Please have someone who knows this stuff proofread it for you. I really dig your channel but you consistently make contextual errors that are distracting and inaccurate.
2:05, Sakai actually flew back to base after being shot in the head by the rear gunner. The bullet went through his brain and paralyzed half his body. Look it up. He did not bailout.
I'm really surprised the Battle of Midway didn't get more attention. Dauntless destroyed 4 carriers in an afternoon. That action alone puts the Dauntess at the top of the heap.
The Dauntless destroyed vast quantities of smaller shipping. Oilers, troop and equipment landing barges, etc. They sank all sorts of ships large and small.
I helped my dad get his memory back after a stroke by showing him airplane silhouettes of ww2 planes (the book I used was his from the war). His long term memory was pretty remarkable he knew all the planes by sight. I still remember him struggling to say "Douglas Dauntless". He would have loved this channel btw, thanks for another great vid.
These are some bad ass dive bombers. Pilot, co-pilot, tail-gunners, the rear cockpit gunner. Was there a flight engineer as well? sheesh. Add in the messed up dates and it sounds like it was written by a school dropout.
@@pewing99 how about the yb-40 a 'escort fighter with a pilot, co-pilot, enginer, navigator and at least 6 gunners , armoured up with extra guns and ammo it couldnt keep up with the b-17s it was supposed to escort.
1947 (huh?), "copilot," (not in the context used here) "ejected" (not during WWII). And no, Sakai didn't "eject" ( bail out ). Blind in one eye, and navigating by instinct, he returned to his base and landed his aircraft. He wrote a book. It readily available in print or electronically.
Just one correction? I don't think so ..... Sakai didn't "eject" there were no ejection seats in zeros and even more he flew the plane back to base. Just take this video down and start over. All this did here is make me wonder if you have ANY background in aviation or history. If I have to go back and check all your information then your videos are more than worthless and are absolutely not entertaining then.
"Ernst Udet, a former Hollywood stunt pilot..." Of course he's most remembered for being a stunt pilot, and not for being the second-most successful (and most successful surviving) german fighter pilot of WW1 with 62 confirmed victories.
Eric Hartmann is still the German (actually the worlds) top fighter ace, with 352 kills in WWII. mostly he shot down Russian plans, so as a westerner, its hard to get to mad at him. Supposedly, after flying his last sortie in czechoslovakia, his ground crew said " hey, we're gonna go surrender to the Americans before the Russians get here, wanna join us?" And wisely, he said yes.
@@danielbretall2236 many very specifically surrendered to the Americans. Let’s just say the Germans were not very civil to the Russian civilians and POWs and the Russians were eager to return the favor.
@@Justanotherconsumer unfortunately for him, if I remember correctly, after some shady dealing just after the war, the allies traded Hartmann to the Russians, and he spent about a decade in a Gulag before escaping back to the west. that generation of men make most of us today look like the kindergarten team when it comes to will power and endurance.
Stanley “Swede” Vejtasa, started out as a SBD pilot, a function he performed with great distinction. On one mission he was jumped by, I think it was 4 zero's, in the ensuing 30 minute air battle, he shot down three of them. He was transferred to fighters after that. Somewhere on RUclips is his story.
@Sammy Seguin Been looking for that History Channel video entitled "Long Odds", featuring Swede for months. I've had the pleasure of watching and sharing it many times. Recently though, it's nowhere to be found. Perhaps it was removed for copyright purposes? It's a shame... it was always one of my favorites to watch again and again. What a genuine hero and bad ass!
August 7, 1947 !?!?!?! (edit) Also, I was under the impression that Sakai was attacking a flight of Grumman TBF Avengers when he was shot and nearly killed. And he did not "eject", he brought his plane back, despite being blinded in one eye.
As a builder of plastic models in the 1950's, I wondered how Saburo Sakai could survive a 12.7mm/.50" caliber round to the head. (The TBF turret mounted a .50" caliber M2 Browning.) 7.62mm/.30" caliber from an SBD, maybe.
@@Otokichi786 well if you give it a few moments of thought he probably didn't get hit directly from the bullet but from either glass or shards of metal that came off when the bullet hit
In his book, Sakai said the planes he attacked were TBF Avengegers, which also being from Grumman had similar squared wing tips and tail surfaces to the F4F Wildcat. That makes his misidentification reasonabls.
@@thomasbuie3579 There were Avengers at Midway. They weren't deployed on carriers yet (the _Yorktowns_ were all still carrying Devastators) but there were a squadron or two based on the atoll itself. That's 1942.
@@jimhebert3402 Well technically there were still Japanese holdouts for 44 years after the armistice was signed. The last two known to officially lay down their arms and surrender was in 1989. Most learned to survive in the jungle and fiercely defended their area until they were compelled to surrender by former comrades, or were captured. There are rumors that there are still a handful of holdouts, but even the youngest soldiers would be over 100 years old in 2021, making these rumors extremely unlikely.
I cant believe you totally putchered saburo sakai's account of the incident. He was shot to the head and arm (if i recall correctly). He then flew many hours back home half a body paralyzed and mostly blind
@I Am Sekou I’m not saying it’s hard. I’m saying that you can’t expect it to be perfect and exactly how you want it. Who ever owns this channel has multiple other ones. They can’t exactly have everything run smoothly
That and he said the Japanese ejected after being shot apart by the "Co-Pilots" of the Dauntless'. It makes me think half of the other Dark Skies episodes are inaccurate AF too. Bailed out and hit by the tail gunners, FTFY Dark Skies.
Even after the Helldiver replaced the SBD on fleet carriers, the SBD remained in production, which, along with the F4F Wildcat, served on the 'jeep' escort carriers which were too small for the Helldiver and Hellcat to operate from. With the low speed handling issues with the Helldiver, the US Navy didn't have a satisfactory SBD replacement aircraft until the A-1 Skyraider, which started acceptance trials during the last week of the war, and could operate from the small escort carriers
@@SoloRenegade One of the issues of the F4U in the infantry support role was that it lacked air brakes for dive bombing, but it was found that lowering the landing gear before the start of the dive was just as effective
My Dad was the tail gunner in an SBD. 1st models had a single 30 cal, then went to twin 30s and the last models had twin 50s. One of the biggest problems with the twins was the ammo belts would get tangled up and he had to use his feet to get the belts untangled. He had three planes. The 1st was shot up bad and ended up crashing and flipping over on landing on the carrier. The second lost power shortly after take off and had a forced water landing. The third was destroyed when his ship was bombed on 3-19-1945. See the USS Ben Franklin CV-13, the only ship to lose more men was the Arizonian. The Franklin is also the most decorated crew in US Naval history.
The Vindicator didn't deserve much love. Other than its place in the record books for being the first monoplane carrier aircraft, it was slow, had poor range, and carried a small bomb load. As an indication of how pilots felt about it, the Royal Navy withdrew theirs in November, 1941 after six months in frontline service and replaced then with the biplane Fairy Swordfish.
We won when the Tone's scout plane's radio broke in the midway battle. We got lucky because they actually found us first. I'm planning on doing a series of "Great battles and Blunders" on my channel. Working on part one of midway now. However, I'm thinking of doing the coral sea first. That's the first major engagement of the Pacific war and sets up midway perfectly.
Heinemann also designed the A4 Skyhawk. It is interesting both were great attack planes that followed the same theme; light and more capable than one would think.
I read Sakai's book many years ago. The aircraft which he dived on, mistaking them for F4Fs, were not SBDs but Grumman TBF Avengers, which were defended by .50-caliber machine guns mounted in power-driven turrets. Also, Sakai did not "eject from his cockpit". They didn't have ejection seats in those days. Although he was severely wounded, he managed to fly his badly-damaged plane back to Rabaul. The fact is that the SBD was really obsolete by 1942, and was only still in Navy service because neither of the aircraft slated to replace it, the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver and the Brewster SB2A Buccaneer, were not yet available. The Army Air Force also used the Dauntless, which it called the "A-24". However, the Army considered them vulnerable and not very effective, and replaced them in operational service with another Douglas product, the A-20 Havoc.
I am always disappointed when a program that proports to be historical has so many simple mistakes. Just for your information, when you have footage of a larger bulky aircraft with a gun turret at the back of the cockpit.....it is not an SBD.
@@ericbrammer2245 Exactly! It was never completely replaced by the Helldiver and was much more appreciated by its pilots. Not so much by the Japanese...
@@Cholin3947 the Zero pilot that "ejected" but in reality flew back to base for a double whammy and the tail gun being "an M2 .30 calibre" for starters.
@@ParaglidingManiac No, it was never called "ejecting". That concept was in the future. It was called "bailing out". He tends to make small errors like this in most of his many videos.
@@DraftySatyr I wish he's reduce his output some and spend the time doing some more research so these errors will stop creeping into his videos. I don't believe he ever reads the comments anyway. Just get us here with a click bate thumbnail and title so he gets his AdSense money.
Far from shore, a pacific war Bombs are falling from the skies It's a bomb run day, it's the naval way A blood red sun is on the rise Far from shore, a pacific war Bombs are falling from the skies It's a bomb run day, it's the naval way A blood red sun is on the rise I had to
A close friend of my grandfather’s and my family was terminally ill when he found out I was joining the Navy. He gave me a model of a Dauntless that used to sit on his desk, cause he worked on them during the war. I still get a little misty eyed thinking about him and now the Dauntless is one of my favorite aircraft of the war.
My grandfather was an SBD Dauntless pilot assigned to USS Hornet (CV-8). It's an awesome aircraft and love to see videos spotlighting it. I'm a bit disappointed in the inaccuracies tho and would have liked to see more about the plane's performance in Midway.
My dad trained in it before moving on to the Helldiver as a radioman/gunner. While on a training flight, another Dauntless came down from above and sliced his propeller into my dad's canopy, between him and the pilot. Neither were hurt but they had to make an emergency landing.
@@fireteammichael1777 He doesn’t misspeak. He gets things wrong on purpose to pump up the comment section, so RUclips’s algorithm hypes his videos more.
Your voice is perfect for narrating documentaries. and it even has the slightly dark almost menacing tone which gives the documents a little edge to it almost like your talking about some conspiracy or somthing.
My dad flew as a gunner on scout missions from the USS ENTERPRISE in 1942. Another nickname was 'Speedy', an obvious play on SBD and a joke about its speed. Even though it was considered obscolescent at the start of the war (the SB2C was supposed to replace it in '41), the Dauntless became the Navy's premier ship-killing aircraft.
Saw his Saburo Sakai's damaged goggles on display at the Admiral Nimitz Pacific War Museum in Fredricksburg, Texas. Great place. Thanks for the video.......a few details are incorrect.
Ruggedness of the SBD Dauntless? Should've gone with Swede Vejtasa's account with the SBD. Was involved with a dogfight against 3x IJN Zeros, shot down two, collided with the third.
I believe the collision was intentional when Swede ran out of ammo for his two forward-firing .50cal machine guns. The hit was wing to wing. The lightweight zero’s wing was sheared off. The “rugged” Dauntless held together.
I recall reading in Hugh Ambrose's "The Pacific" that the Dauntless' replacement, the Curtis Helldiver, was not well-liked: its folding wings would not lock properly properly and its bomb releases would often jam, forcing pilots to land with bombs still loaded.
You realize when you make errors in a documentary it calls into question all your documentaries. The last thing I want to do when watching a video is fact check the damn thing.
Pretty sure same principle applies in court. Soon as any part of witness testimony deemed inaccurate entire testimony shot to hail. Didn't Truman declare Aug.7, 1947 the day that will live in Obscurity?
I read Saburo Sakai's book "Samurai" when I was a kid in the 1960's, read it several times and I still have it. It's still available on Amazon, you can even download it to your Kindle. Really an excellent read about his 60+ victories through the entire war, even after he lost an eye.
What’s funny, is in war thunder, I have the SBD-3 dauntless and I’ve killed more planes in the dauntless than any other plane that I have. I find that quite interesting
SBD was very underrated and even modern movies make stupid comments about them. Midway movie comes to mind, when the Japanese commander makes the "They have horrible planes" comment, fact was the SBD was slower but easily out turned the Zero and with the added tail gunner made them very effective at anti fighter defense if needed. The misnomer that the SBD was a bad plane came from how easily they were shot down in a dive once the brakes were activated which was their only real weakness especially during AA ship fire. Their top speed was slower but they were also armored unlike the Zero so not only could take hits but could deliver machine gun fire from the rear making them extremely difficult nuts to crack.
The SBD held the line for America that first year in the Pacific. After 1942, the F4U Corsair would start hammering the Japanese air wings thanks to men such as Greg ' Pappy ' Boyington.
Sakai came in below what he thought were wildcats. They were avengers torpedo bombers (not SBDs)- with a belly gun in addition to a tail gunner. It was a new type he had not seen before.
And says "ejection" again in the text. Every time, ww2 aircraft are discussed, the narrator says "ejected" for someone bailing out. Please stop, I know you guys know this by now and it's not funny anymore..
There are so many grammatical inaccuracies in his monologue too, it makes me wonder if this an actual persons voice or a computer. " A thirteen fifty horsepower engine" he said "3x" when the situation was clearly 3 power. It's weird and hard to communicate through text.
I'm no documentary expert. But doesn't ignorant dialog doom any video to being a terribly documentary and therefor a worthless video. You are correct he did not show video of German and U.S. dog fights or the 1964-65 New York World's Fair so for that he gets a gold star. But the pile of errors delivered in the audio disqualify this video from being anything but garbage. It should be pulled down and redone. If I represented Magellan TV I would insist on this video being removed or I'd insist on having any mention of Magellan TV removed from this abortion.
@@roterex9115 In the earlier portion when you describing the surprise of the Japanese pilot when he realized that he was attacking the bombers instead of fighters. Someone (you?) stated that there was a co-pilot. Later on, yes, you did correctly state pilot and gunner. I paused the vid at the first point to make my comment.
@@Raenman66 wait why do you think i have anything to do with what was said in the video? I'm just watching it. Also while yes he did say copilot context suggested he meant gunner just like he talked about the Japanese pilot ejecting rather than bailing out (i know he flew home in actual history). The way it was said suggested to me he was just using copilot to broadly to refer to the second man in the aircraft rather than specifically a second man in control.
@@roterex9115 Sorry, by the way that you responded, I assumed that you were the producer of the content. No, when the term "co-pilot" is used, it is a specific term not general. "Crew member" would have allowed the viewer to assume that the gunner was meant because of the context. A co-pilot is another pilot and one can't do that while facing rearward. It may sound picky but for folks who know aviation or are pilots themselves, and are fans of WWII naval aviation history, these points are important. Overlooking them just drives us away to seek content elsewhere.
My father flew an SBD at Midway, Battle of Santa Cruz, Battle of the Philippine Sea and attacks against Truk Lagoon. He flew off the Hornet (CV-8) and then the Lexington (CV-16) after the Hornet was sunk at Santa Cruz. He was awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Star, 2 Air Metals, and 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses. He preferred the SBD over the SB2C because he felt that it had saved his life many times in battle. He did refer to the SBD as "Slow But Deadly" but also referred to the SB2C as a "Son of a Bitch 2nd Class".
The Dauntless was NOT replaced by the Hell Cat. Two different categories of planes; The Dauntless was never considered a fighter. I like this video series but narrative is often wrong or misleading.
Great plane for the Pacific campaign , would have been instantly obsolete over Europe. Gotta say it's toughness was it's greatest strength , the ability to return pilots alive can't be overlooked.
Documentaries are supposed to "document" history...not butcher history. Also... he could not have "ejected" from his Zero...there wasn't an ejector seat in the Zero.
The definition of eject is to force or throw something out. Thats why you eject a DVD or CD, an Ejection seat just automates what pilots had already been doing, which was ejecting from the aircraft.
@@rebelwithacause2330 as per my previous statement, you do not need an ejection seat to eject from an aircraft. Stop being pedantic about things you know nothing about.
Start the new year with a free trial of MagellanTV: try.magellantv.com/darkskies. Big thanks to MagellanTV and to you for your continued support!
Ummmm August 7, 1947? 0:08
@@lds_rhinosfan5749 its August 7, 1942nd
The first US marines to land in the pacific
Please have someone who knows this stuff proofread it for you. I really dig your channel but you consistently make contextual errors that are distracting and inaccurate.
Hey Dark I think a video on the F-15 Streak Eagle would be in order. You do a hell of a job. Thanks
@@hiddenrunner9259 Unless the closed captions are automatic or something, it is clear 1947 is said.
1947 huh 🤔
glad im not the only one that got that to>
i heard that too, pretty fkn confusing
Jesus, I thought I was the only one
Should have been 1942. Must’ve misread the script.
Maybe the 2 looked like a 7 on his script.
2:05, Sakai actually flew back to base after being shot in the head by the rear gunner. The bullet went through his brain and paralyzed half his body. Look it up. He did not bailout.
And no one "ejected" at the time. The first operational bang seat was about two years off.
@@abchaplin indeed
abchaplin, yep, ejection seats were first texted in the experimental German planes like the He-162 and some other manned craft
Correct, not to mention the odds of Sakai surviving in the water with his injuries would have been near impossible.
That epic struggle for survival also saw the injured Sakai fly the longest single-engine mission of the war to date.
I'm really surprised the Battle of Midway didn't get more attention. Dauntless destroyed 4 carriers in an afternoon. That action alone puts the Dauntess at the top of the heap.
Pretty sure there were a few movies with Dauntless as the ‘hero’ plane.
Two of them were hit by one man, Norman ‘Dusty’ Kleiss.
The Dauntless destroyed vast quantities of smaller shipping. Oilers, troop and equipment landing barges, etc. They sank all sorts of ships large and small.
You don't know much WW2 history, do you?
@@masterh8448 ??? The fuck? Fight me or bite me.
1947 was the first year the Japanese equipped the Zero with an ejection seat
HaHaHaHaHaHa,HoHoHoHoHoHo,good 1 bro.You made my day.Now,I will get out of the floor🤣🤣🤣!!!
By then aviation fuel was scarce, and all zeros were converted to run on sake. 😁
NO, no, no! 1947 was when they put the after burner on the Zero, then the ejection seat came the following year.
@Nathan Mathews...too funny! Thanks.
@@blackhawkinternationalsecu6962 Wrong. The afterburners were placed on the tips of the propeller blades to spin faster. True Lie!
I helped my dad get his memory back after a stroke by showing him airplane silhouettes of ww2 planes (the book I used was his from the war). His long term memory was pretty remarkable he knew all the planes by sight. I still remember him struggling to say "Douglas Dauntless". He would have loved this channel btw, thanks for another great vid.
If you watch magellan tv, you will learn that WWII ended in 1945.
I already know that
I get the joke
Wow. That's inexcusable. Plus, nine months and uncorrected. Unsubscribed.
Co-pilot and rear gunner are two very different things.
These are some bad ass dive bombers. Pilot, co-pilot, tail-gunners, the rear cockpit gunner. Was there a flight engineer as well? sheesh. Add in the messed up dates and it sounds like it was written by a school dropout.
Thats crazy talk! Next thing you'll probably try to say is a P38 is a fighter plane a German pistol AND a g.i. can opener
Gunner/Radio men
@@pewing99 how about the yb-40 a 'escort fighter with a pilot, co-pilot, enginer, navigator and at least 6 gunners , armoured up with extra guns and ammo it couldnt keep up with the b-17s it was supposed to escort.
As long as we're deconstucting unoffical millitary acronyms how about Large Slow Target or Combustable Vunerable Expendable.
1947 (huh?), "copilot," (not in the context used here) "ejected" (not during WWII). And no, Sakai didn't "eject" ( bail out ). Blind in one eye, and navigating by instinct, he returned to his base and landed his aircraft. He wrote a book. It readily available in print or electronically.
Oops 1942 not 47
Thank you! I was listening to this like what the...
Sorry! One correction to note... "1947" should be "1942"... I missed that when reviewing the VO.
Just one correction? I don't think so ..... Sakai didn't "eject" there were no ejection seats in zeros and even more he flew the plane back to base. Just take this video down and start over. All this did here is make me wonder if you have ANY background in aviation or history. If I have to go back and check all your information then your videos are more than worthless and are absolutely not entertaining then.
It’s alright. Happens to all of us. Editing is a long tedious process. I enjoy your videos.
"Ernst Udet, a former Hollywood stunt pilot..." Of course he's most remembered for being a stunt pilot, and not for being the second-most successful (and most successful surviving) german fighter pilot of WW1 with 62 confirmed victories.
Eric Hartmann is still the German (actually the worlds) top fighter ace, with 352 kills in WWII. mostly he shot down Russian plans, so as a westerner, its hard to get to mad at him. Supposedly, after flying his last sortie in czechoslovakia, his ground crew said " hey, we're gonna go surrender to the Americans before the Russians get here, wanna join us?" And wisely, he said yes.
@@danielbretall2236 many very specifically surrendered to the Americans.
Let’s just say the Germans were not very civil to the Russian civilians and POWs and the Russians were eager to return the favor.
@@Justanotherconsumer unfortunately for him, if I remember correctly, after some shady dealing just after the war, the allies traded Hartmann to the Russians, and he spent about a decade in a Gulag before escaping back to the west. that generation of men make most of us today look like the kindergarten team when it comes to will power and endurance.
@@Justanotherconsumer The Russians were eager to do it to their own people too.
I mean, the battle of midway took place in ‘47 so..
I was expecting all the 'Deadly SBD' jokes but the errors in the narration kinda overrode all that. Lol
More riddled with errors than SBDs at Battle of the Coral Sea, when used as fighter substitutes.
@@blastulae sbd is the only bomber to have a positive kill to death ratio
@Just Me - "1947" - LOL yep in this case, SBD must mean Scripted But Dumb...
Stanley “Swede” Vejtasa, started out as a SBD pilot, a function he performed with great distinction. On one mission he was jumped by, I think it was 4 zero's, in the ensuing 30 minute air battle, he shot down three of them. He was transferred to fighters after that.
Somewhere on RUclips is his story.
@Sammy Seguin
Been looking for that History Channel video entitled "Long Odds", featuring Swede for months. I've had the pleasure of watching and sharing it many times. Recently though, it's nowhere to be found. Perhaps it was removed for copyright purposes? It's a shame... it was always one of my favorites to watch again and again. What a genuine hero and bad ass!
@@aquablue6301 agreed
@@aquablue6301 I have tried to find it as well, with no success. if you come across it, please post it.
@@sammyseguin2978 I've never done that before, but I pledge that if I run it across again I will certainly try to do so.
I think it was in an episode of Dogfights
August 7, 1947 !?!?!?!
(edit) Also, I was under the impression that Sakai was attacking a flight of Grumman TBF Avengers when he was shot and nearly killed. And he did not "eject", he brought his plane back, despite being blinded in one eye.
They were sbds whether he knew it or not
As a builder of plastic models in the 1950's, I wondered how Saburo Sakai could survive a 12.7mm/.50" caliber round to the head. (The TBF turret mounted a .50" caliber M2 Browning.) 7.62mm/.30" caliber from an SBD, maybe.
I believe the early model TBF's carried a ventral mounted .30 caliber gun. It was this "stinger" that got Sakai as he tried diving under the Avengers.
@@Otokichi786 well if you give it a few moments of thought he probably didn't get hit directly from the bullet but from either glass or shards of metal that came off when the bullet hit
You are correct. I have Sakai's book "Samurai" it is clearly described on page 218. It is a pity no one bothers reading anymore.
In his book, Sakai said the planes he attacked were TBF Avengegers, which also being from Grumman had similar squared wing tips and tail surfaces to the F4F Wildcat. That makes his misidentification reasonabls.
They were sbds
@@mcamp9445 yeah I’ve only heard he lost his eye to SBDs before never TBFs
And entered sevice in44
@@thomasbuie3579 There were Avengers at Midway. They weren't deployed on carriers yet (the _Yorktowns_ were all still carrying Devastators) but there were a squadron or two based on the atoll itself. That's 1942.
If it's a TBF, his head would be blow off cleaned, TBF rear gunner have a single .50 cal machine gun could be much more powerful & deadly.
Hello Dark Skies, a little bird told me that WWII ended in August 1945.
Haven't you heard of "Luft '46"? 😜
And 57000 history books.
@@jimhebert3402 Well technically there were still Japanese holdouts for 44 years after the armistice was signed. The last two known to officially lay down their arms and surrender was in 1989. Most learned to survive in the jungle and fiercely defended their area until they were compelled to surrender by former comrades, or were captured.
There are rumors that there are still a handful of holdouts, but even the youngest soldiers would be over 100 years old in 2021, making these rumors extremely unlikely.
As Joe Biden would say, that was the other WWll.
No Zero pilots ejected, there was no ejector seat in those aircraft.
While no one ejected in the battle he is talking about, pilots could still just literally “bail out” of the cockpit. No rocket seat needed
How do you know. Maybe there was, this is 1947 Imperial Japan after all. Maybe the zeros made in 1947 had ejector seats.
Early in the war many Japanese pilots did wear parachutes as they were seen to be defeatist.
Bailed out...He just used a wrong term...
@@BrettonFerguson They didn’t, they simply just jumped out of the cockpit..
I cant believe you totally putchered saburo sakai's account of the incident. He was shot to the head and arm (if i recall correctly). He then flew many hours back home half a body paralyzed and mostly blind
Temper temper
Not to start an argument but I’m guessing that the person who is researching these is not a historian. You have to except things to be wrong
@@Borratte I’d rather expect a history channel to get history correct.
...as well as not having "ejected" 🤔
@I Am Sekou I’m not saying it’s hard. I’m saying that you can’t expect it to be perfect and exactly how you want it. Who ever owns this channel has multiple other ones. They can’t exactly have everything run smoothly
I have watched dozen of these Dark videos, This is the first whoops I’ve heard, give him a break... One Of the best narration voices I have heard.
Pay more attention. I feel like he makes an oops in nearly every single video I've seen of his.
Believe you are off by a few years. The attack by Sakai couldn't have happened in 1947. The Japanese surrendered in 1945.
Good video otherwise.
September 2, 1945
Formal Japanese surrender ceremony aboard USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay;
I think he misspoke lol
He slept through 1945 and 1946.
That and he said the Japanese ejected after being shot apart by the "Co-Pilots" of the Dauntless'. It makes me think half of the other Dark Skies episodes are inaccurate AF too. Bailed out and hit by the tail gunners, FTFY Dark Skies.
Then let me remind you...
Mr. Silent But Deadly is able to turn a simple elevator ride...
Into a 42 floor plummet into the very bowels of hell.
1947 ? Ejected ? Please check your words
At 5:13 did he say the “Convoy Legion”? You learn something new every day as I’ve always called it l those years calling it the Condor Legion
Even after the Helldiver replaced the SBD on fleet carriers, the SBD remained in production, which, along with the F4F Wildcat, served on the 'jeep' escort carriers which were too small for the Helldiver and Hellcat to operate from.
With the low speed handling issues with the Helldiver, the US Navy didn't have a satisfactory SBD replacement aircraft until the A-1 Skyraider, which started acceptance trials during the last week of the war, and could operate from the small escort carriers
The USMC kept thier SBD when the helldiver came into service. The navy offered them helldivers but the Marine said nope we will keep are SBD's
The F4U turned out to be a rather good dive bomber in WW2 and had a 4-5K bomb load (which Charles Lindbergh helped validate).
Okay, now I'm wondering what the Skyraider's original designation was, because "A-1" is a DoD not a USN designation.
@@boobah5643 Wikipedia says it was originally the XBT2D-1, but was changed to A-1 before actual deployment
@@SoloRenegade One of the issues of the F4U in the infantry support role was that it lacked air brakes for dive bombing, but it was found that lowering the landing gear before the start of the dive was just as effective
WW2 was over by 1947. There is an error in the opening
Secret wars that they don't talk about/want us to know about............. Sort of like Vampires and Werewolves
They were still looking for that Japanese soldier who evaded everybody for 30 years.
No. He said August 7, 1942nd not 47
@@hiddenrunner9259 Run it at 1/2 speed and it still says Aug. 7, 1947
@@lycossurfer8851 it was the Occult Wars according to Hellboy.
My Dad was the tail gunner in an SBD. 1st models had a single 30 cal, then went to twin 30s and the last models had twin 50s. One of the biggest problems with the twins was the ammo belts would get tangled up and he had to use his feet to get the belts untangled.
He had three planes. The 1st was shot up bad and ended up crashing and flipping over on landing on the carrier. The second lost power shortly after take off and had a forced water landing. The third was destroyed when his ship was bombed on 3-19-1945. See the USS Ben Franklin CV-13, the only ship to lose more men was the Arizonian. The Franklin is also the most decorated crew in US Naval history.
Thanks for posting this. My father was a tail gunner and also piloted the SBD in the Pacific.
1947? Sakai did not 'eject'; he nursed his plane home.
Saburo never bailed out ... he lost one eye and had been shot in the head ... but he landed his plane
Did he die from his injuries?
@@ethansgamingchannel7077 lived on to write a book.
@@markgalura2891 oh, Thanks
The Dauntless and Vindicator don’t get the love they deserve.
The Vindicator was garbage in the opinions of many USN aviators. The Dauntless, however, was highly regarded.
The Vindicator didn't deserve much love. Other than its place in the record books for being the first monoplane carrier aircraft, it was slow, had poor range, and carried a small bomb load. As an indication of how pilots felt about it, the Royal Navy withdrew theirs in November, 1941 after six months in frontline service and replaced then with the biplane Fairy Swordfish.
The Vindilaters was junk compared too the SBD
Who says?
@@michaeldenesyk3195 - the USN
They were Very effective and Feared by the Japanese for being Very effective weapon by their Navy, and was one small reason we Won the War.
We won when the Tone's scout plane's radio broke in the midway battle. We got lucky because they actually found us first. I'm planning on doing a series of "Great battles and Blunders" on my channel. Working on part one of midway now. However, I'm thinking of doing the coral sea first. That's the first major engagement of the Pacific war and sets up midway perfectly.
Heinemann also designed the A4 Skyhawk. It is interesting both were great attack planes that followed the same theme; light and more capable than one would think.
And the Skywarrior. Heineman was a freaking GENIUS.
@@johngregory4801 he was the Kelly Johnson of Douglas
@@plantfeeder6677 Yep! IIRC, he was also the man behind the DC-2.
Thank you for that insight. I never would’ve made that connection.
I read Sakai's book many years ago. The aircraft which he dived on, mistaking them for F4Fs, were not SBDs but Grumman TBF Avengers, which were defended by .50-caliber machine guns mounted in power-driven turrets. Also, Sakai did not "eject from his cockpit". They didn't have ejection seats in those days. Although he was severely wounded, he managed to fly his badly-damaged plane back to Rabaul. The fact is that the SBD was really obsolete by 1942, and was only still in Navy service because neither of the aircraft slated to replace it, the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver and the Brewster SB2A Buccaneer, were not yet available. The Army Air Force also used the Dauntless, which it called the "A-24". However, the Army considered them vulnerable and not very effective, and replaced them in operational service with another Douglas product, the A-20 Havoc.
They were sbds
I am always disappointed when a program that proports to be historical has so many simple mistakes. Just for your information, when you have footage of a larger bulky aircraft with a gun turret at the back of the cockpit.....it is not an SBD.
Avenger??
Also, for the record, The SBD = Scout Bomber Douglas
TBM or TBF Avenger.
"After 1942 the Dauntless were replaced by the Helldiver"? No, replacement began only in 1944
The SBD served all thru the War. It also Sank more ship tonnage than any other airplane, Ever!
@@ericbrammer2245 Exactly! It was never completely replaced by the Helldiver and was much more appreciated by its pilots. Not so much by the Japanese...
1947.... This guy has such an authoritarian voice.. I decided to revise my knowledge of history.
He sounds too much like Ben Shapiro, you know the type, talk fast because it makes someone sound smart
Lots of mistakes, misconceptions, myths and wrong facts for a "documentary".
Hate to be "that guy" but the Americans like there history with a generous dose of propaganda.
Welcome to Dark Skies. They get a ton of shit wrong.
@@kentlindal5422 No, this channel is just garbage.
Please site examples.
@@Cholin3947 the Zero pilot that "ejected" but in reality flew back to base for a double whammy and the tail gun being "an M2 .30 calibre" for starters.
Finally, someone is giving the SBD its due.
I have a signed copy of Saburu Sakai’s book... signed by Saburu himself.
Videos like this really help you to better appreciate the more obscure planes of WWII that didn’t just help, but MADE us win the war.
My dad was a Marine corp aviation mechanic at Guadalcanal and worked on the dive bombers in WW2
Is the Marine corp similar to the Marine Corps?
He ejected? The zero had ejector seats!
Don't take it literally. The act of leaving the aircraft during an emergency itself - is called ejecting.
@@ParaglidingManiac not bailing out?
@@ParaglidingManiac No, it was never called "ejecting". That concept was in the future. It was called "bailing out". He tends to make small errors like this in most of his many videos.
@@sarjim4381 Yep, too much emphasis on 'moody, overly dramatic delivery', and not enough on factual accuracy. Style over substance ...
@@DraftySatyr I wish he's reduce his output some and spend the time doing some more research so these errors will stop creeping into his videos. I don't believe he ever reads the comments anyway. Just get us here with a click bate thumbnail and title so he gets his AdSense money.
1947........ But anyway. Could you cover the SR71 Blackbird?
Using this guys math, it won't be invented until 1861 or so.
Invented in 1947 also!...lol...
He would call it "SR-17"
Sure... Sr-71 was designed in 1902
Forget about it. He will say next that "russia made the sr-71 to protect against the US" or some crap like that.
This is riddled with errors as to be laughable.
All of these videos are. They are like one big click bait channel. It's scary that they claim to be a history channel! Sad.
Far from shore, a pacific war
Bombs are falling from the skies
It's a bomb run day, it's the naval way
A blood red sun is on the rise
Far from shore, a pacific war
Bombs are falling from the skies
It's a bomb run day, it's the naval way
A blood red sun is on the rise
I had to
Bruh
If there was anything I could find as enjoyable as this channel, I do it. Tried, but, couldn't find anything.
Ok glad I’m not the only one here that caught that. 🤨
A close friend of my grandfather’s and my family was terminally ill when he found out I was joining the Navy. He gave me a model of a Dauntless that used to sit on his desk, cause he worked on them during the war. I still get a little misty eyed thinking about him and now the Dauntless is one of my favorite aircraft of the war.
I always think of Lt. Commander Richard Best at the Battle of Midway when it comes to the SBD.
Dusty Kleiss got three hits during Midway in a Dauntless.
If you haven't already, read "Incredible Victory" by Walter Lord. Incredible book.
I think you got the machine guns mixed up when talking about the m2 and the 1919.
Yeah, pretty the Ma Deuce is the .50 cal
He should have said .30 cal AN/M2, not just M2. That’s why it is confusing.
In the hands of good pilots, the SBD did just fine. Midway proved that the SBD their merit.
Wow...1947?
My grandfather was an SBD Dauntless pilot assigned to USS Hornet (CV-8). It's an awesome aircraft and love to see videos spotlighting it. I'm a bit disappointed in the inaccuracies tho and would have liked to see more about the plane's performance in Midway.
August 1947? WWII ended just under 2 years before then!
My dad trained in it before moving on to the Helldiver as a radioman/gunner. While on a training flight, another Dauntless came down from above and sliced his propeller into my dad's canopy, between him and the pilot. Neither were hurt but they had to make an emergency landing.
There really was (says Wikipedia) an M2 variant of the .30 cal M1919, used on aircraft early in WWII.
However: Pylon, not piling.
Nice! Thanks, I was curious if I heard that right, or if narrator misspoke, regarding the "M2 .30 cal"... but awesome, learned something new, thanks!
@@fireteammichael1777 He doesn’t misspeak. He gets things wrong on purpose to pump up the comment section, so RUclips’s algorithm hypes his videos more.
In my opinion, the SBD is one of the greatest and most beautiful aircraft in history. The right plane, at the right time.
Really makes me want to play battlestations: pacific
Wow a Battlestations fan out there
Same here or war thunder
@@Coronet_shop We need a BSP sequel. Now is a great time since so many game and movie franchises are seeing reboots/remasters.
I was impressed by the major film that
Hollywood produced: "Midway". And the battle got considerable attention.
Gunners weren't co-pilots.
Your voice is perfect for narrating documentaries. and it even has the slightly dark almost menacing tone which gives the documents a little edge to it almost like your talking about some conspiracy or somthing.
You've got to be kidding. He sucks.
Whoever "researched" this story needs a remedial history course. Holy crap.
@@arlingtonhynes every video I see by whoever makes these are riddled with significant errors, or flat out fabrication.
My dad flew as a gunner on scout missions from the USS ENTERPRISE in 1942.
Another nickname was 'Speedy', an obvious play on SBD and a joke about its speed.
Even though it was considered obscolescent at the start of the war (the SB2C was supposed to replace it in '41), the Dauntless became the Navy's premier ship-killing aircraft.
Unfortunate the Army Air Corp didn't adopt dive bombing and the idea of tactical air support.
Yes they did, the A-36 Apache was used as a dive bomber in the Italian campaign.
A-36 better known as p-51a renamed
Yay they did the greatest plane in the world!
Thank you! You really made my day!
Sabura sakai did not bail out he was wounded badly and his plane was damaged. He was barely able to fly it back .
Saw his Saburo Sakai's damaged goggles on display at the Admiral Nimitz Pacific War Museum in Fredricksburg, Texas. Great place. Thanks for the video.......a few details are incorrect.
Ruggedness of the SBD Dauntless? Should've gone with Swede Vejtasa's account with the SBD. Was involved with a dogfight against 3x IJN Zeros, shot down two, collided with the third.
I believe the collision was intentional when Swede ran out of ammo for his two forward-firing .50cal machine guns. The hit was wing to wing. The lightweight zero’s wing was sheared off. The “rugged” Dauntless held together.
The Dauntless SBD is one of my favorite aircraft of WWII. Love that plane!
My late father engineered the tail hook on that plane.
Nice mine helped design the a 10
@@tommygallagher5747 Sweet. I will always do my best to fight the good fight argue to keep the A-10 in service.
I recall reading in Hugh Ambrose's "The Pacific" that the Dauntless' replacement, the Curtis Helldiver, was not well-liked: its folding wings would not lock properly properly and its bomb releases would often jam, forcing pilots to land with bombs still loaded.
You realize when you make errors in a documentary it calls into question all your documentaries. The last thing I want to do when watching a video is fact check the damn thing.
Pretty sure same principle applies in court. Soon as any part of witness
testimony deemed inaccurate entire testimony shot to hail.
Didn't Truman declare Aug.7, 1947 the day that will live in Obscurity?
I read Saburo Sakai's book "Samurai" when I was a kid in the 1960's, read it several times and I still have it. It's still available on Amazon, you can even download it to your Kindle. Really an excellent read about his 60+ victories through the entire war, even after he lost an eye.
When you forget the enemy plane has a backseat,
Ocean kamikaze
What’s funny, is in war thunder, I have the SBD-3 dauntless and I’ve killed more planes in the dauntless than any other plane that I have. I find that quite interesting
SBD was very underrated and even modern movies make stupid comments about them. Midway movie comes to mind, when the Japanese commander makes the "They have horrible planes" comment, fact was the SBD was slower but easily out turned the Zero and with the added tail gunner made them very effective at anti fighter defense if needed. The misnomer that the SBD was a bad plane came from how easily they were shot down in a dive once the brakes were activated which was their only real weakness especially during AA ship fire. Their top speed was slower but they were also armored unlike the Zero so not only could take hits but could deliver machine gun fire from the rear making them extremely difficult nuts to crack.
The SBD held the line for America that first year in the Pacific. After 1942, the F4U Corsair would start hammering the Japanese air wings thanks to men such as Greg ' Pappy ' Boyington.
Sakai came in below what he thought were wildcats. They were avengers torpedo bombers (not SBDs)- with a belly gun in addition to a tail gunner. It was a new type he had not seen before.
And says "ejection" again in the text. Every time, ww2 aircraft are discussed, the narrator says "ejected" for someone bailing out.
Please stop, I know you guys know this by now and it's not funny anymore..
Chill bro
It’s not too much to ask for them to say “bailed out”.
the sportscars get all the glory but the trucks carried the load. Slow but Deadly, quite a truck!!!
The factual errors have reached a new low/high. It's fun to watch these videos to see how much the dark sky team gets wrong.
The accuracy of this video is along the lines of, "Listen to the last sounds of WWI while I yammer incessantly."
There are so many grammatical inaccuracies in his monologue too, it makes me wonder if this an actual persons voice or a computer. " A thirteen fifty horsepower engine" he said "3x" when the situation was clearly 3 power. It's weird and hard to communicate through text.
Good video visually, but I'm in the comments checking all the shit he cought for saying 1947 lol
I give him hell also good Vedic time and aircraft wrong.
These videos keep getting better and better
The war was over by 1945, pal. Check your dates.
He misread the script, calm down.
Bullshit. If he's presenting historical fact, he needs to be accurate.
Hes right though. He said 1942nd not 1947.
Great video! Quick constructive criticism (if you’d let me) can you include metrics in some of the measurements? Such as speed and altitude? Thanks
Wrong again. The M2 .50 cal is an upsized version of the M1919 30 cal. Again, great video but ignorant dialog.
I'm no documentary expert. But doesn't ignorant dialog doom any video to being a terribly documentary and therefor a worthless video. You are correct he did not show video of German and U.S. dog fights or the 1964-65 New York World's Fair so for that he gets a gold star. But the pile of errors delivered in the audio disqualify this video from being anything but garbage. It should be pulled down and redone. If I represented Magellan TV I would insist on this video being removed or I'd insist on having any mention of Magellan TV removed from this abortion.
Best dive bomber of the war. Hero of Midway!
Who researches and writes this stuff? There was no co-pilot. Just a pilot and rear gunner.
Where did he say it did 7:34 he specifically says 2 man aircraft with pilot and gunner
I'm pretty sure there isn't a dedicated researcher. This seems to be more of just a "copy and paste from Wikipedia"-type gig.
@@roterex9115 In the earlier portion when you describing the surprise of the Japanese pilot when he realized that he was attacking the bombers instead of fighters. Someone (you?) stated that there was a co-pilot. Later on, yes, you did correctly state pilot and gunner. I paused the vid at the first point to make my comment.
@@Raenman66 wait why do you think i have anything to do with what was said in the video? I'm just watching it. Also while yes he did say copilot context suggested he meant gunner just like he talked about the Japanese pilot ejecting rather than bailing out (i know he flew home in actual history). The way it was said suggested to me he was just using copilot to broadly to refer to the second man in the aircraft rather than specifically a second man in control.
@@roterex9115 Sorry, by the way that you responded, I assumed that you were the producer of the content. No, when the term "co-pilot" is used, it is a specific term not general. "Crew member" would have allowed the viewer to assume that the gunner was meant because of the context. A co-pilot is another pilot and one can't do that while facing rearward. It may sound picky but for folks who know aviation or are pilots themselves, and are fans of WWII naval aviation history, these points are important. Overlooking them just drives us away to seek content elsewhere.
One of the best ones yet!! Thank you for aiding me on my quest to stomp out the case of the Mondays by creating these amazing videos.
If youre reading the comments right now, you still havent finished the video. 3rd btw
My father flew an SBD at Midway, Battle of Santa Cruz, Battle of the Philippine Sea and attacks against Truk Lagoon. He flew off the Hornet (CV-8) and then the Lexington (CV-16) after the Hornet was sunk at Santa Cruz. He was awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Star, 2 Air Metals, and 2 Distinguished Flying Crosses. He preferred the SBD over the SB2C because he felt that it had saved his life many times in battle. He did refer to the SBD as "Slow But Deadly" but also referred to the SB2C as a "Son of a Bitch 2nd Class".
The Dauntless was NOT replaced by the Hell Cat. Two different categories of planes; The Dauntless was never considered a fighter. I like this video series but narrative is often wrong or misleading.
Yeah, the Dauntless was replaced by the Helldiver.
The quality of narration ❤️
...is neutralized by bad research
Poorly edited and fact checking. Worst episode yet.
That was a wonderful opening narrative dude, masterpiece!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You've got to be careful with the facts. This wasn't 1947, but 1942. Seems like you aren't doing any of the research. Pity.
Great plane for the Pacific campaign , would have been instantly obsolete over Europe. Gotta say it's toughness was it's greatest strength , the ability to return pilots alive can't be overlooked.
True. However the same could be said about all dive bombers operating in Europe
Documentaries are supposed to "document" history...not butcher history.
Also... he could not have "ejected" from his Zero...there wasn't an ejector seat in the Zero.
The definition of eject is to force or throw something out.
Thats why you eject a DVD or CD, an Ejection seat just automates what pilots had already been doing, which was ejecting from the aircraft.
@@toml1446 That pilot "bailed out" of his aircraft. He did not "eject"; Mitsubishi Zeroes were not equipped with ejector seats.
@@rebelwithacause2330 as per my previous statement, you do not need an ejection seat to eject from an aircraft.
Stop being pedantic about things you know nothing about.
Brilliant documentary cool narrating thanks love your work whats the backing soundtrack
He obviously made an error, i’m pretty sure he knows the war was over by then. now people can stop with their comments 1947 Comments.