was built according to the project as an ejection reconnaissance aircraft. Appropriately small and lightweight. There were also more significant cars in France, but they were produced in absolutely scanty series, from 1 to 10 cars. So, if they wanted to, they could not have at least some influence on the course of hostilities.
The Loire 130 flying boats began World War II on all French ships with catapults. From battleship to floating base. Plus patrol squadrons in the Air Force.
After November 1942, all French warships lost their catapults, which were removed in order to accommodate more anti-aircraft guns. All boats "Loire 130" were "on the shore", that is, they began to be used from coastal basing.
Naturally, first of all, they began to be used as patrol aircraft for the detection and hunting of submarines. Another question is what two 75 kg bombs could do.
The aircraft were most actively used in Vichy aviation. Moreover, they fought, as is typical for French aircraft, on both sides of the front. The Loire, which remained in the Vichy Air Force, could well have fought with the Loire, which flew to the British from Tunisia, Lebanon and Martinique.
In general, "Loire 130" became the most massive French flying boat during the Second World War. Despite its low speed qualities, it was distinguished by its reliability, ease of operation and flexibility of use.
And in fact, this airplane was very versatile. The car was truly multipurpose, it could take off from coastal and coastal bases, from ships' catapults. "Loire 130" could be used as a reconnaissance, transport, search and rescue aircraft.
6. Blohm und Voss BV. 138. Germany
This boat can be safely put on the same level with the best representatives of this class of aircraft, since not everyone could do what the BV.138 could do. Good seaworthiness, which made it possible to take off and land at a wave of more than 1 meter, excellent flight range, showed that the BV.138 was an outstanding aircraft for its time.
Not only did the BV.138 prove to be an excellent patrol aircraft, extremely durable, not afraid of waves or machine guns, but also its outstanding seaworthiness, together with the ability to stay on the high seas for a long time, made it possible to use it in a way that no one was used. the plane of that war: from an ambush.
It was done like this: BV.138 flew to the Atlantic, landed on the water and drifted for two or three days until the message about the passage of the Allied convoy. After that, BV.138 took off and directed submarines to the convoy. He could have attacked himself, but the guidance of one plane of the "wolf pack" was much more deadly than several bombs or a torpedo.
The designers were able to make it so that even a rather complex repair could be carried out on the high seas. And refueling BV.138 from submarines easily and naturally, if only the weather allowed.
With a maximum supply of fuel, VV.138 could stay in the air for up to 18 hours, although with a normal one only 6, 5.
The field of action for BV.138 was the Arctic, the Baltic, and the Atlantic. Wherever eyes and clear guidance of other forces were needed.
In the north, in 1942, the Germans concentrated 44 BV.138 units in Norway, in fact, not a single convoy could pass unnoticed. BV.138. Thus, efficient detection and subsequent tracking of convoys was ensured. It is worth noting that the losses from the actions of the air defense of the ships of the convoys were small.
True, almost immediately the Allies began to include aircraft carriers in the convoys, whose aircraft somewhat hampered the work of German intelligence officers. However, even in this case, it was not easy to neutralize the work of BV.138. A case was recorded when a flying boat withstood a 90-minute battle with the Sea Hurricanes and managed to return to base, albeit with serious damage.
The cannon firing sectors were too well distributed, which could cause damage to enemy fighters due to the range of the latter's machine guns. There were also cases of attacks by BV.138 on escort aircraft, especially seaplanes.
By 1942, the insolent Germans created bases for ВV.138 on Soviet territory, on Novaya Zemlya. The base was organized from submarines, it was assumed that the planes would conduct reconnaissance of convoys in the Kara Sea, operating from Novaya Zemlya. From this base, BV.138 made reconnaissance flights eastward to Yamal and to the north of the eastern part of the Urals for several weeks.
Of course, by the end of the war, the use of rather unhurried flying boats in conditions of complete enemy air superiority had become an extremely risky business. But in the Arctic, BV.138 operated until the very end of the war.
And the BV.138 became the plane that wrote one of the last lines in the history of the Luftwaffe. It was Chief Lieutenant Wolfgang Klemusch, who flew in this car, who received the order on May 1, 1945, to fly in his BV.138 to Berlin at night, land on the lake and pick up two very important couriers. Klemush successfully landed despite heavy shelling, but since the couriers could not provide any identification documents, the pilot refused to take them on board, but loaded 10 wounded and returned to Copenhagen.
Subsequently, it turned out that these couriers were supposed to deliver the will and the last will of Hitler.
In general, the aircraft turned out to be very functional and versatile, which is why it was able to fight the entire war.
7. Kawanishi H8K. Japan
The creation of this monster began long before World War II, but had to go through a number of models to get one of the best flying boats. Absolutely no exaggeration, N8K can be assessed in this way.
In general, the Japanese have created a lot of things that do not fit into the global canons. Especially when they were pinned down by the Washington Treaty, strange inventions fell like an avalanche.
And all these inventions did not fall under contractual restrictions, since they did not really have a class. These are super destroyers, and huge oxygen torpedoes "long-leans" for them, patrol submarines-aircraft carriers, heavy cruisers and battleships, fast seaplane carriers-carriers of dwarf submarines, huge minelayers, torpedo cruisers (with 40 torpedo tubes each) …
But, perhaps, the closest attention was paid to a new type of naval weapons - carrier-based, coastal and seaplane aviation.
Japan has indeed entered the war with the world's best carrier-based fighters, dive bombers and torpedo bombers. The coastal aviation of the fleet received torpedo bombers with a fantastic flight range, and heavy strike-reconnaissance flying boats conducted strategic reconnaissance throughout the Pacific Ocean.
This luxurious device was created by the Kavanishi Kokuki KK company. It's funny, but the lion's share of the shares belonged to the British company Short Brothers, albeit in a somewhat veiled form. And Short Brothers was a gentle and reliable supplier to the Royal Navy of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain.
Nothing personal, just business: the Japanese got access to the latest achievements of English hydro-aviation, and Short Brothers did not pay taxes on the sale of licenses to Japan, so the similarity of the schematic diagrams and some technical solutions of H8K and Sunderland is not surprising.
But I have already told you what Japanese engineers did from foreign-made samples (cannons and machine guns), and what masterpieces were obtained at the same time. It worked this time too.
The performance characteristics, given at the end of the article, immediately bring the plane to the category of perfect.
Outstanding parameters immediately identified the boat in the category of strategic reconnaissance. But at the same time it was a very sharp-toothed aircraft, capable of delivering serious blows.
Two such flying boats took part in a little-known but unique operation - the second strike on Pearl Harbor. The purpose of the operation was determined as reconnaissance of the harbor and the bombing of the oil storage of the main base of the American fleet, which was practically not damaged during the aircraft carrier raid of Vice Admiral Nagumo Tuichi.
The crews of Lieutenants Hashizumi and Tomano from the Yokohama Air Corps with four 250-kg bombs on each aircraft flew from Vautier Atoll to the French Frigate Reefs north of Hawaii, where they refueled from submarines and continued their flight to Pearl Harbor.
The bad weather over the target forced the Japanese to bomb through the clouds, so it’s not surprising that there was no result. The second attempt to carry out this operation ended with the death of the crew of Lieutenant Tomano during additional reconnaissance of the target - he was shot down by fighters, and soon the American fleet took control of the French Freegate reefs.
The capabilities of the boats were constantly being improved. One of the first in the history of Japanese aircraft construction, the N8K aircraft received multilayer rubber protection of fuel tanks, and the seats of the pilots and the ship's commander - armored backs.
The plane fought the entire war. The N8K were engaged in reconnaissance in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, bombed Colombo, Calcutta, Trincomalee and targets in Western Australia, supplied island garrisons isolated in the ocean, searched for and sank submarines.
For this, in 1944, search radars were installed on a small number of N8Ks. The effect was, at least seven American submarines went to the bottom with the direct "assistance" of Japanese flying boats.
And the N8K was recognized as a very tough nut to crack for fighters. Just insane survivability, coupled with the most powerful defensive weapons and the fanaticism of the Japanese crews, claimed the lives of more than one American and British pilot who tried to destroy the plane. It happened that in order to force the N8K to fall, 5-6 fighters consumed all the ammunition.
But at the second stage of the war, both fighters and cartridges were in abundance for the Allies, so by the time of Japan's surrender, only two flying boats of this type survived. All seaplanes of the L. transport modification were also destroyed.
By the way, it was N8K who took part in one of the sad pages of the Imperial Navy.
In April 1943, American pilots shot down two G4M1 bombers, which killed several officers of the Joint Fleet headquarters, led by the commander-in-chief, Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku. The Japanese naval command decided to provide more reliable "bullet-resistant" aircraft. The choice fell on the N8K flying boat. By the fall, the first aircraft, designated H8K1-L m.31, was modernized. A kind of VIP version, capable of carrying 29 passengers in comfort in addition to the crew.
These were reliable vehicles that did not cause complaints either from the crews or from the passengers, but for the second time the Joint Fleet headquarters was lost along with the new commander, Vice Admiral Koga Mineichi, on board the H8K2-L. The plane of the commander-in-chief in 1944 was caught in a typhoon while flying from the islands of Palau to Davao and went missing.
Of course, flying boats were not as widespread as fighters and bombers, but they contributed to the victory of one side or the other. The only question is who is better.
