Mini Monograph Aviation News I found this interesting due to the fact the UK did not have a dedicated transport aircraft during the early WW2 period although they utilised American aircraft and UK civil aircraft as required. a snippet below Roy Chadwick of Avro who ,having finalised the production drawings of the Lancaster during the summer of 1941 and spent some time on a high altitude Type 684 stratosphere version turned his attention to a transport variant.It was conceived as an assault troop carrier which could be belly landed on enemy held beaches or in large fields to deliver 40 troops and their equipment,including light field guns,precisely where required .To provide an unobstructed interior and cause as little damage to the aircraft as possible during the landing he planned to mount a Lancaster wing and tail unit on top of a new square section fuselage which was to be reinforced on the underside.It was envisaged that any relatively undamaged aircraft would later be raised up on jacks ,the undercarriage lowered and the machine flown out of the battle area. This was discussed at the Air Ministry in October 1941 and was received with considerable interest,though more as a general transport than an assault craft.Thus when Avro delivered their proposals in brochure form on 9th January 1942 the aircraft was portrayed as a long range high speed freight and troop carrier dubbed the Empress Air Express with a secondary role as a bomber Required variants Troop Carrier Passenger Transport Paratroop Carrier Freight Carrier One aircraft to be capable of demonstrating as an air ambulance and the freighter was to be capable of carrying two and three inch mortars,20mm Hispano guns on two wheel trailers,motorcycles with sidecar,Blitz Buggy,Smith gun,3.7 inchhowitzer,six inch anti tank gun ora 40mm Boforsusing fuselage side blisters if necessary. The Blitz Buggy was determined as the most difficult item to load especially now that the roof loading hatch had been abandoned because of the structural problems associated with large cut-outs in this area.The underfloor parachute exits were also moved.
Britain didn’t have a dedicated transport aircraft throughout most of the inter war period because the heavy bombers it ordered had specifications that included a requirement that they could be used as troop transports. In some cases it is not clear to me which was the primary purpose! This continued all the way through to spec P.13/36 which led to the Avro Manchester and Handley Page Halifax. In that case the troop carrying requirement was not dropped until 30 Jan 1940. So you had aircraft such as Vickers Valencia - used as a transport as late as 1944 in the Middle East Bristol Bombay - used as a transport in the Middle East in WW2 Hindley Page Harrow - used as a transport in Britain in WW2. The list is not meant to be exhaustive in terms of aircraft or usage.
The official terminology was B/T - Bomber/Transport I think. Conceptually similar to the Italian SM.81 Pipistrello, SM.82 Marsupiale and the German Ju 52, all of which could handle dual roles easily. Bombay's and Valentias did bombing runs in 1940 and early 1941 in the Middle East against Italian forces, before more modern types (the Blenheim, ha!) became available, and the Bombays with No. 216 Squadron then continued to serve as a pure transport outfit, including para drops (SAS Op SQUATTER). The only dedicated transports I can make out in the Middle East at this time are DC.2 and 3, some coming from KLM I believe. The Royal Air Force was extraordinarily weak in dedicated transport capacity, compared to its adversaries, and this had negative operational impacts. All the best Andreas
