Bomber: Did you mean...?

The Supermarine Spitfire was a single-seater fighter plane, one of the most important aircraft of the Second World War (1939-45). Employed by the Royal Air Force in such crucial encounters as the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940, the...

Blitzkrieg ('lightning war') is a military tactic combining air and land forces deployed at speed against the enemy's weaker points while the rear lines are simultaneously disrupted by acts of sabotage and bombing. Speed, concentration, and...

A painting by W. Krogman showing the thousand-bomber raid on Cologne in 1942. On the night of 30 May a large force of RAF bombers attacked the German city. There were 469 civilian deaths, 5,000 were injured, and 41 aircraft were lost. It...

A Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress in flight at the Chino Airshow in California, 2014. The B-17 was the main US bomber in WWII in the European theatre of the conflict.

A colourised photograph of a Heinkel He 111 bomber plane, flown by the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War (1939-45). (Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-385-0587-07)

A Boeing B-29 Superfortress in flight. The B-29 long-distance bomber was in active service with the United States Air Force from April 1944. This B-29, called 'Doc', is one of only two B-29s still capable of flying.

A Junkers Ju 88 bomber photographed in North Africa during the Second World War (1939-45). (German Federal Archives)

A Junkers Ju 88 bomber and its crew. The aircraft was flown by the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War (1939-45). Photograph taken in June 1942. (German Federal Archives)

A photograph of a Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber releasing its bomb load during the Second World War (1939-45). (Imperial War Museums)

A diagram showing the interior components of a Junkers Ju 88 bomber, flown by the German Luftwaffe during the Second World War (1939-45). UK Air Ministry poster of 1941.