Eighty-five years ago today, the Douglas SBD Dauntless made its first flight-ushering in an era of unmatched dive-bombing precision in naval aviation. Nicknamed "Slow But Deadly," the Dauntless ...

The Douglas SBD Dauntless saw her last significant action as a carrier-borne plane during the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, after which it was replaced by the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver.

The first Dauntless, a modified XBT-2, was test-flown on April 22, 1938. Just a year later, Douglas received an order for fifty-seven SDB-1 and then eighty-seven SBD-2 aircraft.

Dr. Arthur Lendo has donated more than $100,000 to restore the SBD-2P “Dauntless” Dive Bomber in his uncle’s honor.

The first production model, the SBD-1, was found unsuitable for shipboard operations because of limited range and the Marine Corps employed them in land-based operations.

The U.S. Navy Douglas “Dauntless” Dive Bomber SBD-2P was pulled from Lake Michigan in 2009 after it was lost decades earlier during the Great Lakes secret training missions.