They Took a Licking
One illustration of the punishment the B-25 could withstand is the B-25C Patches, assigned to the 321st Bombardment Group fighting in the MTO. Patches was so named because after all of the patched bullet and flak holes punched in the airframe were repaired, her crew chief painted each new patch with bright yellow-green zinc chromate primer.
Patches absorbed 400 hits from enemy fire and flak, was landed on her belly six times, and flew more than 300 missions. By the time Patches was retired, pilots reported that in order to fly her, eight degrees of left aileron trim and six degrees of right rudder trim were required just to get her to fly in the same direction. Even so, Patches didn’t fly straight and level so much as she crabbed through the air sort of sideways!
War Winner Out of a Job
After the war ended, like so many of the other aircraft that fought and won it, thousands of B-25s were unceremoniously scrapped and smelted down for razor blades. Only a few hundred of them were left by the time the United States Air Force (USAF) was created in 1947.
TB-25s trainers continued to serve into the 1950s, primarily as multi-engine trainers for fledgling Air Force bomber, tanker, and transport pilots and navigators. Some B-25s were stripped of most military equipment and used as VB-25 personnel transports.
During the 1950s, many Air Force bases (AFBs) and Air National Guard bases (ANGBs) had a B-25 or two assigned as “base hack” or proficiency aircraft that deskbound eagles could use to maintain their flight status (and monthly flight pay). Several of these survivors received the Hayes exhaust system modification, resulting in a slightly less-deafening exhaust note than the characteristic howl of the B-25’s Wright R-2600 Double Cyclone engines.
Museum Pieces
The very last operational United States Air Force B-25, a TB-25J, Air Force serial 44-30854, was flown from Turner AFB in Georgia to Eglin AFB in Florida on 21 May 1960. Four surviving Doolittle Tokyo raiders attended a ceremony to retire the aircraft.
The aircraft eventually ended up at the National Museum of the United States Air Force wearing the colors of Doolittle’s lead aircraft. The last operational B-25s anywhere in the world were Indonesian B-25Js. These veteran aircraft were finally retired in 1979.
Operators of the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber include Australia, Biafra, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, China, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, France, Indonesia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Spain, Russia, the United Kingdom, USAAC, USN, USMC, Uruguay, and Venezuela. There are roughly 55 flyable B-25s maintained around the world today.
Movie Stars
B-25s have starred in several movies over the years, including Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (MGM 1944), In Harm’s Way (Paramount 1965), Hanover Street (Columbia 1979), Forever Young (Warner Brothers 1992), and Pearl Harbor (Touchstone 2001). The ultimate B-25 movie is, without a doubt, Catch-22, which was filmed in Mexico and released by Paramount in 1970.
The movie gathered 17 flyable B-25s and one non-flyable hulk. The hulk was used for the crash scene. The aerial sequences (including that unforgettable mass takeoff) required three months to shoot. B-25s only appeared in the movie for about 12 minutes. Do you know of any other movies in which B-25s appeared?
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A guy named Joe
Always (based on A Guy Named Joe)
My first flight as a young airman two striper was in a B-25 “hack” in 1956 from Griffiss to Stewart in New York. I sat on a bench just behind the pilots and directly in line with the propeller tips just inches beyond the skin of the ship. It was a very loud hour long trip. Pretty cool, though.
The SF B-movie “THEM!”
The doctors from Washington arrive in a B25
In the B Movie, The Claw”, the generals who were in command of the military response to a large alien bird terrorizing air and ground transportation, used a stripped-down B-25 with a cannon mounted in the tail to shoot “atomic fireballs” at the bird’s protective shield as it tried to catch the plane. Then, it used wing mounted rockets to kill it.
A B-25 was part of the story in No Time for Sergeants. The aircraft was being flown by Will Hutchins (later Sugarfoot) and Jamie Farr (MASH) with Nick Adams (The Rebel) and Andy Griffith as crew. I encountered Mr. Farr once as we waited to depart Little Rock Regional Airport, and I remarked about his appearance in this film. He said, “wow, that was before I was in the army”. He probably expected that I would ask about his part in MASH.
I lost interest reading this when the author describes the B-25 “Gull Wing” as having an anhedral angle. This is incorrect. The outer wing panels are mounted at zero degrees dihedral/anhedral. Because the inner wing panels are mounted with a dihedral the appearance is of a “gull wing” but it is strictly appearance. FWIW, the first 10 B-25’s, including “Miss Hap” which still flies, were constructed with a consistent dihedral from root to tip but later modified with the outer wing at a zero angle when shown to improve stability and handling.
A B-25 also appeared in “633 Squadron”.
I didn’t think it was possible to auger in and walk away with serious injury
My Uncle who was an Air Force pilot in WWII told me one of his experiences was ferrying B25’s to Fairbanks Alaska where they were then turned over to the Russians who wanted them for tank busters against the Germans. He was career Air Force and finished in the NSA.
How about 1992’s Forever Young, Mel Gibson is a B-25 pilot.
My dad flew B-25’s in the S Pacific in WWII. He had a engine blown off the mounts over Rabaul. They had no hydraulics or radios and flew back to Sterling Island and made a single engine gear up flaps up landing on the Japanese dirt strip. He was the only one injured as his L ear drum was ruptured when the Pom Pom shell hit the L Engine. Dad was loosing altitude and had the CE and a gunner opened the bomb doors with a crank, loosened the shackles an kicked loose the 4, 250 pound bombs with VT fuses set at 50 feet. 1LT Scruggs was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.