Without a doubt, the most recognizable weapon of the early war was the Ju-87 Stuka. In books and magazines about the period, you will inevitably find a much published image of a Stuka in a dive and dropping its bombs. Against specific targets, a dive bomber was the most accurate way of delivering bombs, and no one did it better in the west than the Germans.

The Ju-87s development was spurred by Ernst Udet, who was enamored with dive bombing after seeing demonstrations of a Curtiss Hawk doing such maneuvers in the US during a visit in the early 1930. A competition was held in Germany for a dive bomber and it was Junkers that provided the winning design. After changing the tail section, the Stuka as we know it was pretty well done. Unlike the dive bombers of other nations, the Stuka was designed to do vertical dives. This not only improved the accuracy of the bombing, but also provided some technical challenges. One was how to keep the pilot from blacking out during the huge G force that was placed on his body during recovery from the dive.

This challenge was met, not by aviation medicine, but by engineering. The Stuka was, to my knowledge, unique in that there was an automatic recovery system built into the aircraft. The pull out altitude was set and the pilot simply pressed a button before going into the dive. When a certain altitude was reached, the aircraft would automatically pull out of the dive. Often the crew would black out, but thanks to this feature, the plane remained in control until the pilot recovered and switched off the system.

Early Ju-87s were tested in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and it was discovered that the plane was underpowered. The aircraft could carry the designated bomb load, but only if the radio operator/gunner was left on the ground. Despite this and due to a lack of any real air opposition, the Stuka proved to be most successful. The later Ju-87B improved the power to the level that full crew and bomb load could be carried and it is this version that saw the opening of WWII in Europe.

During the initial year of the war, where the Germans were able to maintain air superiority, the Ju-87 was an extremely effective weapon. However, once it ran into determined air defense over the UK, the tables quickly turned and the Stuka's poor maneuverability and slow speed resulted in heavy losses. It was quickly removed from combat. Lesson learned was that when the Germans had air superiority, even only locally, the plane was quite effective and so it was used in other areas of the war from North Africa and the Mediterranean to the war against the Soviet Union. As there was no real replacement, it was further improved, but still was slow.

 It became even slower when turned into a tank killer by the addition of underwing 37mm cannon, but again, it was highly effective in this new task. The highest decorated German soldier of WWII was Hans Rudel, a Stuka pilot. The aircraft was also exported to some Axis nations.

In this book, the author looks into the background and the development of the Ju-87 as well as the aircraft that came before it. All of the different variants are covered as well as an in-depth look at the aircraft and its systems. Several pages of full color art work, and profiles are included as well as the usual bevy of period photographs and the large cutaway on the back two pages. A great read and highly recommended.

August 2014

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