In 1939 the Royal Navy had been so determined to obtain dive bombers that it accepted the Blackburn Skua as a nominal fighter and tolerated the Roc offshoot to work around Air Ministry priorities. By 1943, British trials called the Helldiver's handling unacceptable and the Fleet Air Arm declined it. Britain had worked to make the difficult Corsair carrier-compatible when its combat value justified the effort. The contrast shows that specialized dive-bomber demand had collapsed: the service no longer saw enough mission value to spend engineering and training effort overcoming the SB2C's faults.
Notable Point · 58:54-1:01:24
How Fleet Air Arm priorities changed by 1943
Britain's earlier effort to secure dive bombers, followed by its refusal of the SB2C, shows how completely the operational priority had changed.