Planes from the past: B-25 history and Alaska

by Air Force Staff Sgt. William Banton
JBER Public Affairs

7/28/2014 - JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- Patrons of this year's Arctic Thunder Open House will hear the telltale signs of America's modern airpower in the jet wash and propellers of military aircraft demonstrations. However, if they listen closely, they may also hear the sound of freedom in the distinctive rumblings of planes from the past.

"Everybody loves the piston engine planes," said Joe Orr, 673d Air Base Wing historian. "You start them up and there is a distinctive sound."

This year's piston engine sounds come in the form of the T-6 Texan, Fairchild American Pilgrim 100, Harvard MkIIB and the B-25 Mitchell Bomber.

"The T-6 was the most popular trainer during World War II by both the Army Air Corps and the Navy," Orr said. "There were several models made. I don't' know about the differences but I know there were a lot of them. There were thousands of [the T-6] made."

The open house also features a plane with history directly tied to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.

"The B-25 is quite significant, they were all over Alaska but they saw a significant amount of action out in the Aleutian campaign," the historian said.

According to the National Museum of the Air Force, the B-25 medium bomber was one of the most famous airplanes of World War II. It was the type of plane used by Gen. Jimmy Doolittle for the Tokyo Raid on Japan after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

"What most people don't know is that the 11th Air Force's B-25s, flying out of Shemya and Attu, bombed Northern Japan," Orr said. "They were the first planes to bomb Japan after Doolittle, and they were coming out of Alaska."

The B-25 saw duty in every combat area being flown by the Dutch, British, Chinese, Russians and Australians in addition to U.S. forces. Although the airplane was originally intended for level bombing from medium altitudes, it was used extensively in the Pacific Theater for bombing Japanese airfields and beach emplacements from treetop level, and for strafing and skip bombing enemy shipping.

"They're surprisingly small," Orr said. "The first thing you notice is that the F-22 is almost the same size as one of these. As far as overall dimensions on an F-22, I would be hard pressed to say that it's smaller than a B-25."

The B-25, and later the B-26, was considered a medium bomber during World War II. These types of aircraft were generally twin engine, twin tailed, mid-wing land mono-planes. The B-25 was powered by two 1,700-hp Wright Cyclone engines and had a bomb capacity of around 5,000 pounds.

"The B-25 was also the primary combat aircraft that the 3rd Wing flew in Australia and Negaunee during World War II," Orr said.

During the war, the 3rd Wing stripped the plane of some of its bombing capabilities and added additional guns to the front and sides of the planes -- a decision at the time, which many believed would render the aircraft non-flyable.

"Billy Mitchell and the engineers said it wouldn't fly, it was too front heavy," Orr said. "But they proved him wrong. Basically what they did is fly in with six or seven forward firing. 50-caliber machineguns firing a spread of bullets at a ship, or whatever, and everyone would dive for cover.

"They came in 30 feet above the water. They came in very low and as they would fly over they would drop parachute bombs. The parachute would slow the bomb down so it would float in to the target. If they didn't do that, they were far enough down and close enough to the ground or the target that when it exploded they would be hit by the blast."

By the time they started coming out with the jets in the 50's the technology was progressing to a point where the pilots were getting less in touch with the plane, he said.
"Now it's all computerized," the historian said. "I've been told the pilots are still flying the plane, but there is a computer on board making adjustments all the time to keep the plane flat, level and flying."

The pilots would push up and it would go up but all the movements were controlled totally by the pilot, he said.

"Really the history is not these planes," Orr. said "The people who flew them made the history. What really is important is to spark the imagination of people -- not about the planes but about the people who flew the planes and who worked on the planes."