This big dive-bomber was the one begun by Curtiss in 1939. Few planes in history had been so long in the development stage, but when the SB2C _Helldiver_ did appear it was the biggest and fastest dive-bomber to go into service with the United States Navy. Powered with a 1,700-horsepower, 14-cylinder, Wright Cyclone radial engine, its top speed is in excess of 300 miles per hour. Carrying more than a ton of bombs, it has a range of over 1,200 miles. It is armed with either .50-caliber machine guns or 20-millimeter cannon. It is also equipped to carry rockets under its wings. [Illustration] OUR FLYING NAVY _From Pearl Harbor, Guadalcanal, and Midway to Tokyo Bay Our Gallant Navy Men, Carriers, and Planes Led the Way to Victory and Have Added Many Heroic Chapters to the Glorious History of the United States Navy._ When the Japs struck at Pearl Harbor on Sunday morning December 7, 1941, United States naval aviation had just passed its thirtieth birthday. At no time in its history had the U. S. Navy been confronted with a greater task. Many of our great warships lay in the mud at Pearl Harbor. Many of our Navy planes had been destroyed, and Japan controlled the greater part of the western Pacific. Though the future looked black, our Navy possessed one great asset, invisible to most of us. It was that small group of Navy airmen who had lived and breathed flying since our first carriers were launched. So thorough had been the schooling and the thinking of our pioneer flat-top men that, when war did come, they were ready. These naval aviators who had created and tested every form of air tactics were ready to put them into action. They also were able to pass on their lessons to the large group of young men who were to man the thousands of warplanes being built for the Navy. As the new planes were rolling off the production lines and the new naval aviators were in training, the old-timers went to work on the Japs in the Pacific. That they did their job well is testified by the fact that the Japs did not get back to Pearl Harbor or attack our west coast. With only a few carriers to cover the vast Pacific area, and a pitifully small number of airplanes, our naval aviators carried the fight all the way down to the Solomons. They helped take and hold Guadalcanal. They stopped the great Japanese fleet at Midway and drove them out of the Aleutians. Navy flat-tops took “Jimmy” Doolittle and his Tokyo raiders almost to Japan’s front door. Wherever our naval aviators met the enemy they knocked him out of the air at the rate of five to one.