Those lovable "Second Bananas." These are the people and things that aren’t the stars, the ones who don’t get the attention, the ones who don’t get to bask in the limelight. These are the people and equipment that hold things together — often under very trying circumstances — until the Big Cheese comes along and saves the day. But they provide an invaluable service, stemming the tide until the superior permanent solution finally arrives on the scene. Without the Second Bananas, the "Stars" would never even get the chance to perform their well-known magic.
In World War II aviation, there were several notable planes whose actual aerial and combat performance was exposed as lacking, yet they found their niche and ended up delivering valuable service, often in roles for which they were not originally designed. These were the unheralded heroes that were often pressed into service simply because nothing else was available. They performed yeoman work and held back the tide until more capable types became available. When the airwar history was written after the war, the glamorous headliners got the publicity and accolades. And deservedly so.
For instance, no one questions the excellence and tremendous accomplishments of the North American P-51 Mustang. It can be convincingly argued that no Allied fighter aircraft played a bigger role in the defeat of Germany’s Luftwaffe than America’s long-ranging, high-performance thoroughbred Mustang, sweeping through the skies at high speed, tough, nimble and hard-hitting. Once the P-51 burst onto the scene in February 1944, German air opposition was decimated and became virtually non-existent within a few months. A huge factor in the success of the Allies’ June 1944 D-Day landings in Normandy was the essentially complete absence of German Air Force counter attacks on the invasion forces. That’s because between February-May 1944, rampaging U. S. Mustangs had almost completely cleared the skies of German warplanes and the Luftwaffe was effectively finished as a meaningful fighting force. Before supporters of the redoubtable P-47 Thunderbolt and rugged twin-engine P-38 Lightening howl in protest that they, too, played a central role in all theaters of the war, we will agree. The “Jug” and the “Fork-Tailed Devil,” as they were affectionately known, did not play "Second Banana" to anything in World War II.
The rise of the also-rans
However … there were some great also-rans during the war, from America and elsewhere. These were planes that were clearly outclassed by their adversaries or proved to be ill-suited for the tasks originally assigned to them. Yet they soldiered on, and in some cases, found surprising success in roles never envisioned for them at the time of their conception.
Let’s take an appreciative look at a few notable examples:
Grumman F4F Wildcat
This was America’s first carrier-borne monoplane fighter and was the standard Navy fighter upon America’s entry into World War II. The Wildcat was a portly mid-wing aircraft powered by a 1200 horsepower Pratt & Whitney radial engine, giving it a top speed of around 320 mph. The Wildcat’s principle opponent in the early stages of the war was the Japanese Mitsubishi Zero-Sen, popularly referred to simply as the Zero. The Zero could dance circles around the Wildcat, being infinitely more maneuverable, faster by more than 30 mph, and having a far superior rate of climb.
Yet the Wildcat more than held its own against the Zero. In fact, it had a stunningly positive “victory-to-loss” ratio against the Zero in head-to-head combat. This came about primarily by virtue of the Wildcat’s far sturdier structure, and features such as its rubber-coated self-sealing fuel tanks, which the Zero lacked. (When pierced by a bullet, instead of bursting into flame, self-sealing gas tanks would simply shrug off most minor hits.) Also important was the Wildcat’s protective pilot armor plating (the Zero had none) and the innovative combat tactics devised by well-trained American pilots that minimized the Zero’s inherent performance advantages.
One truly notable Wildcat mission occurred very early in the war, in February 1942, when Navy pilot Butch O’Hare’s Wildcat was the only plane available to stave off an entire squadron of Japanese bombers attacking his ship, the valuable aircraft carrier U.S.S. Lexington. Displaying unhesitating bravery and unerring marksmanship, O’Hare is credited with shooting down five Japanese bombers and chasing off the rest, all within a matter of a few minutes, actions that single-handedly saved his virtually irreplaceable ship and earned him the Medal of Honor. Next time you fly into Chicago’s busy O’Hare International Airport, you’ll know how it got its name.
Until the operational debut of the truly excellent, larger, more powerful Grumman F6F Hellcat in late 1943, the Wildcat held the line, fighting heroically at Wake Island right after Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and contributing to critical American victories at Midway and Guadalcanal in 1942-43. Although far from a standout performer, the rugged, dependable, heavily armed Wildcat wracked up an impressive wartime record. As the noted aviation historian William Green* put it, “Not bad for a fighter which rarely outperformed those by which it was opposed.”
Bell P-39 Aircobra
America’s hasty entrance into World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941 found the country woefully unprepared in terms of competitive front-line single-engine fighter aircraft. While Germany, Great Britain, and Japan were flying their standout Messerschmitt Me-109, Supermarine Spitfire, and Mitsubishi Zero-Sen fighters respectively, the United States was lagging behind with such types as the Curtis P-40, the Brewster Buffalo, the Grumman F4F Wildcat, and the Bell P-39 Aircobra.
The P-39 is a particularly interesting study. It was an unusual mid-engine design (its engine was mounted midway down the fuselage, not in the nose as in conventional designs, in order to achieve a more balanced front-to-rear weight distribution). It also had a very heavy armament for its day: a 37mm cannon was carried in the nose, instead of the more-common light caliber machine guns.
Unfortunately, its Allison engine lacked the modifications that would have provided adequate performance at the higher altitudes where much air combat took place, leading one American military analyst to quip that the Aircobra was “practically useless over 17,000 feet [medium altitude].”** Therefore, in spite of its being built in large numbers (nearly 10,000 were manufactured during the war, more than all but about a dozen or so of all other types from any wartime country, a testament to America’s astonishing industrial capacity in World War II), the Aircobra’s wartime record with the United States was singularly undistinguished.
However, the plane found its calling in the hands of the Russian Air Force. Supplied to the Russians by the U.S. in huge numbers (almost half of the entire Aircobra production was given to Russia to aid in its fight against Germany), the Aircobra’s attributes of good performance at low-to-medium altitudes, ruggedness and ability to absorb considerable battle damage and survive to fight another day, coupled with its heavy firepower, made it ideal for the airwar conditions on the Eastern front. Unlike in Western Europe, where the air battles between high-flying Allied strategic bombers and their escorts fighting German interceptors took place well above 20,000 feet, in the East, it was mostly a close-support tactical fight, ranging from 15,000 feet right down to ground level. Here, the Aircobra was in its element and it excelled in every aspect of its deployment, both as a ground-attack “tank busting” aircraft and countering German aircraft in air-to-air combat on more than equal terms. The airplane that proved to be such a disappointment to the U.S. Army Air Force turned out to be a key weapon in Russia’s defeat of Nazi Germany.
Messerschmitt Me-110
This aircraft is the classic example of a plane that was an utter failure in its original ill-conceived role finding tremendous success performing a variety of tasks that were never envisioned at the time of its debut. With a risibly unrealistic outlook, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göering, head of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) envisioned a fleet of fast, heavily armed twin-engine fighter aircraft being Zerstörers (“Destroyers”), sweeping the air clear of all enemy aircraft, paving the way for German bombers to attack their targets unhindered by enemy opposition.
When Germany began its air operations against Great Britain in the summer of 1940, following the fall of France a few months prior, the Me-110 went into action against truly first-rate opposition for the first time in the war. But much to the Luftwaffe’s shock and disappointment, they discovered the hard way that the large, heavy, slow-turning Me-110 was easy prey for England’s nimble single-engine Hurricane and Spitfire fighter planes. The Zerstörer concept was a total failure. Me-110 losses were catastrophic and the British shot down several hundred 110’s during the course of the campaign.
However, things in life have a way of taking unexpected turns, don’t they? When the British mounted their night bombing offensive in 1942, Germany found itself in desperate need of an effective nighttime interceptor, a plane with heavy firepower, high speed and stable flying characteristics. The Me-110 fulfilled these requirements perfectly. Plus, it was large enough to easily handle the addition of on-board airborne radar and a 3rd crewmember (the radar operator). Operating as a defensive night fighter—without any British single-seat fighter opposition—the Me-110 was devastatingly effective, shooting down scores of incoming British bombers and rendering their undertaking so dangerous and costly as to put the entire British strategy of massed night bombing in jeopardy. Though an abject failure and disappointment in its original role of daylight Zerstörer, in its second act, the Me-110 became one of World War II’s highest-scoring and most deadly night fighters.
Short Stirling
The concept of the long-range four-engine bomber was a perfect example of far-sighted, well-reasoned thinking on the part of both the United States and Great Britain. Correctly surmising in the 1930s that another European-based war with Germany was imminent and unavoidable, both countries put a priority on developing aircraft with the range and bomb-carrying capacity to strike critical, war-sustaining industrial targets deep inside Germany, hundreds of miles behind the front lines of the fighting.
Towards this end, the Short Stirling was the first aircraft developed by the British for this role. A large, long-range aircraft powered by four radial engines and boasting formidable defensive armament in the form of three power-operated machine gun turrets, the Stirling looked to be an impressive aviation achievement indeed. Yet it was hampered by design constraints that in retrospect seem almost too ludicrous to have been real. Perhaps the most fantastical restriction was the requirement that the Stirling’s wingspan be short enough to fit within the standard British hanger door opening of the day, which was 100 feet. In meeting this need, the plane’s resulting short wingspan (99 feet) severely limited its ability to reach high altitudes and its service ceiling (the maximum height at which an aircraft can effectively fly and fight) was well under twenty thousand feet. By comparison, American B-17 and B-24 bombers routinely operated at heights of 25,000-30,000 feet. This meant, for example, that when attacking targets in northern Italy, it was necessary for the Stirling “to fly through the Alps rather than over them!”t
An easy remedy was at hand, but the engineers at Short simply didn’t think of it: Shipborne aircraft of the day utilized folding wings, in order to make the most efficient use of the limited storage space on an aircraft carrier. The technology of folding wings was already in practice. It was neither costly nor complicated to equip an aircraft with folding wings. Had the Stirling simply had the requisite wingspan of say, 115 feet, but with foldable wingtips so that the storage span was 99 feet, then all of its wingspan/storage issues would have been solved in one fell swoop. The Stirling had a few other design problems as well — easily correctable — but nothing as show-stopping as the too-short wingspan issue. But Short never thought of foldable wingtips and the corrective modifications were never implemented.
Therefore, the Stirling was phased out of front-line bombing service in 1943 (two full years before the European war’s end in May 1945) in favor of the superior British Handley-Page Halifax and Avro Lancaster four-engine bombers, both of which went on to have distinguished combat careers. The Stirling is hardly remembered today at all in comparison to its more famous siblings. But for an easily fixable design flaw, it could have been a major player in the annals of World War II aviation.
History wouldn't be same without 'Second Bananas'
Here, then, was a brief look at a few of aviation history’s most notable Second Bananas. These are planes that lacked the championship performance of their more famous contemporaries, or failed at their original mission (only to find redemption later in another role), or simply missed out on fame and success because of a fixable, avoidable design flaw.
History simply wouldn’t be the same without its Second Bananas: Pitcher Don Drysdale of the 1960’s LA Dodgers baseball team playing second fiddle to the great Sandy Koufax; the almost innocent, straight-talking boxer Joe Frazier being the butt of the silver-tongued, ultra-flamboyant Muhammad Ali; there was Robin to his Batman, and perhaps the ultimate example of all time — Commander Spock, who was Second Banana to the arrogant, swashbuckling Captain Kirk of Star Trek fame. In every case — whether in history, sports, entertainment, wherever — the star would never have been who or what they were, would never have achieved their well-deserved notoriety and place in history without the earnest efforts and presence on the scene of that perfectly placed Second Banana. A tip of the hat to them.
*Famous Fighters of the Second World War, Second Series by William Green, P. 48 © 1962, Double Day and Company
**Fighters Volume Four by William Green, P. 4 © 1964, Double Day and Company
t Famous Bombers of the Second World War, Second Series by William Green, P. 43 © 1960, Double Day and Company
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