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THE SAGA OF THE B-26 MARAUDER
BY DARREL G. LEFEVER
The Martin B-26 Marauder came into being because of requests from the Air Force for designs which could carry 4,000 pounds of bombs at 300 miles per hour and which would have a range of at least 1,000 miles. These were somewhat unrealistic specifications as the technology did not then exist to produce such an airplane.
An engineer working for the Glen L. Martin Company. Peyton McGruder, designed the B-26 we came to know and love. Without a prototype having been built and flown, the Air Force ordered a quantity of B-26's, then increased the order soon after to a total of 1,100. The first B-26 was flown in 1940. Thus it happened that at the time of Pearl Harbor, the Air Force had quite a number of B-26's on hand.
The Air Force had formed a B-26 Group--the 22nd group-- prior to Pearl Harbor, and ordered it to proceed to the South Pacific just after Pearl Harbor to counter what the Japanese were doing.
The B-26 had been a formidable plane for pilots used to much lighter and slower planes ("gliders" they could almost be called.) This earned it some undesirable sobriquets such as "The Widow Maker" and others. A number of crashes occurred because many pilots could not adapt to such an airplane with high landing and takeoff speeds. Some crashes occurred because of this but later much of the problem was traced to the Curtis Electric Propeller which was not being maintained and adjusted properly. So soon as proper procedures for maintenance of the propellor were established, this trouble virtually ceased.
The early B-26's had a 65 foot wingspan and engines rated at 1,850 HP. By the time of Pearl Harbor the B-26 had acquired an unsavory reputation as a "killer." There was agitation to cancel the entire program and cease production of the plane. Harry Truman was the most prominent agitator. Many will remember the "Truman Committee" which traveled around the country inspecting war plants, looking for waste and gross inefficiencies. In Truman's memoirs he tells of talking with Glen L. Martin and asking him, "Why are your planes killing our boys?" He said Martin answered, "Because the wings are too small." Truman said he then asked Martin, "Well, why don't you make them bigger?"
The B-26 then had its wingspan increased to 71 feet and the power of each engine increased to 2,000 HP plus a taller vertical fin. . I worked at the Goodyear Aircraft Corporation plant in the summer of 1942. They had a plant at Akron, Ohio which later built over 4,000 Corsair fighter planes, but which, at the time I was there, only had a contract to produce B-26 engine nacelles. I was in the machine shop as a lathe hand. A B-26 had crashed in the city limits of Akron and it was really then that the cancellation bandwagon got going.
While I was there the Truman committee made an inspection, which we knew about well in advance., I was on the graveyard shift but asked some of the people I knew what had transpired the day before. The fellow who had been present when they came through told me they swept down the central aisle on an electric car. I would say that would not tell them anything.,
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The plant was about a mile long and very impressive. It was there I saw my first flourescent lights and my first fork lift. Many others like it were built around the United States and another which is just like it is just north of Evansville, Indiana where P-47's were built and which is now occupied by the Whirlpool Corporation.
A lot of bigwigs and management people of Goodyear's would sail up and down the big cental aisle on electric cars as it would not have been practical for them to walk that mile length.
I knew something that probably would have frosted Harry Truman as Goodyear had hired about 30,000 people and was maintaining them on the payroll when they really had nothing for them to do. They were hoarding labor and at cost-plus 10% they could get away with it. The later effort in building Corsairs made it all seem worth while.
Not only people from Akron and surrounding towns in Ohio had gone to work there but a great many West Virginians had come to Akron, since the they had heard about Goodyear Aircraft and the lucrative jobs available with Goodyear. The true Ohioans looked upon the West Virginians with scorn. They considered them sub-human, about the way the Germans considered the people of Ukraine. I heard a lot of talk in that vein although I did not come--knowingly--in contact with any West Virginians and the ones I have known were just like people from every other part of the country. I'm sure there are many people in West Virginia who know of this bit of discrimination on the part of the Ohioans.
The draft laws were being changed and I saw I was to be drafted soon, so I quit Goodyear and went back home to South Texas.
I was in a farm lane with my dad, going out to the orchard when a B- 17 from Harlingen, HAGSÑa well known acronym for Harlingen Army Gunnery School--came idling along down low, just looking things over and totally against regulations, at that altitude. I suddenly told dad, "I'm going in the Air Force."
I then hitch hiked out to Moore Field, Mission Texas, which was about 17 miles from home, with some old schoolmates and enlisted as an Aviation Cadet. I had seen a recruiting brochure which said the course lasted nine months and that cadets got special food or rations and the choice as to whether they wanted to be in single engine fighters or in bombers was theirs.
At Moore Field I was supposedly accepted and had said "Goodbye" to mom and dad and taken up quarters and started a lot of physical tests when I was suddenly visited by a GI. He said they had made a mistake and enrolled me as a buck private and I would have to go back home and await further orders. I would also have to come back on specified dates for further physical tests. All of the tests I had received would have to be taken over again. I was fast learning the Army system!
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Mom and dad were surprised to see me and I was home for three months before orders came to report to the Calcasieu Building in San Antonio, bus fare to be reimbursed. About 300 were on the orders. They sent us all to a hotel in SA in which the name White figured in the hotel name. The AF had hundreds of thousands of young guys like me on the string and didn't know what to do with us., We ended at Sheppard Field, at Wichita Falls, Texas, built for 90,000 and which had 140,000 of us. It was bad. The AF, being resourceful, invented College Training. Obviously this was to slow things down. About 300 of us entrained to Texas A&M. The only thing worth telling was that when we went through the mess car with our mess kits, there was a Sergeant in charge with a huge spoon with a handle about three feet long who served sliced peaches, about one slice per man as though they were very scarce. One of our party had been detailed to serve on KP and when he came back he said they had ended with a full wash tub of sliced peaches. So what did they do? They dumped them out along the tracks!
We were at Texas A&M for 2 1/2 months although it was supposed to be for five months. Suddenly we shipped to SAACC (San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center) I was classified as a pilot and took my primary at Cuero, Texas, a very nice school, in PT-l9's.. We then traveled to Waco for basic at Waco Army Airfield. The weather was so bad that winter, 1943-1944, that by mid course only 75 of us had soloed the BT-13. Unfortunately I was in that 75. We suddenly appeared on orders, all 75, to move to Temple, Texas for training in Cessna Bobcats. It was to be an experimental twin engine school and we were then to take our advanced flying in B-25's at Brooks Field.
We had what would be called a crazy Major at Waco Army Airfield. His name was Burchfiel. (The name had no "d" on the end of it.) He had assembled us the first day at Waco, on the flight line, and gave us a speech,. It was the usual. That by entering that school, we were beginning our climb to the heights and that we should all cooperate and do our dead-level best. Then he ended on a strange note., He said, "I'm really a good guy. You don't know me so you don't know what a really good guy I am. If there's anything I can ever do for any one of you, don't hesitate to come and see me!." I had my heart set to be in fighters so I appealed for a meeting with him and told him I didn't want to go to Temple. You would never believe what he did. He dressed me down vehemently for daring to want to do something contrary to the AF's desire.
I ended at Temple and I will have to say the Bobcat was a heck of a good airplane. It could take the hard landings we gave it and was very strong. The weather was so atrocious that winter, it turned into a heck of a good course in flying in a light plane in convective currents in rain and low scudding clouds. By totally flaunting AF regulations they got us through the course. The B-25 class at Brooks Field was held over because of weather. They couldn't get away with flaunting AF regulations at San Antonio because of so much brass concentrated there. At Waco we totally avoided regulations and flew under heavy overcasts, in rain, and so on.
To add insult to injury they sent us to Blackland Air Force Base at Waco for advanced in the same Bobcats. It was considered to be a lowly airplane.
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Finally after 14 months I had my wings. They had given us a choice of going to a school for C-47 pilots, or B-25's, or B-26's. I chose B-26's, despite their bad reputation. Strangely, a lot of fellows from that class, 44-E, chose B-26's.
At Del Rio, which I was ordered to, upon graduation, I found the B-26 to be easy to fly. One had to know the need for air speed at all times. Then, to land it, all one had to do was put it down close to the runway and just keep coming back. It would usually set down with squeaking tires.
My instructor, Lt. Elmer A. Furlow, a great pilot and a fine man, sent me to Barksdale Field at Shreveport, La,, a holding pool for B-26 crewmen, two months early. But, I hadn't gained anything as I was at Barksdale three months. I was finally assigned a crew of five more men and we entrained for Lake Charles, La., to what was called "tactical training." It was a fine facility but had poor maintenance. At no other point did I encounter the trouble with the engines on run up as I did at Lake Charles. We had mag drops all the time and the guys on the line would almost throw tantrums when you taxied back in, as it meant they had to change 72 spark plugs. Night flying, I brought one back in one time with a 75 RPM drop. The orders were not to take off at night with as much as a 50 drop. A GI met me and said I was to report to Major so-and-so in a certain maintenance shack on the line. When I got there he accused me of being afraid to fly at night. Of course, one had to get in so many hours of night flying to leave that base. We got in a Jeep and went back to the plane I had just brought back in. There were two big master sergeants in the seats and by that time it had a drop of over 100. The major couldn't say anything to me at that. Of course they were trying to avoid changing 72 spark plugs. They wanted us to just take off which would probably clean the plugs if the engines didn't quit.
I was issued a brand new B-26G at Hunter Field, Savannah, Gal, with three hours on it which smelled inside like a new car. We all took it for a test hop (all of the crew) which the base automatically scheduled. The plane wasn't just right but the war was winding down and we wanted to get overseas with no delays so I didn't write it up.
Actually it took an unusual amount of right trim to fly straight and a huge amount of forward trim, which meant the tail--a sub-assembly--had just been bolted on and never aligned. The check pilot and the ferry pilot had not written it up.
The flight over the southern route was uneventful. There were frozen daiquiris in the clubs at 10¢ each. I, a non-drinker, had never heard of them but my co-pilot had. I had one in Porto Rico and another at Ascension Island. Rum is really cheap through those areas.
We ended at a replacement or holding pool at Stone, England and were there 30 days. Finally we were flown as a group, my crew of six, to Orly Field. There I saw a P-47 buzz the tower and do a perfect slow roll. One would say "right on the deck." That guy was good!
We were transported to our quarters in the back of a GI truck. There I saw an old man relieving himself against a stuccoed front of a building and a woman dressed in a fur coat and high heels walking
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right by him. One sees that all over France and Belgium but I never did see it in Germany.
We spent a week at a chateau--the Chateau Rothschild--in the Bois de Boulogne and made a number of trips into downtown Paris, on their excellent subway. Goebbels and Lord Haw Haw were said to have broadcast from there.
Those old stone chateaus are pretty nice to look at but they are not as comfortable to stay in as they look.
We then entrained to the 320th at Dijon. We arrived there in Late March and the weather was so bad, missions were not made for some days. My first was Easter Sunday, April 1, 1945. It was against the Vaihingen Barracks, in a suburb of Stuttgart. It was known the war was about over and the Germans were finished. As we went in, over intermittent white clouds I experienced a feeling of disappointment that I was not to see any flak. I was flying co-pilot with Lt. Michelson, and as I looked out I suddenly saw a black cloud of smoke quite a way below. In a flash they had corrected for altitude and laid a barrage on us. We went on the IP (initial point) and a period of straight and level up to the bomb drop with the flak pop-popping in our ears and all around us. As soon as we had dropped the squadron leader said on the radio, "Let's get the hell out of here!" and peeled off to the left. I heard those words many time on later missions.
Later, when I was flying as first pilot I would often be on the left wing of the squadron leader and when they would peel off to the left I would be hard put to keep the leader in sight. I could only peer over or past the co-pilot through the bottom of his window. I usually didn't have co-pilots who were checked out in the airplane. I would have both throttles chopped and be trying to lose speed and altitude. Often I would be flying formation on that tall vertical fin and only be able to see the very top of it. I have never asked any other pilots if this happened to them. There is a delayed action effect when the leader makes abrupt turns. It is related to vehicles stacking up when someone in the lead suddenly slams on his brakes.
Some years later, when I was in the automotive machine shop business in Alaska, I had a customer we called the "Old German." He had set up in rebuilding Volkswagen engines and so came to me for machine work. He told me he was from Stuttgart and I asked him if her had ever heard of Vaihingen. "Vaihingen!" He said. "That is where my home was," and I told him I had bombed the barracks there. He said, "So that was you I saw up there!" And he pointed upward.
I once hitched a ride in a B-17 and it was the shudderingest, vibratingest thing you could imagine. It rattled and vibrated just like the BT-13 in a spin, which had earned it the name "Vultee Vibrator." I told this one time and a fellow who had flown in B-24's said they were worse and that the B-29 was the worst of all. There was none of that in a B-26. The wings did not flex and it was proven in combat that it could take unbelievable punishment and still make it home. It had no vibration, no shudder, but had perfect handling and was as smooth as one can imagine. One thing I have noted. The B-26 landed
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straight ahead, with no tendency to swerve.. I have noticed on the airliners after they have landed the pilot struggling to hold them straight. This may be due to the unbalanced loads they carry with passengers from front to rear of the plane. I noticed one time when I carried 18 men in a B-26, it made it harder to handle.
As I had gotten in the outfit so late, I only got 15 missions before V-E day.
We had been told when we arrived in the outfit that we would get an air medal for each 100 per- center. Out of 15 missions I was on 12 were 100 per-centers. When the air medals were not forthcoming we were told "They just couldn't give out that many air-medals."
I now think the damage to the German fighting forces administered by the B-26's outweighed what the B-17's delivered. I think the B-26 was the real flying fortress.
Hap Arnold knew this because in his book Global Mission, written after the war ended, he said the B26 (of the bombers) was the most effective offensive weapon the AF had. He also said that about the P-51. Note, he did not mention the B-25, B- 17 or the B-24, or the B-29.
Hap Arnold was a good friend of Glen L. Martin's and this is probably why the B-26 program was never cancelled. Over 5,200 B-26's were built. I think the reason so many heavies were shot down was because of lousy formation flying. Galland said the B-26 was the plane he least liked to approach and he mentioned the close formation flying.
Walter Kronkite, in his series about WW II, which he narrated, said the B-24 was not well adapted to close formation flying and had been (at the end of the war) relegated to the Pacific. I think about 6,000 of them were shot down.
A survey made by the AF showed that the of the bombs dropped by the heavies, only 7% fell on the target. This meant 93% of the bombs fell outside the designated target area. So much for high altitude bombing. The Norden Bombsight did not enable them to put the bombs in a pickle barrel from altitudes of 20,000 to 30,000 feet. Curtis Lemay, commander of the 20th AF, said the B- 29's couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from high altitude. In fact, he being dissatisfied with the results of strategic bombing they were doing with the B-29's finally had them go in at five to nine thousand feet altitude. Resulting losses were not prohibitive. The main targets they were after were aero engine and airframe factories. Area bombing on a huge city like Tokyo was easy. When you think of the B-26's almost invariably putting the bombs of a squadron within a 1200 sq. Ft. area, proving the accuracy of the Norden Bombsight at altitudes of twelve to fourteen thousand feet it is no wonder Hap Arnold picked the B-26 as the most valuable bomber. We had 900 of them in active combat in the ETO.. Can you imagine 900 B-26's gnawing away at the vitals of the German army? The B-26 furnished a very steady platform for the use of the Norden Bombsight and almost 100% accuracy from an average altitude of 12,000-14,000 feet. The bombing using Shoran was said to be more accurate. We often used Shoran. Proof of what the Norden could do from 12,000 feet is given by what was accomplished in
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the B- 17 raid on the large Focke Wulf assembly plant at Marienburg in East Prussia. The Germans never dreamed that our bombers would be able to reach out that far and had provided no anti-aircraft cover. Some how our intelligence had determined there were no AA guns there .and the B-17's went in and bombed at 12,000 feet. The results looked just like a B-26 strike, with almost all bombs concentrated in the plant roof. What the B-26's were destroying were bridges, railroad marshalling yards, canal locks, road junctions, and ammo dumps, also air fields, with virtually 100% results. The B-17's could have done it too--from 12,000 feet. . Ira Eaker at the time of the Monte Cassino bombing by the B-26's said that was the most wonderful bombing he had ever seen. I was on a mission against Schweinfurt the day the Seventh Army took it. As we peeled off I could see the bombs had hit right in the town square or plaza.
After VE day, about May 27th, the 320th was disbanded. Most of us went north to the 397th Bomb Group at San Quentin, France. Some favored individuals went to Germany near Nuremberg where they were to search the countryside for assets of the German Luftwaffe. They ended at an airfield near Nuremberg, Herzogenaurach. Some were stationed at Furth, a near suburb of Nuremberg, where the Nuremberg trials took place.
The 397th received orders to fly all of its planes to a little field near Landsberg, Germany (where Hitler had been imprisoned and where he wrote "Mein Kampf,") I flew one there. They said "it's a little short field and muddy. If you go through the fence, don't worry about it as the plane is just going to be blown up."
I had no trouble in landing and getting stopped. I later flew there again with some friends taking B26's to be destroyed.
I then transferred at my request into P-51's and was flown by Richard Ellinger, who is now the editor of The Marauder Thunder, and lives in Washington, D.C., from San Quentin to Frankfurt, Germany in "Flakbait" which had been brought to A-72 from the 322nd Bomb Group and which had 202 missions on it. It was the only B-26 left on the field. Richard Ellinger suggested I fly it and I did., It was a sweet flying airplane even though it had been wrecked several times and rebuilt, which shows what can. be done. He told me it was to be taken apart when he got back to be shipped to the Smithsonian. The word, "Aerospace" had not been invented then. I specifically remember the word "Smithsonian" which he used. The front part of the airplane is on display there.
I later drove a Jeep to Landsberg and drove out to where the B-26's were. There were just some GI's there and I drove among the rows. There were 30 rows of 30 meaning 900 B-26's were there. The GI's told me that in the coming week they were going to start blowing the nosewheels off the B26's. I had even found the one I flew on the southern route. I had written it up when I got to St. Mawgan that the empennage was out of rig but have no idea if anything was ever done about it.
I arrived in the P-51 outfit in late November and checked out in the P-51 in December, almost killing myself. About three weeks after I had visited the B-26's by Jeep, I flew to Landsberg in a P-51. What
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a sight to see! 900 B-26's with the noses down and tails in the air. Would that I had taken a photo. I have never seen any photos of that or true accounts of what had transpired there.
How we could have used those B-26's in Korea! The B-29's weren't able to accurately take out the Yalu bridges at the south end. Truman was so afraid of errant bombs getting over on the north side and provoking the Chinese, not to mention the Russians. He didn't want WW III!
I wrote Gerry Kercher about what happened to me in the P-51 and he transmitted it to Clark Travell. After leaving the 397th, I was taken to the HQ of the 64th Fighter Wing. There I met the adjutant, a first Lieutenant, like me. He was an old P-51 pilot and to be nice- he said, "I'll tell you how to take off a P-51 ! He said, "line it up on the runway and give it full takeoff power, holding the brakes. When the black smoke clears away you're ready to go."
I had early on met a new friend at the 354th Fighter Group who energetically set out to check me out in the P-51. I never did mention this little gem of knowledge the adjutant of the 64th Fighter Wing had imparted to me. We flew an AT-6 for quite a few hours and finally I was ready to go. By coincidence this was at Herzogenaurach, the very same base the Hq. Sq. From the 320th had gone to. I was only 10 miles from where the Nuremberg Trials were held and foolishly devoted myself to checking out in the P-51. I certainly wish now I had attended the trials.
When I got out on the runway I lined up with it and held the brakes, giving the P-51 full take off power. It had rather weak brakes and just wanted to crawl and sorta hop along. A B-26 had as good brakes as you've seen on a car. I think the P-51 brakes were purposely made weak to prevent noseovers.
Anyway, I couldn't hold it and it was a miserable feeling. I finally released the brakes to take off. There never was any black smoke. I doubt if that adjutant did that all the time. That nose, a mile long out in front of me, due to propellor torque, swung about 30¡ to the left. Clark, when he wrote it up in the Boomerang, said it swung to the right, which embarrassed me. Since the P-51 turns Counter clockwise, looking at the prop from the front, the propellor torque swings the nose to the left. Parked close along the runway were the group's P-51's, about 75 of them . How I ever got offend over them is a mystery to me. Full right brake didn't hold that nose when it started to swing. I pulled it off very slow with the left wing down. I knew better then to try to pull that wing up with rudder or aileron, as I might have suddenly done a snaproll at that low speed.
Somehow with the landing gear down I cleared the first P-51 and just in a flash had plenty of flying speed. Control was no problem then. Many times after that I made formation takeoffs with no problem. One had to advance the throttle smoothly and not suddenly and hold right brake until you got pretty good speed when control by rudder could be maintained.
At Herzo, due to orders which came through, they blew up 40 perfectly good P-51D's. I was down on the line one day when the mechanics had the ammo covers open on the wings. I was appalled to see
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green bullets therein and that the barrels of the guns were choked with rust. We were certainly in no condition to ward off en attack.
Unfortunately, a bit later the A-26's which were made by Douglas were renumbered as B-26's which has created some confusion. I checked out in the A-26 which had a laminar flow wing like the P-51 and was pretty clean and light, but had the same engines as the Marauder. At 30-20 which meant 30 inches of manifold pressure and 2,000 RPM it flew right along at 250 MPH. Cut and feather one
engine without changing the power setting and it would fly along at 200 MPH. This meant you could fly a lot farther on one engine then the two. It and the P-51 were clean enough that, at altitude, you
could put the nose down and they would slice the air easily at 400 MPH indicated, with no feeling of resistance. . A most exhilarating feeling. I once tried 500 MPH in the P-51 and it was really not clean enough for that, and gave me an uncomfortable feeling, as though it might come apart. Later, I have read that some of them did just that. The airplane was not solid and clean enough for 500 MPH contrary to much propaganda about its 500 MPH capability.
Hub Zemke, a famous group commander of P-47's wrote in his book that when a number of P-47 pilots were checked out in the P-51 that many of them lost it due to the tremendous amount of propellor
torque and ran off the runways to the left, cracking up and killing themselves. These were P-47 pilots who had been in combat.
A factory was set up at Omaha, Nebraska for B-26 production. It produced the C models which were sweet flying airplanes. The C and the later B models were the best. I never liked the G models.
It had been decided, near V-E Day to convert that factory to the production of B-29's. I have heard that the results received from the B-26's were so outstanding the AF Command in Europe decided they didn't have enough B-26's. They had over 4,000 back home and you would have thought they could have commandeered any part of them. But it was said they regretted losing the Omaha production.
Had I not flown the B-26 or had the experiences with the 320th, I wouldn't know what a wonderful airplane it was. It was certainly the finest medium bomber ever built and so beautiful. It compiled the finest record of any combat aircraft we had so far as losses--in the 320th less then .03 of one percent were lost. The outfits were full of planes with 150 to 175 missions, and Flak Bait had 202--you can see the front portion of it at Washington D.C. in the Aerospace Museum. It was, perhaps, the greatest of fighting airplanes. It was truly the Cadillac of airplanes. And that it was to be ruthlessly destroyed so soon after V-E day is very sad.
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