Martin B-26 Marauder
The Martin B-26 Marauder was a twin-engine medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company, first flown in 1940. Designed for speed around a small, heavily loaded wing, it demanded fast takeoffs and landings and suffered many training accidents early on, earning a grim reputation and Congressional scrutiny. Retraining and design changes made it an effective tactical bomber: Marauder crews flew more than 100,000 sorties, mainly against Germany, and the type ended the war with the lowest loss rate of any Allied bomber the Army Air Forces flew. Martin built 5,266, and few survive; the best known is the Smithsonian's Flak-Bait.
Why It Mattered
The Marauder began as the Glenn L. Martin Company's Model 179, its answer to a January 1939 Army Air Corps specification for a high-speed bomber, and the Army ordered it that September. Ordered before any example had flown, it was rushed into service and then into combat. The type's war record reversed its early reputation: an aircraft first feared for its training accidents ended the war as the bomber the Army Air Forces found hardest to lose, proportionally, at less than half of one percent. Marauder crews flew over 100,000 sorties and dropped roughly 150,000 tons of bombs, most of them on Germany.
Design Notes
The Model 179 was a streamlined, all-metal, twin-engine monoplane with a circular-section fuselage and tricycle landing gear. Its power came from two Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engines, then still experimental. For speed, Martin's designers kept the wing small, accepting a high wing loading that demanded unusually fast takeoffs and landings. The design also brought service firsts: it was the first USAAF aircraft fitted with powered turrets, and the first equipped with self-sealing fuel tanks. After the early accidents, crews were retrained, and production aircraft gained wing span and incidence along with a larger vertical stabilizer and rudder.
Operational History
The first production Marauder flew in November 1940, a year before the United States entered the war. In training, the design's high speeds caused many accidents, and the bomber collected grim nicknames, among them "Widow Maker" and "One-a-Day-in-Tampa-Bay", while Congress scrutinized the program. On 4 June 1942, Marauders defending Midway Island attacked Japanese aircraft carriers with torpedoes but failed to score any hits. After the Allied invasion of November 1942, the AAF sent Marauders to North Africa for service with the Twelfth Air Force. Eighth Air Force Marauders flew the first bombing mission against German forces in Europe on 14 May 1943. That October, in preparation for the invasion of France, the Eighth's Marauders were transferred to the Ninth Air Force. Britain's and France's air forces also operated Marauders in combat.
Afterlife
Martin produced 5,266 Marauders, and few survive today. Production ran from February 1941 to March 1945, and by 1947 every Marauder had been retired from U.S. service. After the Marauder's retirement, its B-26 designation passed to the unrelated Douglas A-26 Invader, which has confused the two types ever since. The best-known survivor is the National Air and Space Museum's Flak-Bait, whose crews flew more missions than those of any other American aircraft during World War II. The Army Air Forces saved it from destruction after the war, and the Air Force transferred it to the Smithsonian in 1960. The museum is now preserving Flak-Bait; when the multi-year project is complete, the aircraft will stand fully assembled for the first time since the end of World War II.