PPS Have you come across this one Danny?
The following is from Peter Smith's website about his book about the Vengeance:
VENGEANCE! The Vultee Vengeance dive bomber.
H/B (1) 1986 (ISBN 0 0906393 65 3) H/B (2) USA Edition 1986 (ISBN 0 -87474 866 6)
The true story of the forgotten dive bomber of the RAF - the American-built Vultee Vengeance. This aircraft was built in the USA but served in the combat role with the RAF and Indian Air Force in Burma, with the French air force in North Africa and with the Royal Australian Air Force in the Pacific. With a feast of new facts and many rare and previously unpublished photos this is the complete history of this aircraft, unjustly derided by many "historians" who do not know the full facts, and subject to many myths which still persist today, the design, construction, and war history of this unique aircraft is given in full with a host of tables and appendices.
Seldom has the RAF possessed a more accurate bombing platform, yet seldom has that aircraft been so misrepresented in print and history. For the first time the men who designed the aircraft and who flew her in combat were interviewed and talked to the Author at length. The still-repeated fable that the Vengeance only operated with fighter cover is demolished totally, in fact they hardly ever had fighter cover at all due to the ranges at which they operated. Totally ignored by air historians of the Imphal and Kohima battles the Vengeance was in fact the most important and successful of the air weapons which broke the Japanese sieges in those battles. Their precision bombing of vital supply bridges was legendary, yet has been totally omitted in the air histories of the air campaigns in Burma. The author offers reasons why this policy was adopted at the time, as revealed in official documents, and questions why it still persists today when historians should know better.
"Peter Smith, the author, has done a handsome job in bringing the story of the Vengeance to the fore. This is first-rate reference material", stated the Aviation News, while Aircraft Illustrated added: "The exhaustive research of the author has paid dividends...he succeeds in portraying the true image of this much maligned aircraft."