Picture: 'Gladiator Over China' by MilgeekFirst in my new picture series - the Gloster Gladiator typifies the ability of certain classic fighters to box far above their weight class. Pitted against some of the most advanced warplanes of their day these tenacious aircraft and their pilots beat the odds and went down in history as the Flying Underdogs...

By the beginning of World War II the Gloster Gladiator biplane fighter was already past it's sell by date, monoplane fighters being the norm. Never the less this diminutive fighter managed to show that there was still some life in the old dog as it made valuable contributions to the fight against the axis powers in both the Mediterranean Theatre and Finland.

But the Gladiator's story actually starts a good few years before the Second World War in far off China in an air war that is often overlooked by Western Historians but one which - in the East - is sometimes referred to as the real start of WWII, the Sino-Japanese War.

Here a mottley hotch-potch of Western fighter types were utilised by the Nationalist Chinese Air Force as they tried to stem the Imperial Japanese incursion. From 1937 until the beginning or World War 2 proper brave Chinese pilots fought to repel the Japanese in models of plane ranging from the Curtiss Hawk II & III, Polikarpov I-15/16, Boeing 281 and, of course, the Gloster Gladiator. In fact, until the advent of the AVG* and their Curtis P40s, it was the Gladiator that was the most successful plane used by some of the highest scoring Chinese aces.

Gloster Gladiator in Finnish Air Force colours. Source: Blackwoods Finish Air Force pagesThe Gladiator achieved it's aerial tally in China despite being pitted against the more modern looking Misubishi A5M 'Claude' monoplane (the immediate predecessor to the legendary Zero). But this tenacity was to be later replicated once the Second World War had started in earnest as the Gladiator fought off Soviet and Italian aircraft, and it was only with the advent of much more modern German types - like the Me109 - that the Gladiator was forced into retirement.

Despite the obsolescence of this lovely little biplane it managed not only to hold it's own against newer fighters but can be said to be the very pinnacle of biplane development at the very dawn of the monoplane, piston engined fighter age. In the hands of a profiecient and determined pilots the Gloster Gladiator sung a worthy swan song to the biplane era and many of it's pilots went on to become very highly decorated aces in the monplane age.

*AVG: American Volunteer Group (the 'Flying Tigers') was active in China agaist the Japanese from 1940. However, a little known fact is that there was a very sizable Soviet Volunteer Group which aided the Nationalist Chinese long before the Americans arrived on the scene!

Among the Gladiators advesaries (and victims) were:-

> Japanese Mitsubishi G3M medium bomber
> Japanese A4N Nakajima biplane fighter
> Japanese A5M Mitsubishi 'Claude' fighter
> Soviet Polikarpov I-152 biplane fighter
> Soviet Polikarpov I-5 biplane fighter
> Italian Fiat CR.32 biplane fighter
> Italian Fiat CR.42 biplane fighter
> Italian Cant Z.1007 Alcione medium bomber
> Iraqi Gloster Gladiator (sole Gladiator on Gladiator kill!)
> German JU87 'Stuka'
> German Me110 heavy fighter

Related links:-

> Wikipedia entry for the Gloster Gladiator
> Håkans excellent Sino-Japanese Air War 1937-45 web pages
> Blackwoods Finnish Air Force pages - Gloster Gladiator
> Amazon.co.uk - 'Gloster Gladiator Aces' (Osprey Books)

> Wikipedia entry for the Soviet Volunteer Group in China
> Wikipedia entry for the American Volunteer Group in China