Free Republic

In the summer sky over rural Dorset, a swirling air battle rages. Supermarine Spitfires and Hawker Hurricanes vie for control of the air with Messerschmitt Me 109s, while Stuka dive-bombers plunge earthward, sirens screeching, to attack shipping off the coast. There’s a momentary miscalculation – and a Hurricane collides with a 109, slicing it in half. The stricken fighters spiral to the ground as above them RAF and Luftwaffe pilots, twisting and turning in a desperate mass dogfight, battle on regardless. This is the Battle of Britain, fought not in 1940 but in the present day – and at a...

BERLIN (AP) — German military divers are working to hoist the wreck of a Stuka dive bomber from the floor of the Baltic Sea, a rare example of the plane that once wreaked havoc over Europe as part of the Nazis' war machine. The single-engine monoplane carried sirens that produced a distinctive and terrifying screaming sound as it dove vertically to release its bombs or strafe targets with its machine guns. There are only two complete Stukas still around. The Stuka wreck, first discovered in the 1990s when a fisherman's nets snagged on it, lies about 10 kilometers (6 miles)...

ATHENS, Greece - Greek military divers Friday successfully raised the wreckage of a German World War II Stuka bomber from the sea off the eastern island of Rhodes, the air force said. The Junkers-87 dive-bomber was shot down in 1943 and will be conserved and displayed at the air force museum at an airport near Athens, air force spokesman Col. Ioannis Papageorgiou said. Papageorgiou said there was no trace of the two airmen's bodies. "The plane was raised a couple of hours ago, and I don't know yet whether there are any remains inside," he told The Associated Press. He...