Today's offering is the latest in our running series, 'So Ugly Only a Mother Could Love It'. Fairness to the fore, the Blackburn Skua wasn't horribly ugly, but she wouldn't win any beauty contests, either.
As is so often the case, however, looks ain't everything. Designed and built as as a dive bomber, the Skua performed in that role fairly well, and numerous of the enemy's floating targets found themselves under its bombs. But, so far as your blogmeister can tell, the only major combatant to be sunk was the German cruiser Königsberg at Bergen, Norway on April 10th, 1940. It would seem that this was the Skua's crowning achievement.
Aside from dropping things that go boom, the type was also pressed into service as a fighter, most notably participating in the Norwegian campaign and the evacuation of Dunkirk. Skua crews would be credited with the destruction of no less than forty enemy aircraft before its withdrawal from frontline service in 1941, with the majority of those victories taking place during the Norwegian campaign, roughly split between air to air and strafing kills.
Unattractive the Skua may have been, but she did the job and played her part well.
Chronicle
Fade to Black...
