{"id":107371,"date":"2020-11-20T08:00:24","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T13:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=107371"},"modified":"2020-11-19T16:01:55","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T21:01:55","slug":"valor-friday-96","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=107371","title":{"rendered":"Valor Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One-half left side, close-up view of Martin B-26B Marauder “Flak-Bait” (A19600297000) as displayed in the World War II Aviation gallery at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s National Mall Building, Washington, DC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m going to do something a little different. Military folks, particularly in wartime, become a superstitious lot. There are lucky trinkets individuals will carry and there are certainly vehicles seen as cursed or blessed. I\u2019d like to explore some of the latter.<\/p>\n

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The B-26 Marauder, made by the Martin Aircraft Corporation, first flew in November 1940, but the design showed so much promise the US Army Air Forces had already ordered more than 1,100 of the medium bomber months earlier.<\/p>\n

Due to the Marauder\u2019s high takeoff and landing speed, it was intimidating to many pilots, particularly on final approach. Slow to a more normal landing speed and the aircraft would stall and crash. This led to it being known as a widow maker until aircrew received sufficient, specialized training. By war\u2019s end, the Marauder would have the lowest loss rate of any USAAF bomber.<\/p>\n

There was one particular B-26 that did more during the war than any other in American service. Shortly after the B-17 The Memphis Belle famously completed 25 bombing missions to much acclaim and months earlier the B-24 Hot Stuff had been the actual first to cross the 25 mission mark there was another plane plugging away on mission after mission that would make 25 look like a warm up.<\/p>\n

B-26 Serial Number 41-31173 rolled off the assembly line in Baltimore in April, 1943. The plane\u2019s first pilot, 21 year old Lieutenant James Farrell of Greenwich, Connecticut, named the plane after his family\u2019s dog. His brother had nicknamed the canine \u201cFlea Bait\u201d. Farrell called his new plane Flak-Bait.<\/p>\n

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Flak-Bait crew and mechanics, Lt. Farrell center. Photo dated 3 June 1944<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Flak-Bait was assigned to the 449th Bombardment Squadron of the 322d Bombardment Group in England. From that station, the plane and its crews (of which it would have several in the coming years) participated in missions all over Europe, including D-Day.<\/p>\n

449th Bombardment Squadron emblem<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After D-Day, the 449th and Flak-Bait were stationed in France and later Belgium, where Flak-Bait would fly in support of Allied forces in the Battle of the Bulge. The 449th bombed the Germans until the day they finally gave up and then were part of the occupation forces in post-war Germany.<\/p>\n

Along the way, Flak-Bait tempted fate over and over again. She came back twice with only one of its two engines running, one of those times the disabled engine was actively on fire when it landed. She lost her electrical system completely once and her hydraulic system twice. She also lived up to her name and had at least 1,000 holes shot into her before she rested. Every time though, Flak-Bait came back.<\/p>\n

How many times? The crews painted mission marks on the noses of their aircraft. Flak-Bait shows a lot of them.<\/p>\n

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Nose Section of the Martin B-26B-25-MA Marauder “Flak-Bait, (A19600297000), in Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hanger at Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA, February 5, 2019. (Smithsonian Photo by Mark Avino)
[FlakBaitNose_0013] [NASM2019-00327]<\/figcaption><\/figure>The red bombs indicate a bombing mission. The white tailed bombs are every fifth mission. The one black bomb represents a night mission. There are also six red ducks, which are for decoy missions the bomber flew. The one swastika is for the one confirmed enemy aircraft \u201ckill\u201d the plane\u2019s gunners scored (they downed at least three, but only one was confirmed).<\/p>\n

That huge lot of bombs in sum shows that Flak-Bait flew 202 operational bombing missions over the course of less than two years. This was 725 hours of time in combat. Lieutenant (later Captain) Farrell flew 72 combat missions with Flak-Bait, more than any other pilot of the bird. After the war he was a commercial airline pilot. He died in 1997 at 75 years old.<\/p>\n

After the war, Flak-Bait was allowed to rest. On March 18, 1946, Major John Egan and Captain Norman Schloesser flew Flak-Bait to an air depot in Bavaria. There she was disassembled, crated, and shipped by year\u2019s end to the US. Flak-Bait was one of the American aircraft selected by General of the Army Henry “Hap” Arnold to represent noteworthy artifacts of the war.<\/p>\n

The forward fuselage of the plane has been on display at the Smithsonian\u2019s Air and Space Museum since 1976. She\u2019s currently undergoing a complete restoration. Once that\u2019s complete, she\u2019ll join other preserved legendary aircraft like the B-29 Enola Gay, Chuck Yeager\u2019s Bell X-1, the Apollo 11 Command Service Module, and Lindbergh\u2019s Spirit of St. Louis.<\/p>\n

Only one other Allied aircraft of World War II completed more missions. A British de Havilland Mosquito B. Mk. IX bomber completed 213 missions. That aircraft was unable to be preserved as it crashed in Canada just two days after VE Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m going to do something a little different. Military folks, particularly in wartime, become a superstitious … Valor Friday<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187,359,75,389,121,217],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air-force","category-army","category-blue-skies","category-valor","category-war-stories","category-we-remember"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/664"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=107371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107376,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107371\/revisions\/107376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=107371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=107371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=107371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}