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From: jfb@usgp1.ih.att.com (Joe Baugher)
Subject: Bomber Series--Martin B-26 Marauder (18 of 18)
Message-ID: <D7GoCE.DuF@ssbunews.ih.att.com>
Summary: Service of B-26 Marauder with USAAF
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Date: Sun, 23 Apr 1995 00:07:26 GMT
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On February 22, 1941, the first four Martin B-26s were accepted by 
the USAAF.  First to use the B-26 was the 22nd Bombardment Group 
(Medium) based at Langley Field, Virginia.  The new B-26s replaced the 
Douglas B-18s that were formerly operated by this unit.  The fact that 
the B-26 weighed two and one half times as much as the B-18 and had a 
landing speed that was 50 percent higher caused lots of problems for 
the 22nd BG.  A series of failures of the front wheel strut resulted 
in a delay in bringing the B-26 to full operational status.  Although 
the forward landing gear strut was strengthened in an attempt to 
correct this problem, the true cause was ultimately traced to an 
improper weight distribution.  The manufacturer had been forced to 
deliver the first few B-26s to the Army without guns, and had trimmed 
these planes for delivery flights by carefully loading service tools 
and spare parts as ballast.  When the Army took the planes over, they 
removed the ballast without replacement and the resultant forward 
movement of the center of gravity had multiplied the loads on the 
nosewheel, causing the accidents.  The installation of the guns 
corrected the problem.  

Pacific Theatre:  

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the 
22nd Bombardment Group was transferred to California to fly coastal 
patrols in case the Japanese fleet attempted to raid the American 
mainland.  In February of 1942, the 22nd BG was ordered to Australia.  
The 22nd Bombardment Group's Marauders were disassembled and loaded 
aboard ships and left San Francisco on February 6, 1942 bound for 
Hawaii.  The B-26s were unloaded and reassembled at Hickam Field and 
then flew sea patrol duty until they were fitted with bomb bay ferry 
tanks and flown to Brisbane where they were based at Amberley Field 
under the command of Lt. Gen. George H. Brett.  By March 22, the 
first flight of B-26s had arrived in Australia.  

Subsequently, the 22nd BG moved northward to bases at Townsville.  The 
B-26 first entered combat on April 5, 1942, when the 22nd Group took 
off from from Townsville, refuelled at Port Moresby, and then attacked 
Japanese facilities at Rabaul.  Each B-26 had a 250-gallon bomb bay 
and carried a 2000- pound bombload.  

On these missions, the B-26s took off from the mainland loaded with 
bombs, landed at Port Moresby to be refueled, then taking off again 
for targets in New Guinea.  Targets were attacked with small 
formations of from two to six aircraft.  The aircraft generally 
carried four 500-pound or twenty 100-pound bombs, which they dropped 
from medium altitudes of 10,000 to 15,000 feet.  Generally, no fighter 
escort was available and the Marauders were on their own if they 
encountered enemy fighters.  There were two groups equipped with B-26s 
in this theatre, the 22nd and 38th, with two squadrons of the 38th 
Bombardment Group (69th and 70th) equipped with B-26s.  

In this series of attacks on Japanese-held facilities in the East 
Indies, the B-26s gained a reputation for speed and ruggedness against 
strong opposition from Japanese Zero fighters.  Attacks on Rabaul 
ended on May 24, after 80 sorties had flown.  

A series of unescorted raids were made on Japanese installations in 
the Lae area.  These raids were vigorously opposed by Zero fighters.  
In the 84 sorties flown against Lae between April 24 and July 4, 1942, 
three Marauders were lost.  

Elements of the 22nd Group which had been left behind in the US were 
used to activate the 21st Bombardment Group at Jackson Army Air Base 
in Mississippi.  The 21st would eventually be moved to MacDill Field, 
Florida to serve as a B-26 OTU.  

The Marauder could carry an 18-inch 2000-pound torpedo slung on an 
external rack underneath the fuselage.  On the ground, the torpedo 
only cleared the ground by about four inches when taxiing.  In June, 
the B-26A made its its debut as a torpedo bomber, being used against 
Japanese warships during the Battle of Midway.  Four Marauders were 
equipped with external torpedo racks underneath the keel and took off 
on June 4, 1942 in an attempt to attack Japanese carriers.  The 
torpedo runs began at 800 feet altitude, the B-26s then dropping down 
to only ten feet above the water under heavy attack from Japanese 
fighters.  Two of the Marauders were lost in this action, and the 
other two were heavily damaged.  No hits were made on the Japanese 
carriers.  The B-26 was much too large an aircraft for this type of 
attack.  

After numerous frontal attacks by enemy fighters, it was decided to 
fit Marauders with additional guns in the nose.  A 0.50-inch gun 
replaced the former 0.30-inch weapon and a pair of flexible 0.30-inch 
guns were installed on each side of the nose bubble.  However, these 
extra guns caused the bombardier to bump his head for lack of space 
and were eventually removed.  

After the Battle of Midway, it was concluded that additional 
forward-firing armament was needed.  In the field, several B-26s were 
fitted with an additional 0.50-inch machine gun mounted on each side 
of the fuselage on each side of the fuselage just aft of the nosewheel 
well to be fired by the pilot.  At first, no streamlined pod was 
fitted over the gun.  This extra armament was eventually introduced on 
the B-26B production line.  

As the Allies pushed northward in the South Pacific, temporary 
airfields had to be cut out of the jungle and these runways were 
generally fairly short.  The North American B-25 Mitchell had a 
shorter takeoff run than the B-26, and it began to take over the 
medium bomber duties in that theatre.  Although it was admitted that 
the B-26 could take greater punishment, was defensively superior, and 
could fly faster with a heavier bomb load, the B-25 had better
short-field characteristics, good sortie rate, and minimal maintenance 
requirements.  In addition, the B-25 was considerably easier to 
manufacture and had suffered from fewer developmental problems.  At 
this time, there were more B-25s available for South Pacific duty 
because it had been decided to send them to the Mediterranean but not 
to the European theatre.  Consequently, it was decided to adopt the 
B-25 as the standard medium bomber for the entire Pacific theatre, and 
to use the B-26 exclusively in the Mediterranean and European theatres.  

Three of the 22nd Bombardment Group's squadrons switched over to to 
the B-25 between January and October of 1943, leaving only the 19th 
Squadron with the Marauder.  Eventually, all medium bomber groups in the 
South Pacific were equipped with the B-25.  Some of the B-26 
crewmembers stayed with the B-25s when the changeovers took place, 
some were sent back stateside to aid in the instruction of new B-26 
crews, and some went to North Africa for another tour with B-26s.  A 
dwindling number of B-26s would remain in the Pacific for a few more 
months.  The last mission flown by B-26s in the South Pacific was on 
January 9, 1944.  

Alaska Theatre:  

The 28th Composite Group in the Alaskan Air Command of the 11th Air 
Force was formed in 1941 with one heavy bombardment squadron, two 
medium bombardment squadrons, and one fighter squadron.  The 11th 
Bombardment Squadron left for Elmendorf Field with 14 B-26s during 
January of 1942.  They carried out numerous raids against Japanese 
forces involved in the Aleutian campaign.  However, in early 1943, the 
Marauders were withdrawn from the Alaskan theatre, being replaced by 
B-25s.  

The "Widow-Maker" 

In preparation for large-scale introduction of the Marauder into 
combat, the USAAF had set up B-26 Transition Training Fields at 
MacDill Field, Tampa, Florida and at Barksdale Field, Shreveport, 
Louisiana.  Nine new USAAF medium bomber groups had been activated in 
1942 as Marauder-equipped units.  

Unfortunately, many of the pilots trying to master the Marauder at 
these fields had no previous twin-engined experience.  In 1942, a 
series of training accidents took place stateside which placed the 
future of the entire Marauder program in doubt.  Most of these 
accidents took place during takeoff or landing.  The increases in 
weight that had been gradually introduced on the B-26 production line 
had made the wing loading of the Marauder progressively higher and 
higher, resulting in higher stalling and landing speeds.  Veteran 
pilots in combat overseas had enough experience that they could handle 
these higher speeds, but new trainees at home had serious problems and 
there were numerous accidents, causing the Marauder to earn such such 
epithets as "The Flying Prostitute", "The Baltimore Whore", "The 
Flying Vagrant", or "The Wingless Wonder", these names being given 
because the B-26's small wing area appeared to give it no visible 
means of support.  Other derisive names being given to the B-26 were 
"The Widow Maker", "One-Way Ticket", "Martin Murderer", "The Flying 
Coffin", "The Coffin Without Handles", and the "B-Dash Crash".  In 
particular, there were so many takeoff accidents at MacDill Field 
during early 1942 that the phrase "One a Day Into Tampa Bay" came to 
be a commonplace lament.  

The USAAF was concerned about the high accident rate and seriously 
considered withdrawing the Marauder from production and service.  The 
US Senate's Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense 
Program (better known as the Truman Committee, after its chairman, 
Sen. Harry S Truman of Missouri), which had been charged with 
ferreting out corruption, waste, and mismanagement in the military 
procurement effort, also began looking into the Marauder's safety 
record.  By July, the Committee had heard so many Marauder horror 
stories that they recommended that B-26 production be stopped.  
However, combat crews in the South Pacific, who were more experienced, 
were not reporting any particular problems with the airplane, and they 
went to bat for the Marauder.  They exerted pressure, and the USAAF 
decided to continue with production of the Marauder.  

However, by September of 1942, the situation had gotten even worse and 
training accidents had become even more frequent.  By that time, the 
reputation of the Marauder had gotten so bad that civilian crews 
contracted to ferry USAAF aircraft to their destinations were often 
quitting their jobs rather than having to ferry a B-26.  The Air 
Safety Board of the USAAF was forced to initiate an investigation into 
the cause.  In October, the Truman Committee was again on the warpath 
and once again recommended that production of the B-26 be 
discontinued.  

USAAF commanding General Henry.  H.  Arnold directed that Brig.  
General James H.  Doolittle (fresh from his famous Tokyo raid) 
investigate the problem with the B-26 personally.  Doolittle had 
recently been given command of the B-26-equipped 4th Medium 
Bombardment Wing, which was scheduled to take part in the invasion of 
North Africa.  

Both General Doolittle and the Air Safety Board concluded that there 
was nothing intrinsically wrong with the B-26, and there was no reason 
why it should be discontinued.  They traced the problem to the 
inexperience of both aircrews and ground crews, and also to the 
overloading of the aircraft beyond the weight at which it could be 
safely flown on one engine only.  Almost immediately after the 
Marauder had entered service, it had been found necessary to add more 
and more equipment, armament, fuel, and armor, driving the gross 
weight steadily upwards.  By early 1942, the B-26 had risen in normal 
gross weight from its original 26,625 pounds to 31,527 pounds with no 
increase in power.  It had been found that many of the accidents had 
been caused by engine failures, which were in turn caused by a 
combination of poor maintenance by relatively green mechanics and a 
change from 100 octane fuel to 100 octane aromatic fuel, which damaged 
the diaphragm of the carburetors.  Many of the B-26 instructors were 
almost as green as the pilots they were trying to train, and did not 
know themselves how to fly the B-26 on one engine only, and so could 
not teach the technique to their students.  

General Doolittle sent his technical adviser, Captain Vincent W.  
"Squeak" Burnett, to make a tour of OTU bases to demonstrate how the 
B-26 could be flown safely.  These demonstrations included 
single-engine operations, slow-flying characteristics, and recoveries 
from unusual flight attitudes.  Capt Burnett made numerous low 
altitude flights with one engine out, even turning into a dead engine 
(which aircrews were warned never to do), proving that the Marauder 
could be safely flown if you knew what you were doing.  Martin also 
sent engineers out into the field to show crews how to avoid problems 
caused by overloading, by paying proper attention to the plane's 
center of gravity.  

The efforts of the Army and Martin to improve training soon began to 
pay off, and accidents at training fields began to fall off, and 
within a month had reached a fairly low level.  The Truman Committee 
finally relented, and stopped its demands for the cessation of 
Marauder production.  Nevertheless, the derogatory nicknames still 
persisted, and word had not gotten down to the grass roots level that 
the problems with the B-26 had been identified and corrected.  Student 
pilots still believed the popular legend that the B-26 was a 
deathtrap, and very few graduates requested assignment to a B-26 
group.  

Mediterranean theatre:  

The first Marauder group to cross the Atlantic was the 319th, which 
had moved to Shipdham in England in September of 1942.  It moved to 
Algeria in November.  It was soon joined by the 17th Group, which had 
converted to Marauders from Mitchells in September of 1942.  Beginning 
in November of 1942, the USAAF sent three Marauder-equipped groups 
(the 17th, the 319th, and the 320th Bombardment Groups) to North 
Africa, where they were assigned to the 12th Air Force.  The 319th 
Bomb Group was first to become operational, flying its first mission 
on December 30, 1942, a flight over Tunis.  The 320th Bombardment 
Group entered combat in April of 1943 with the 12th Air Force.  

In late December, General Doolittle had ordered the B-26 units under 
his command to operate at medium altitudes (around 10,000 feet) on all 
but sea sweeps against enemy shipping.  The 319th was equipped with 
D-8 bombsights, so the few missions it did fly at medium altitudes 
before being equipped with Norden bombsights were not very successful.  
The aircraft of the 17th Group left for Africa equipped with the 
Norden, and later on the 320th would also come over with one out every 
four of its planes being equipped with a Norden.  The D-8 was good 
enough for low-altitude work, but at medium and high altitudes the 
Norden was required.  Generally, only the leader of each flight 
carried the Norden, with the remainder dropping their bombs when the 
leader dropped 

USAAF Marauders were particularly effective during the latter stages 
of the Tunisian campaign, when their heavy armament, high speed, and 
long range enabled them to intercept Me 323 and Ju 52/3m transports 
far out over the Mediterranean, shooting them down in droves and 
cutting off attempts to evacuate the defeated German forces.  

As German fighter opposition declined, the Marauder crews in the 
Mediterranean began removing the four package guns.  Sometimes the 
entire installation was removed, while other removed only the guns, 
leaving the pod housings intact.  

In May of 1943, after the North African campaign was over, a 
comparison was made between B-25 and B-26 operational statistics.  
Even though there had been more B-26s in the theatre than B-25s, the 
figures were as follows:  


					B-25 		B-26 

	Total Sorties Flown 		2689 		1587 

	Losses 				65 		80 

	Percentage loss per sortie 	2.4 		5.00 

	Percentage aborts 		3.0 		12.0 

The B-26 did not look good in comparison to the B-25, and for a third 
time, serious thought was given to discontinuance of the Marauder.  
However, improved Marauder performance during the Italian campaign and 
in the ETO saved the plane.  As part of the Ninth Air Force, these 
Marauder-equipped groups followed the Allied forces from North Africa 
through Sicily to Italy, Sardinia, Corsica, and into the south of 
France.  

European Theatre:  

It was to be in the European theatre where the Marauder was to achieve 
its greatest success.  In the United Kingdom, the Marauder formed the 
basis of the medium bomber forces of the Eighth Air Force.  The first 
B-26s arrived in the United Kingdom in February of 1943.  They were to 
be used in low-level missions against German military targets on the 
Continent.  These B-26Bs were not equipped with the Norden bombsight, 
but carried instead a modified N-6 gunsight mounted in the cockpit for 
the copilot to use in releasing the bombs.  The first operational raid 
took place on On May 14, 1943.  Flying through heavy flak at altitudes 
of 100 to 300 feet, Marauders from the 322nd Bombardment Group dropped 
a group 500-pound delayed-fuse bombs on the Velsen generating station 
at Ijmuiden in the Netherlands.  All planes returned safely to base.  
However, the delayed fuse bombs which allowed Dutch workmen to escape 
also gave the Germans enough time to defuse or remove them.  It is 
probable that the 322nd only escaped the attention of Luftwaffe 
fighters because of a battle taking place elsewhere with 8th Air Force 
heavy bombers.  

On May 17, 1943, eleven Marauders returned at low level to attack 
German installations at Ijmuiden and Haarlem in the Netherlands.  This 
time the Luftwaffe was ready, and the raid was a disaster, with all 
but one aircraft (which had aborted due to an electrical failure) 
being shot down by flak and fighters.  

The disastrous raid at Ijmuiden proved that the B-26 was totally 
unsuited for low-level operations over Europe, where enemy flak was 
heavy and accurate and enemy fighters were numerous and particularly 
effective.  After the Ijmuiden raid, low-level operations by Marauders 
over Europe were discontinued, and for a fourth time thought was given 
to withdrawing the type from combat.  In the meantime, the B-26 
equipped units stood down to retrain for attacks against strategic 
targets from medium altitudes (10,000-14,000 feet) with heavy fighter
escort.  

In July of 1943, some consideration was given to adapting the B-26 as 
a escort fighter for the Flying Fortress heavy bombers of the 8th Air 
Force which were at that time experiencing heavy losses to German 
fighters.  This suggestion was immediately dropped, since the Marauder 
had an entirely different performance envelope from the Fortress and 
in addition had proven that it was itself unable to survive without 
fighter escort in hostile European skies.  

The B-26 did not return to action over Europe until July 17, 1943.  
This time, the B-26 was more successful in its new role of 
medium-altitude bombing, and proposals to withdraw the Marauder from 
combat over Europe were quietly shelved Marauders developed tight 
formation flying tactics to ensure a close pattern of bombs on the 
target and to protect themselves against fighter attacks.  Because of 
the tremendous concentration of defensive firepower that the B-26 
offered, the Luftwaffe was reluctant to press home attacks on Marauder 
formations.  However, in the European theatre fighter escort was 
absolutely essential to defend against determined German fighter 
attacks.  The German 88-mm antiaircraft guns were most accurate at the 
altitudes at which the Marauder normally operated, and it was 
determined that a straight and level flight for as little as 30 
seconds gave the German radar gun detectors sufficient time to track 
the formation and place shots right in its midst.  Consequently, 
evasive actions every 15 or 20 seconds was absolutely necessary to 
minimize flak losses.  However, once committed to the bomb run, there 
was no evasive action possible and runs of 25 seconds or longer were 
considered quite dangerous.  

Medium-altitude pinpoint bombing became routine with the Marauders of 
the 9th Air Force.  Prior to D-Day, typical targets were bridges, 
airfields, railroad marshaling yards, gun positions, ammunition and 
oil storage dumps, and V-1 flying bomb sites.  In November of 1943, 
all Eighth Air Force B-26 groups were transferred to the re-formed 
Ninth Air Force.  By May of 1944, the 9th Air Force had eight B-26 
groups.  

The groups which prepared the way for the invasion of Normandy were 
the 322nd, 3234d, 344th, 386th, 387th, 391st, 394th, and 397th 
Bombardment Groups.  The 335th and 336th Bombardment Groups were 
replacement training units based back in the States until they were 
disbanded in May of 1944.  

A few Marauders were converted for Pathfinder missions for bad weather 
actions.  These planes were equipped to work with the OBOE system, 
which consisted of a series of ground transmission stations which 
broadcasted narrow radio beams which directed the aircraft to their 
targets during those times when the weather was so bad that the ground 
could not be seen.  It was arranged that beams from two separate 
stations would intersect immediately over the target.  The receiver 
aboard the aircraft transmitted a tone to the pilot in the form of a 
Morse code E if he was to the left of course and a T when he was to 
the right.  A steady hum was heard when he was on course.  A separate 
panel on the pilot's instrument panel (which was duplicated at the 
bombardier's position) directed when the bombs should be dropped.  The 
system had a CEP of only 300 feet.  OBOE-equipped B-26s could be 
distinguished by by the presence of an antenna which consisted of a 
plexiglas tube sticking out of the belly just forward of the waist 
windows.  The OBOE system was mostly of British design and was of 
course highly classified.  When Pathfinder Marauders were parked on 
their airfields, there was always an armed guard posted, and there was 
a destruct mechanism installed to prevent the system from falling into 
enemy hands.  The system was still in its infancy during the war, and 
the slightest malfunction in any portion of the equipment would 
usually cause the entire mission to be scrubbed.  

Soon after V-E Day, some B-26 groups were demobilized, but others 
moved to Germany to serve with the occupation forces.  

The following Bombardment Groups flew the B-26 Marauder in the ETO:  

	322nd Bombardment Group:  May 14, 1943 to April 24, 1945 
	323rd Bombardment Group:  July 16, 1943 to April 25, 1945 
	344th Bombardment Group:  March 6, 1944 to April 25, 1945 
	386th Bombardment Group:  June 20, 1943 to May 3, 1945 
	387th Bombardment Group:  June 30, 1943 to April 19, 1945 
	391st Bombardment Group:  February 15, 1944 to May 3, 1945 
	394th Bombardment Group:  March 23, 1944 to April 20, 1945 
	397th Bombardment Group:  April 20, 1944 to April 20, 1945 

After the war in Europe was over, most of the Marauder-equipped units 
were quickly disbanded and their planes were scrapped.  In the late 
fall of 1945, all of some 500 Marauders operating in the ETO were 
ferried to a disposal site near Landsberg, Germany where they were all 
scrapped.  In the fall of 1945, a gigantic aircraft disposal operation 
began at Walnut Ridge, Arkansas and handled the disposal of nearly 
1000 surplus USAAF Marauders In the beginning, the Reconstruction 
Finance Corporation handled the disposal task, but this was later 
taken over by the General Services Administration.  The surplus 
aircraft were first offered for sale and many were bought by France, 
China, and South American countries for military or airline use.  The 
remainder were scrapped.  

Because of the massive scrapping effort immediately after the war, 
very few Marauders ended up in postwar service, and very few survive 
today.  I am aware of only four Marauders that are still in existence 
today.  *Flak Bait*, a B-26 serial number 41-31773 of the 449th 
Squadron of the 322nd Bombardment Group was the first Allied bomber in 
the ETO to fly 200 combat sorties.  Its nose section is now on display 
at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington.  B-26G-10 serial 
number 43-34581 ended up in France as a ground-based aircraft for use 
in training Air France mechanics.  In 1965, 43-34581 was donated to 
the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio, where it is currently 
displayed painted as a 387th Bombardment Group B-26B-50 serial number 
42-95857.  B-26C-20-MO serial number 41-35071 had been purchased from 
the Walnut Ridge disposal operation by a commercial operator at the 
end of the war and went through a succession of operators, including 
the Tennessee Gas Corporation which converted it as an executive 
transport.  In 1967, the Confederate Air Force bought the plane and 
attempted to restore it to flying condition, no mean feat since no 
structural B-26 parts were then available anywhere in the world and 
all B-26 engineering and production data had been destroyed in a fire 
at Martin's Baltimore plant.  Most needed components had to be made by 
hand.  The first flight did not take place until 1984.  The aircraft 
is named *Carolyn* in honor of a generous contributor.  The fourth was 
B-26 serial number 40-1464, the 103rd Marauder, which had crash-landed 
in northern Canada and had remained more or less intact out on the 
tundra for many years.  It was recovered by the Military Aircraft 
Restoration Corporation, a subsidiary of Specialty Restaurants Corp, 
of Anaheim California, whose president is David Tallichet.  

Sources:

   Famous Bombers of the Second World War, William Green,
   Doubleday, 1959.

   The Martin B-26 Marauder, J. K. Havener, TAB Aero, 1988.

   Me & My Gal--The Stormy Combat Romance Between a WW II Bomber
   Pilot and His Martin B-26, Charles O'Mahony, Wings, 
   December 1994.

   The Martin B-26B and C Marauder, Ray Wagner, Aircraft in
   Profile, Doubleday, 1965.

   Jane's American Fighting Aircraft of the 20th Century,
   Michael J.H. Taylor, Mallard Press.

   American Combat Planes, Third Enlarged Edition, Ray Wagner,
   Doubleday, 1982.

   United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, Gordon Swanborough and
   Peter M. Bowers, Naval Institute Press, 1990.

   Marauder Men--An Account of the B-26 Marauder, John O. Moench,
   Malia Enterprises, 1989


Joe Baugher			  **************************************
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