TORPEDO PLANE

also called torpedo bomber aircraft designed to launch torpedoes. In about 1910 the navies of several countries began to experiment with torpedo launching from low-flying aircraft, usually seaplanes. The first effective use of this technique occurred on Aug. 12, 1915, when a British Short Type 184 seaplane sank a Turkish vessel in the Dardanelles. Other navies' torpedo planes also had some success during World War I. Between the world wars most navies decided to operate torpedo bombers from aircraft carriers. In World War II the torpedo plane scored spectacular successes, among them the British night raid on the Italian fleet anchored at Taranto in November 1940, the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and on the British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse in 1941, and the U.S. victory at Midway in 1942. Like dive bombers, torpedo planes proved vulnerable to fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft fire and often suffered heavy losses. With the postwar development of air-launched missiles, aerial torpedoes were largely relegated to antisubmarine use and were carried by long-range patrol aircraft generally larger than the earlier specialized torpedo bombers.