AEROspeciál 10 - Stíhačky Curtiss P-40E pro Jávu a potopení USS Langley 1. část – Šnajdr Miroslav (2021)

By the end of February 1942, the Dutch East Indies, facing the peak assault of Japanese imperial warriors, was on the brink of definitive defeat. The Dutch had built their colonial empire on the islands, including the Greater Sunda Islands (Sumatra, Java, part of Borneo, Celebes), the Lesser Sunda Islands (Timor, Sumba, Flores, Bali), the Moluccas, and the western part of New Guinea for more than three hundred years. And now, after just a few months of war, they were inexorably losing them. Fighting was taking place in the very central part of the Dutch East Indies, and the island of Java, always perceived by the colonizers as a kind of showcase, was directly threatened. Now the struggle was nearing a tragic finale, and the onset of the inevitable Japanese invasion of Java was only a matter of days. For the time being, the fighting was primarily in the aerial arena above the island. The victorious imperial naval and army air forces faced a number of allied air forces here. In addition to the Dutch colonial military aviation (ML-KNIL - Militaire Luchtvaart van het Koninklijk Nederlands Indisch Leger), there was also the Dutch naval aviation service (Marine Luchtvaart Dienst), the American Army Air Corps (US Army Air Corps), the aviation of the US Navy, and the British Royal Air Force (Royal Air Force)...