1944 Marauder

[BUCKWHEAT]

Interesting article in the June 8-9 Wall Street Journal on the B-26 Marauder in support of D-day. The 1944 Marauder, like ours, was known for getting you home.

[sailsmen]

One of my mentors was a B-24 waist gunner stationed in England.

We had a common hobby, restoring WWI and WWII military rifles. He is also a Car Guy.

He had a shop at his house and I used to go over there to practice our hobbies.

He was a business partner of my father and mentored me in the business.

I also worked with his son and we keep in touch.

When I was in my late 20's he told some of his experiences as a waist gunner.

The best advise he ever gave me was - "Never let the Bastard's get you down".

[88LTDCV351]

Make sure to follow the Wings of Freedom tours all across the country from the Collings Foundation. One of the most awesome things I did was take one of their B-17 and B-24 rides. Totally awesome!

[PonyGuy]

Interesting article in the June 8-9 Wall Street Journal on the B-26 Marauder in support of D-day. The 1944 Marauder, like ours, was known for getting you home.

Mr. Buckwheat, the B-26 Marauder was known as the "Widowmaker" due to its unusual characteristics for take-off and landing...
On the early models, the wings were a little bit too short, causing the plane to stall if it landed too slowly... it had to be brought down with a landing speed of ~150 MPH, which was unusually fast for a medium bomber at the time. Later aircraft had wings about 2 meters longer, with an adjustment to their angle-of-attack, which brought the plane's characteristics closer to its peer aircraft.

[BUCKWHEAT]

AND the props had too big a diameter to land on the make-shift Pacific theater runways. Used mainly in ETO.