My wife's grandfather flew the Marauder from Feb-Nov 1943 with the 503rd.. Flew 79 missions, including six on D-Day. Brought one plane back which was so badly shot up, it was missing a good portion of the tail section, part of a wing, one engine, and the fuselage looking like Swiss cheese, but he made it back to England, and belly-landed it safely (my descriptions don't do the the photographs justice). He survived the war, went back to farming in Kansas, but developed polio in the late 1940s, and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He died of natural causes in 1985 at the age of 69. RIP LT Clarence (Larry) Bollinger

The Flying Whore makes perfect sense since it had fairly small wings so according to some people it had "no visible means of support".

Dolittle flew the GEEBEE like a pro, and the GEEBEE was a handful to even the most experienced pilots! It's no wonder he could diagnose the issues with a new bomber! The man's a Legend!

WWII multi engine pilots did get training in twin engine aircraft, however they were much less demanding than the B-26. The B-26 was the first military aircraft that really had to be flown by the numbers, rather than by the seat of the pants. The B-26 stalled at around 120 mph, but when an engine failed it needed to have at least 130 mph to maintain directional control. This meant on landing with a single engine a to be flown at or above 130 mph if full power was applied to the good engine. The same was true on take off. If an engine failed and the airspeed was below 130 mph the pilot absolutely had to put it back on the runway, even if that meant running off the end of the runway. The outcome was far better than losing control in the air. Finally, the B-26 would not accelerate on one engine with the landing gear down. If a pilot was taking off and had an engine failure above 130 mph, it was imperative that the pilot immediately retract the landing gear. The same was true if a pilot went around on a single engine landing attempt. When these procedures were not followed, the B-26 crashed. Period. Full stop. Doolittle understood it had a minimum controllable airspeed on one engine that was well above the stall speed, and that it had to be flown by the numbers. Once instructors understood that and started teaching proper procedures to students, accident rates went down. In combat the B-26 had the lowest loss rate of any light or medium bomber.

Imagine a young woman with her nine year old son on her hand rushing over a street to a public shelter a split second before a Marauder (or the alike) came strafing down her street killing some of her neighbours who were less lucky. That was my grandma. Some decades after the war I sat in her kitchen building a model of a B26 and she said, that it looked like one of the planes that nearly killed her and my uncle and told the story. No hard feelings on her side as she felt she and her family were treated quite well by the american troops after the war considering the circumstances and civilians on both sides had to face similar situations.

Thanks for the vid! My great-grandfather was a Martin mechanic during WWII but wound up in the Navy after he enlisted in 1944. The B-26 one of the models he built shortly before he passed in the mid-2000s

It was common practice for the USAAF to award two contracts for a specification or for two similar specifications as it provided a primary and a backup against a program failure. The B-26, B-25, the B-17 and B-24, the B-29 and B-32, the P-38 and P-47, etc.

Beautiful plane! I built the Flak Bait model kit as a kid, and used to see the fuselage at the Air and Space Museum in DC.

Always loved the Marauder, something badass about a bomber with double wasps

A nice plane. Lowest loss rate of any Allied WWII bomber: less than 0.5%. But yes, in the grand scheme of medium bombers it wasn't the best, at all. It was beautiful though, and due to its fuselage shape it had another nickname: "the Flying Cigar."

1. I read this somewhere. The Marauder had Curtiss electric props. The green ground crews would turn on the master switch and test cycle the props preflighting the plane. Would forget to kill the master and ran the batteries down. The plane was later started off a ground cart. In flight if an engine quit, there wasn’t enough juice to feather and a crash ensued.. (I may not have this entirely correct) 2. A controllability lesson can be drawn from the similar P61 Black Widow. The Widow had spoilers and ‘feelerons’ (very short ailerons)for roll control which greatly reduced roll control forces. It had nearly full span ‘Zap’ flaps. A Zap is a split flap whose hinge point moves back like a Fowler. Why this workable formula isn’t followed today beats me… the sole exception is the TBM which is fastest in its class. 3. The B26 had twin R2800s. So did the single seat Grumman Tigercat. Can you imagine flying the Tigercat? I bet it can really go.

B26 is a sexy plane. Flak bait was a tough sob

Your interesting delivery with a theme to start each video is greatly appreciated. Keep up the great work! Mahalo and Aloha!

I've always liked the B26, it was clean and fast and perhaps ahead of pilots of that time.

Doolittle was, of course, correct. It was a training problem. The wing loading of this airplane was just one more inevitable step on the airplane evolutionary ladder. If a pilot from today went back in time to fly combat in WWII and was given a choice between the B-26 and the B-25, he would take the B-26.

You forgot to say that in the early production of this plane it had a bad habit of losing its tail in flight. A weakness was eventually fix.

I had a hunch on the wing loading and true enough the Do 217 is a serious competitor there. With its maximum take-off weight of 16,700 kg (36,817 lb) and wing area of 57 m2 (610 sq ft) you get just about 60.35 lb/sq ft. Both planes seem to follow the same basic design approach of a stubby wing to reduce drag and brute-forcing just about sufficient lift with raw engine power, which the Do 217 lacked on the early BMW 801, but got better on the DB603s, and just accepting the high stall and landing speeds as an inherent downside.

I remember playing Heroes of the Pacific as a kid and I think the description of the B-26 was simply "the widowmaker"

“It was a skill issue” -doolittle

The literally definition of death from above

I remember seeing three of these in the UK during the 50th Anniversary of D-Day flying very low. Rather a surprise.

The Truman Committee also spent a lot of time on why the B-26 was so much more expensive than the B-25. They expected to find waste, fraud, and abuse, bit it was a combination of a design that was just expensive with some conscious choice for more expensive alternatives to war materials that were expected to be in short supply.

Been using this in war thunder, cool vid 😎👍

Well... I hope you enjoyed making the video and you learned something, teaching us something.

9:44 as an avid toy train collector myself, I’d also like to point out that Lionel was one of the primary manufacturers of gyro-compasses for the USN during the war

The largest take-away here are that this “terrible” aircraft left WWII with the lowest loss-rates of any allied bomber in the war. Also (not specifically mentioned here) I believe Doolittle and some other test pilots / engineers came to the conclusion that losing a critical engine during rotation / climb-out WOULD kill you. They tested this config at altitude and the results were shocking - this was what resulted in the majority of the nicknames and poor safety impressions at the time. This is also what led to the wing loading changes, it wasn’t just something random, they were chasing down a very specific (deadly) issue.

Why the TBM Avenger at 2:02? I was crew chief on a 1945 TBM that we fly to airshows around the east coast, and would often reference this photo in dialogue and safety meetings within the wing. If you take some crude measurements, it’s lost roughly 4+ feet of the wing, and all of its port ailerons (note the starboard aileron deflection.) This was an absolute BEAST of a plane, and one that gives me little concern flying it today (79 years after it was built.) I have an old “Grumman Ironworks” patch on my flight suit. Anyways, I’m not sure that’s an appropriate connection with the Marauder…

From what I've read is that when they started changing to the training regimen so that those pilots were trained more like fighter pilots vs bomber pilots accident rates then dropped. A great plane that one had to respect and stay on top of.

Back in 1990 I recall a recently restored flying B-26 Marauder had crashed and killed its pilots due to apparent pilot error

I would have flown it in an instant as a former AF and Army pilot. A similar issue happened when the F-84 was introduced and Bob Hoover, like the amazing Jimmie Doolittle did, made the rounds, showing what smart piloting and energy maneuvering could do. By the way, look at the number of successful bombing missions logged on the nose of the aircraft that is pictured in the beginnig sequence, ground crashed, just say'in.

Very interesting video. I think it’s interesting that German pilots experienced something very similar when converting to the Ju-88 from earlier types or as green crews. It like the B26 was a hot airplane with a relatively high stall speed, especially when flying on one engine. It also experienced higher loss rates than other older slower types in the Battle of Britain due to green crews. Bigger wing, more power, heavier armament and improved crew experience & training helped resolve the issues, sound familiar?

The B-26 was an unforgiving hot rod, that was nothing like the forgiving, easy and much slower aircraft that preceded it, and the aircraft novice pilots trained in. So if you flew a B-26 the same way you flew a Bolo trainer, a C-47 or B-25, it was going to kill you by stalling on take off, or particularly on landing. As a result novice pilots who did this in training ended up dead in Tampa bay. Not treating the aircraft as the hot rod it was that needed to be flown a whole lot faster would kill you - however flying it the way it was designed to operate would keep you alive in combat, and bring you home. The NASM B-26B-25-MA named "Flak-Bait" (AAF serial number 41-31773) survived 202 combat missions over Europe, more than any other American aircraft during World War II. The Army threatened to withdraw the aircraft from combat, but Marauder crews stuck with their airplane. By war's end, they had lost fewer aircraft than almost any other combat unit and compiled a notable war record.

I love the photo of the guy smoking a cigarette in the nose.😂

Post world War 2 experimentation, Middle River Stumper Jump, to test center line landing gear for Martin B 48.

There is just something about the look of the Marauder. In a lot of photos panel lines are next to invisible, like they were milled from a solid block. (I also don't think I've ever seen a photo of one exhibiting oil canning or a quilted effect in the skin like that seen in some other larger planes.)

I have heard that the angle of incidence of the wing was also altered. A late friend of mine flew these including a couple in the famous Flack Bait.

Putting "greener" pilots quickly into combat with less complex aircraft would have been disaterous. As it was, more personnel losses occurred during training than in actual aerial combat in WWII, a fact often overlooked. Can you imagine the carnage (reference Japan in the latter stages of the Pacific war) ?

The plane at 2:10 is a beast for still flying

Small thing but I really appreciate you putting in metric measurements. I can handle mph & knots but have no intuitive idea of pounds (& I’m not going to do conversion in middle of interesting video). Due to your inclusion, after all these years I didn’t really understand how relatively small the bomb loads were on even “heavy bomber” (with piston engines) . Always saw gas turbines as massively increasing speed, altitude etc ...now realise how important they were to improve lifting power !

I'd say that proper twin engined training is something that would be beneficial regardless and likely did benefit later models of twin engine plane immensely. Not knowing what to do in the event of an engine failure isn't something that you'd want to persist as a lack in the training unless you really were just sending people off to die on purpose rather than hope they'd well not die and you'd get some better use out of both them and the plane alike. Likewise telling people to not use the wrong fuel seems like a good idea too.

Cool factor: A B-26 was used to test the centerline landing gear of the B-47. Training factor: back then, pilots didn't check much the pilots notes (or pilots handbook/manual) and used any speed they felt like using. Also wieght and balance was a new factor. Forcing pilots to use the company performance numbers was the vital point. -Boeing had the same problems with the B-29: manufacturing, maintenance, training, etc. The days of "flying by the seat of your pants" was over.

Martin was based in Baltimore. Their earlier aircraft were named the Maryland and Baltimore by the British.

i want to know the story of the picture at 25:05 where the front of the starboard engine has fallen off. it doesnt seem like it was shot off i would have expected a bit more damage but i cant say ive ever heard of the front of one just dropping off. from the look of the photo, the plane itself *has not* overtaken the engine thats fallen off which would imply whats fallen off is as fast as the main part of the plane, or its a really really weird angle shot and the whole lot is heading straight towards the ground anyway. either way, id love to know the background on that.

Oh, that's where the feed chutes came from!

My uncle in the Army Air Corps at the time called it the Baltimore Whore "since it had no visible means of support" I once had a discussion with a B 26 crew many years after the war, and they bristled at the derogatory nicknames. They said it was very fast and defensively armed, and interceptors in Europe just had one risky chance at them due to the high speed and firepower. The biggest issue was the non-super or turbo charged engines that limited altitude and power so they operated at lower altitudes and were easier targets for FLAK.

good looking plane with a bad wrap. many, if not most planes had growing pains

The Truman Committee investigation raised attention to the B-26. Ensuring that training and material problems were dealt with.

I wonder if things like this are roughly what's happening to the V-22 today.

Always had a soft spot for The Marauder.

Early in it's Pacific deployment, ground crew ramped up it's firepower. As a fast low level .50 cal and 20 mm strafing plane, the B26 ruined Japanese light craft and shore facilities that were the final legs of a long insecure logistics train. Thus many fortresses and garrisons were cut off, taken out of the war.

G'day, The "a bit weird" Nicknames related to Sex-workers was a Riff on the Little short Wings of the first 60 or so Production units... Small, short, Wings..., for more Go-FASTER-iness , but on a Bomber which was both Overweight and Underpowered ; that meant a High Stall speed, and a high Minimum Control Speed - so it was easy to stall & spin, while trying to fly in the Circuit and land..., and if one Engine failed on Takeoff the correct response was to close bith Throttles, switch off the Fuel & Master Electrical Switch, and Crash-land Straight ahead. Aeroplanes are Supported by their Wings. Marauders had Small Wings, and while they did a few things very well ("She throws a very good 'movement', so she does - when excited quite right...!") ; they had also some very unattractive and even repulsive habits... With the small wings equating to being somewhat "Lacking in Support", aeronautically squeaking... Meanwhile back in the Olden Dayze, a favourite Legal Charge often levied in Courts of Law, against Suspected Prostitutes - back then, when such "Entrepreneurial Busynesses" were both prohibited..., and the Law was enforced, Was that of having been found Out & about, at night, Unescorted, otherwise Unemployed - and..., "Lacking Any Visible Means Of Support..." Connect those dots, and the Early Marauder was soon tagged "The Flying Whore !". And, then, the Press Corps Sanitised and Bowdlerised that down to "Flying Prostitute" ; Because... Politikal Korrecticalitease, Apparentarily. Such is life, Have a good one... Stay at safe. ;-p Ciao !

My dad had a friend who destroyed 12 Zeros. He was the worst mechanic in the Japanese navy.

I seen some at the USAAF should have read up on their Chesterson and his Fence. If something weird exists, find out why it does because chances are high it has a reason for being there even if it's beyond you for now.

25:27 Engine just left the chat

Reading between the lines, the B26, B25 comparison looks like the B24, B17. On paper it is better aircraft, but in combat it was usually given relatively easier missions.

Hi. I'm going good thanks.

B-26's also had some fabulous nose art.

This plane defines the phrases "self-fulfilling prophesy" and "downward spiral". To the point at the end of it being an unsatisfying story, at least it flew in combat. There's tons of WW2 planes that took too long to get into production and either the war ended, or the jet engine made them redundant.

There was noting wrong with the handling and aerodynamics of the original small wing Marauder except a lack of training. The large wing cut near 40mph from the aircraft, more considering the greater power of the R-2800. The aircraft simply had a higher landing and takeoff speed than many aircraft of the day and that needs more training as modern "hot" aircraft do. -There were a myriad of teething problems. For instance the electrical variable pitch propeller often failed on takeoff and this lead to accidents. It was found that the technicians were draining the battery in test procedures. That's not the fault of the aerodynamics.

Don't be putting down my RC Cola! RC Cola Rocks! Of course only if you can't find Coca-Cola that is. lol! Great Channel!

One crashed in Jamaca during a training mission 1945.

You wonder was it better to just build a lot more B-25 Mitchell light bombers, which were far safer to fly and enjoyed a distinguished war record.

Haven't watched the video yet but this plane, when it started coming out of the factories and getting crews became known as a Widow Maker and crews had a really hard time making the decision between disobeying orders to fly and flying knowing that this really might be the last time you take off. The problem was that the wingspan was too short and when they added 4 feet, I think, to the span, it flew like a dream and everyone wanted to be in a Marauder! Now its watch time!

Great video. Wasn't the original Schnell bmber American designed ? Ju 88. B26 obviously had stunted wings.

The image of the engine complete with spinning prop which decided to go its own way looks funny in a way, but I can imagine it's not funny seeing this from within the plane. But having proper training how to fly the Marauder on a single engine the crew probably could have brought this puppy home if no hydraulics were lost or fire broke out.

I was at the Air Force museum and some dude that worked there saw us looking at the b26. He said "wanna see something cool" and he let me and my dad climb into the Bombay and into the cockpit pretty damn neat but I don't think I remember him talking about if it was any bad at all but I did hear him call it the flying coffin or the Baltimore whore.

This looks like the plane that was used in the TV adaptation of the book Catch 22.

Perhaps someone on this group can tell me why did the marauder have 4 machine guns on the sides when it was an medium level bomber and was proved to be a great medium level bomber but not so good down low ?

Royal Crown(RC), anytime over Coca-Cola. Don't know if they still make it, but their "Special Reserve" in bottles beats Coca-Cola hands down, not to mention having less "bad stuff" in it for you. 👍🤣

Much prettier than the B-25. Mitchel looks like a very early 1940s design, where Marauder looks like a mid 1940s design. Much like q P-40 versus P-51.

Don’t knock RC! It’s great!

Love that first image with the plane that had done so many sorties, the markers didn't even fit on the side, when it eventually crashed/crash-landed. Doesn't look like a "widow maker" to me - unless those on the receiving end (saying that as someone whose grandmother and mother survived Dresden...) Looking up some wing loading of modern aircraft: any modern fighter, but also any airliner you care to name has higher wing loading, at least twice, even three times as high! 14:46 looks like POWs from one of the European combatants. Russian, French, Italian? Weird juxtaposition with the commentary (about "lots of inexperienced aircrew").

The B-26 is my first experience with a red dot sight: I accepted its existence, accepted to use it, and I regreted it (couldn't see the cross in the sight at all, it was a sunny day, I blame it on the light)

I like trains...

I do not believe you can write off the B26 like so many did. Could the B26 have made a good living specializing in difficult targets? If I had been equipped with those planes I would think I would have organized them as the first wave into targets like Raubal and similar well protected targets, perhaps teamed up with other long range heavily armed fighters. A couple flights of marauders escorted by lightnings could certainly cause the defense to get off on the wrong foot.

Repeated comments associate wing loading with wing span. Poor editing?? Wing loading is independent of wing span, and directly calculated from total weight divided by Wing AREA. Wing span enters as aspect ratio, which if higher, is generally more efficient aerodynamically, with lots of details mattering differently at top speeds versus low speed stall. No attention in the video, and maybe in the design, to better flaps, which was a fast developing practice late pre-war. Comments on the suitability of the B26 properly should reference the alternative, the B25. My reading is they had far different roles, and performance, in combat. Whatever twin mandated the change in USAAF pilot training was going to catch flak for the necessary casualties to motivate the Army to get the poor syllabus fixed. The later planes had the benefit of properly trained pilots from the start. Aviation progress was inevitably headed towards higher performance, and higher wing loadings. Definitely a fascinating plane, whose history is symptomatic of the ferment and ambition aviation designers of the era were experiencing.

Training issues aside, it never did achieve versatile, fast bomber status .like the Ju 88.

Obviously, you’ve never experienced the nightlife in Baltimore!

To explain the Baltimore Whore nickname. It was built in Baltimore and has a small wing for its size and weight by the days standards so, "no visible means of support" which is apparently what ladies of the night where cited with when picked up by the law, a charge much like vagrancy. So it was from Baltimore and had " no visible means of support" hence "The Whore from Baltimore"

RC Cola is the best tasting cola.

11:38 The photo of the crew standing in front of the B-26 was my high school math and aviation ground school teacher LtC. Charles Keller and the crew of Keller’s Killer. He is the fellow in the hat with the fifty mission crush and aviator sunglasses. He had this same picture framed on the wall of his classroom.in 1979. Years later, I viewed this same photo on the wall of the old officers club at MacDill AFB, when I was stationed there in 1991. The aircraft is sans the demon head with crossed bombs behind that would eventually bedeck her. The name had to be struck from the aircraft because he said that they could not have any reference to killing on the plane. The enemy would use that as an excuse to strip them of their Geneva Conventions rights if they were shot down and captured. They were “bombing targets, not people” he would say. He was an outstanding teacher with some interesting war stories. The very model of the citizen/soldier. 🫡

Based on the introduction of this post does the creator have a clue about what he is saying?

it's not easy being (a) green (pilot)

Nicknamed “whore” and “prostitute” because the B-26 went down so easily. 😜 But seriously, I enjoyed the video - a lot of things I didn’t know about the Marauder. Many thanks. 🙂

You REALLY don't understand what placebo (or nocebo) is...

Confusingly post war the Martin B 26 was scrapped and the Douglas A 26 becacme the "new" B 26. Only later to be renamed A 26 again for political reasons in Vietnam.

The bad reputation was, as stated, bad training. Germany had a simiIar problen in the 1960s with the F-104. I believe the B-26 had the same problem the P-38 had, if you lost an engine on take off the natural thing to do was to go full power on the running engine. Wrong, it could cause a roll and stall. The procedure was to reduce power on the running engine until proper trim was put in. To solve the high wing loading and create more lift the Army had the wings lengthened and the angle of incidence (wing pitch relative to the fuselage) increased. But the Army also called for the addtion of more equipment which raised the weight of the aircraft so the wing loading did not change. The British like they did with the B-17s they were given, and told those versions of B-17 were not for combat use, used them on disastrous low level missions, and being british blamed the failure on the planes. The B-26 had very little clearance between the prop tips and the ground when landing and taking off so the props could, and did, hit coral rocks, most of the Pacific runways were made of crushed coral. That and the preferance for longer runways it was decided to use the B-26s in Europe and not the Pacific. The Martin Electric turret was a chance meeting of a Martin executive and a VP of General Electric on a train. He explained they could not find the electric motors they needed to make the turret work. The GE man agreed to design and build what they needed. Interesting argument about the plane was too much trouble to fix. The F4U had even more problems. Guess they should not have built them either. The B-58 required good dedicated pilots too.

RC Cola is made by... Keurig Dr Pepper

Folks think the “Dunning Kruger Effect” means too-dumb-to-know-that-you’re-dumb. Actually, it’s really about how the less you know, the more Confident you are, and you shouldn’t be…

RC Cola is superior

I gave you a thumbs down. Because, you know, no one cares about RC Cola. But if you want to pay more for a cinnamon cola, be my guest.

1 min 3 veiws bro fell off

B-26 (not A-26) remained in fairly wide usage in Post War Service in USA and during Korea War, the scrapping of the B-26 in Europe at the end of hostilities was down to them being worn out -in fact a lot of the March April and last missions in NWE on 1st May were flown by B-26s and last loss in Europe was a SAAF B-26 on May 4th in Balkans. The US B-26 operating in the Med had a good reputation but high attrition rate. Probably the worn condition so handing them off to other Client Air forces just wasn't a thing, the British and Commonwealth handed them in almost as soon as hostilities end but the French ran them in Squadron service until 1947 with a few being used as Test bed development airframes. The main reason for scrapping them in Europe was the USA didn't want them returned as flying them home would tie up pilots and the cost of fuel for flying them home or dismantling them for ship passage was prohibitive, - remember the Pacific war was still on going and anything capable of lugging a B-26 across the Atlantic (like an Escort carrier which were used as medium Bomber transports) was probably far more useful in the POA for the build up for Downfall. As it was many Soviet A-20s and some P-63s in the Soviet Far east in late 1945 were broken up on the dockside by dedicated scraping vessels, who were than ordered to take the cut wings engines and flatten fuselages to out beyond coastal waters and throw them overboard. As I said B-26 were used generally in Post War service in USA until replaced by Jet medium bombers like B 47 and B57, this allowed these Jets and others like the B 45 to serve in Europe, - some B-26 equipped units were used to test air defense against a Soviet incursion (so TU-4) so serving well into the 1950s, and were also used in Korea. And no I don't mean Invaders I mean Marauders, the B-26 having a reputation for phenomenal accuracy (stable bombing platform), that none of the other wartime US mediums like A20, B-25, and A-26 could manage.

Imo, they would have been better building B-25's instead of these, like the performance is essentially the same, for far less hassle. Before this video i was under the impression that this was fast bomber like say Mosquito, able to go +/-600km/h but no, its actually slower than friggin bog-standard Junkers Ju 88 A-4..

Didn’t the Glen A Martin company make all of those bizarre TV 📺 programs in the 1960s like The Invaders and so on, it would explain quite a lot of the issues here…. 🥸😎🇬🇧🙏🇺🇸🤝⚽️📚🗞️