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B-25 Mitchell — Birth of a Gunship

Icepick Mike said:
My Father was a gunner on a B24. Started out as a belly gunner cause he was short. Then they put him in the nose gunner position. He was on many of the big raids like the Schweinfurt ball bearing raids. When the German 262s came out he downed two of them. He said the pilots must have been rookies because they did a head on attack but sharply pulled up right in front of his guns exposing their bellies. He said a short burst of the 50s' and they both exploded. He was a hell of a guy.
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That's awesome. Just thinking about being a belly Gunner gives me the ebbeejeebees . I bet your dad had some stories.
 
In 1972 was about to get drafted (my lottery number was 5) and was working for my Uncle Bob on his farms. One day was spending afternoon picking up irrigation pipe with him and he decided to educate me about war from his experiences. He was high school senior when Pearl Harbor occurred and applied for the Army Air Corps. In March 1942 the principal called for unannounced student assembly in the auditorium and called 6 seniors up the podium and handed them their diplomas and orders to service (my uncle was 2 months shy of 18). Bob got his wings and commission, checked out in the B25, and was sent to the Southwest Pacific. He participated in the Battle of the Bismark Sea (quite an experience to an 18 year old copilot) and completed two six month combat tours with his squadron. They were training for a third combat tour in the Philippines for likely operations against the Japanese colony Formosa (now Taiwan) which the Japanese had had 40 years to fortify. Nobody was looking forward to this task and Bob after surviving two combat tours was thinking the third time around "they" will get me. He and his squadron breathed a sigh of relief when they heard about the atomic bombs. Side note is the small Oklahoma town Bob was from is Frederick where the Army Air Corps built a training airfield for B25s. The town renamed the sport name of their high school to the "Frederick Bombers" and to this day they are still called the Bombers.
 
In the 70's I was stationed at the naval air station in Hutchinson Kansas. Pilots were trained on the P2V. At the civilian airport in Hutchinson a company was converting B 25's to executive aircraft. I saw some very neat aircraft leave there....
 
Great article. I had known about the conversion of some B25s to Gunships, but not the details, and your article went into that in depth. I can just imagine how much more devastating they would have been had the Air Corp adopted 20 and 30mm Cannon much earlier (not that I'd want to stand in front of a .50 Browning firing towards me).

Those that complain we were too hard on Japan or Germany, are ignorant of the true cost of War. It's not just about armies and navies fighting each other. The unspoken Goal of Wars successfully fought, lies in destroying the enemies ability to make war. In both theaters, we were the attacked, not the attackers, and we were justified in our defense as well as our offense. History shows, that just beating an opponent back within his own borders, only leads to further conflict later on. The powers that be decided that the enemy posed a threat, not just to us, but everyone else, and the actions of Japan and Germany before and during the War, shows they were right. The Japanese Civilians, and to a lesser extent the Germans, had been so thoroughly propagandized by the military, Civilians were expected to fight the coming invasion with their bare hands or to kill themselves rather than surrender. The mass Civilian Suicides on Okinaw, Saipan and other Islands gives evidence to how deeply ingrained this Propaganda was in the population.
It was believed by many,, that Invading the main Island, would have caused more loss of life, not only in the Invading Forces, but the Civilian population, than wiping out two cities, and their populations, was considered less loss of life. I've neither studied or read anything that makes that assumption, wrong. Unlike Germany, Civilian Resistance to the War, was virtually absent. Japan had modernized, but the people still very much lived in a Feudalistic Culture. Whatever the Emperor, and the Warlords said, you followed, or faced death.
When you build Weapons Production Facilities in a neighborhood, you're begging for Collateral Damage, eventually.
All down through History, one maxim holds true in every conflict. Men make War, but Women and Weams bear the costs.
 
My former dentist was a B 25 bomber pilot. He talked about things like the islands and where he had been stationed, but said it was to hard to talk about any of the fighting or battles he had been in. Unfortunately we lost him a couple of years ago, he was definitely a great man.
 
A few years ago I was able to go into a B-17, B-25 & B-24 at a local Warbird visit. On the outside they look big but on the inside they're tiny with every one literally shoulder to shoulder and squeezing through very small openings & passageways.

The gents that few all those WW2 birds were super tough & brave.
 
As one of the owners of the B-25H " Barbie III" for almost 30 years. The B-25 is a great aircraft to fly, very forgiving. Those of you in Texas, the " Barbie III" is in Addison, Texas at the Cavanaugh flight museum. Go and see it, beautiful aircraft.
 

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