Douglas SBD Dauntless

Hi everyone, thank you for joining me for another Karl’s Korner! As part of Midway's annual Legacy Week commemoration during Memorial Day weekend, I set up some model aircrafts from my collection to share with guests. My set-up is typically nestled in between two of Midway’s suspended aircraft in the Hangar Bay- learn more about one of these planes below! To see me share a dozen model aircraft from my collection in a Facebook LIVE video, click this link!

Entering the USS Midway Museum

Have you visited the USS Midway Museum in the last year and half? Well if so you may have noticed two aircraft suspended in the air to the right of the Museum entrance. One is the Wildcat, and the second? None other than the Douglas SBD Dauntless! The Midway Museum is proud to include a Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber in her air wing, but did you know our example is really three planes? Although more than 5,000 SBDs were built during the 1940s, there are so few remaining it was necessary to bring elements of different airframes together to make a whole aircraft.  For years, this latter-day Swoose Goose was on display at the MAPS Museum in Ohio. The aft fuselage and tail are from a late production SBD-6, the wing and forward fuselage are of an SBD-5, and then are bolted on the engine compartment and cowling of an SBD-3 to complete our favorite dive bomber. After a thorough overhaul at our Hangar 805 and a 1942 paint scheme, the Dauntless was barged across from North Island and craned aboard the forward flight deck to a warm welcome on May 29, 2007. For the next seven years our SBD graced the aft hangar bay before she was specially fitted with a suspension rig and hoisted in a dramatic dive pose just outside the entrance to our Battle of Midway Theatre, which opened in 2015.  Three planes, one purpose—our SBD fulfills our mission. Launch em’... until next time, Karl