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BILLY MITCHELL CAME TO MONTANA

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The B-25 Mitchell medium bomber

On Monday, July 27, 2020, the Maid in the Shade, a World War II-era B-25 Mitchell medium bomber, flew into the Billings Logan International Airport in Billings, Montana. The Maid in the Shade is part of the Commemorative Air Force based in Mesa, Arizona, and is a B-25J-model medium bomber of World War II fame. Although I had previously viewed the more famous B-17 Flying Fortress as well as the B-24 Liberator, both heavy bombers, this was my first time to step aboard a B-25. For me, an amateur historian, it was a thrilling sensation.

The Maid in a Shade was a B-25J model, and it carried extra machine guns for strafing purposes.
Those two pods were M2 .50 caliber HB machine guns. They were for strafing ground or sea targets.

Being able to stand in the cramped quarters of the fuselage, where the “waist gunner” stood while attempting to shoot down enemy fighters that were trying to kill him as well as the other members of his plane, was an enormous adrenalin rush for this long-time military history aficionado. Then climbing precariously into the cockpit area and looking out the glass panes through which the pilot and co-pilot viewed the world would send chills down the spine of even the least history-minded person. Of course, there were parts of the plane that were precluded as there were six seats installed for those who could fork out over $500 to get a ride on this cherished part of history. The plane, which took years to be meticulously restored into the same fire-breathing light killer that the United States Army Air Corps took to battle, looked every bit as battle-ready as it did during its maiden flight in 1944. I was shocked by how little room there really is in this vintage aircraft. When you watch the movies that Hollywood produces, you don’t realize just how much they skew things when they make their movie sets.

Although the famous “Doolittle Raid,” first brought to the American public in the 1943 book Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, by Captain Ted W. Lawson along with newspaperman Bob Considine, and then memorialized a year later in the film, starring Spencer Tracy and Van Johnson, would make the B-25 Mitchell bomber famous, it’s been lost in the shadow of its more illustrious contemporary aircraft, the B-17, B-24 and B-29, of which one, the Enola Gay, would drop the first atomic weapon ever used in warfare.

I was able to speak with one of the flight crew, of this “J” model B-25 bomber, for about half an hour. It was well worth the time as well as the $10 spent for an introductory lesson into a part of our nation’s history. As he sat in a folding chair in the shade provided by one of the wings of this beautiful aircraft, I received a brief history of the plane.

The earlier B-models had both a bombardier and navigator even though they only had a crew of five. As you can see, with this later J-model, there was not room for both a bomber and navigator so the crew member had to do both jobs as well as handle both machines in the nose.
There were two waist guns, one on each side, of the fuselage, but only one crew member to fire them.
The tail gunner had a twin-mounted pair of M2 .50 caliber machines to protect their six o’clock, or rear, position.
That’s the dorsal turret, just aft of the cockpit. It had a pair of .50 caliber M2 machine guns, and the Flight Engineer fired them. That turret could rotate 360 degrees. Some B-25s were used strictly for strafing ground or sea targets. In these planes the front glass was fared over and additional guns were added. Some models had as many as eight .50 caliber machine guns added to the front. Some even had a 75 mm, or three-inch cannon.

I found out that the J-model of the B-25 bomber had a crew of six members. Earlier models, such as the one that Lieutenant Colonel James Harold (Jimmy) Doolittle took off the flight deck of the USS Hornet, only had five personnel onboard. And, unlike the B-17, made famous by the movie and later television series, Twelve O’clock High, there was not room in the nose for both a bombardier and navigator. On this plane, there was just enough room for one seat, so the bombardier was, also, the navigator. There were two M2 .50 caliber heavy machineguns in the nose, but only one person. One gun was in the center of the glass canopy, while the second was lower and to the right of that gun. The pilot, in command of the plane, and his co-pilot sat in the cockpit. The flight engineer manned the top or dorsal gun, a twin-mounted set of .50 caliber machine guns. There were two guns in the waist, one on either side, but only one gunner. He had to fire the gun needed the most at the time. And in the rear of the plane was another twin-mounted .50 caliber machine gun system.

The B-25 Bomber was named after William (Billy) Lendrum Mitchell, who is regarded by some as “the father of the United States Air Force.” Mitchell, who served in World War I, eventually became a “two-star” Major General and served as commander of American air units in that first war to end all wars. Mitchell’s father, John L. Mitchell, who served alongside Arthur MacArthur during the American Civil War, became a Senator from the state of Wisconsin. For those of you who don’t know who Arthur MacArthur was, you may know his more famous son, Douglas MacArthur. This pair of American legends were the first father/son combo to be awarded the medal of honor. The only other duo to be accorded this honor was Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States and his son, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., who was awarded his medal for actions on June 6, 1944, during the D-Day invasion of Normandy Beach.

That was one of the flight crew sitting under the wing. He was very informative and a delight to talk with.

It was Mitchell, who first realized the importance of air power, that recognized war with Japan was inevitable and even predicted an attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. Mitchell, an advocate of “floating bases” or aircraft carriers, proved, on July 21, 1921, that air power, alone, could sink a battleship, when his aircraft sank the former German battleship Ostfriesland. After a series of lighter bombs, over a day and a half, had damaged, but not sunk the former German man-of-war, Mitchell’s land-based bombers dropped six 2,000 lb. bombs with the intention of not directly striking the ship, but rather hitting alongside it. The concussion of these bomb blasts ripped open holes in the side of the ship. The dreadnaught sank in just twenty-two minutes. Air power had arrived for good.

As you can see, the nose art on these WWII era aircraft could be very eye-catching. The Maid in a Shade flew out of Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean Sea, to the west of Italy.
The Maid in the Shade only flew fifteen bombing mission during her war-time years.

Mitchell’s caustic nature, however,  antagonized and created much discord, not only with the navy but the army as well. In 1925, a presidential order by Calvin Coolidge brought charges against Billy Mitchell in a military court-martial. The youngest member of the court was a two-star, Major General, named Douglas MacArthur, who would go on to become the General of the Army, a five-star rank. He said the order to sit on Mitchell’s court-martial was “one of the most distasteful orders ‘he’ ever received.” Although he lost his case, many of Mitchel’s contemporaries testified for him, including Florello La Guardia, who would go on to be the 99th mayor of New York City and see an airport named for him, WWI famed ace Eddie Rickenbacker, who led all American aces with 26 kills, and Hap Arnold who would command the United States air forces during the second world war and eventually become a five-star general in not only the United States Army but also the United States Air Force in 1947.

While the Memphis Belle, a vintage B-17 Flying Fortress, famed for being one of the first bombers to survive twenty-five missions, and the Enola Gay, a B-29 Superfortress, perhaps the most famous of all airplanes, are known universally, there are no such names for the B-25. The closest, perhaps as a result of Johnson’s book Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, might be the Ruptured Duck, which he flew during the Doolittle Raid. Very few of these medium airplanes still exist. So being able to view and even step onboard The Maid in a Shade was an uplifting experience.

The B-25 bomber could carry up to 5,000 pounds of bombs. Later models could carry up to eight rockets in mounts under each wing.
I’m assuming these were probably “dummy bombs.”
For the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo in April, 1942, his sixteen B-25B models carried just four 500-lb. bombs. Three were “high explosive” ordinance and the other was a cluster of incendiaries. Due to their extreme range, those plans had to carry much extra fuel and this limited their payload. Still, one of the planes, piloted by 1st Lieutenant Edgar E. McElroy struck the light carrier Ryuho, thus delaying her launch for several months.

Quite possibly the most famous of the B-25 bombers were the 16 specially modified B-25B bombers that Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle led from the carrier Hornet on April 18 to bomb Tokyo and other Japanese cities in the immediate area. Just a little over four months after the treacherous sneak attack by the Imperial Japanese Navy on the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, this assault, the first on mainland Japan, was an enormous moral booster for the people of the United States. Perhaps, even more, however, it led to the end of the war. Why you may ask? In the first four months of the war, the Japanese knew no defeat. At the height of their power, the Nipponese controlled over 20 million square miles of territory. Between December 7, 1941, the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor and April 18, 1942, there was very little good news for the American people. After the Doolittle Raid, the war started to turn. For one thing, it gave a shot in the arm, or large moral boost to not only the armed forces of the United States but also, to the American citizens. Most importantly, however, was the effect it had on the Japanese military leadership. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, having failed to catch the American aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor was working on a plan to lure them to destruction at the island of Midway in the Central Pacific Ocean. The Japanese Army, though, wanted to invade Australia and as such they were working on plans to capture Port Moresby on the southern portion of the island of New Guinea. At the same time, they made plans to capture the islands of Tulagi and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, a distance of a little over 1,100 miles from Australia. It’s a little less than 100 miles from New Guinea to the northern shores of Australia. As a result of the Doolittle Raid, they bit off more than they could chew, and thus, lost the war.

There were seven seats added for passengers. During the actual war, the only seats were in the cockpit, the nose and tail of the plane. The guys in the fuselage would sit on their parachutes.
One of the waist guns. Unlike the famous B-17 and B-24 bombers, there was only one waist gunner. I guess he used which ever one was needed at the time.

This seat was at the rear of the fuselage. From the website, they say the passenger could crawl through the tube to the “rear guns” after the plain was airborne.
The twin .50s of the rear turret. Since the USS Hornet and her task force was spotted so far out, the decision was made to launch the raid the strike about ten hours ahead of schedule. Due to this, they stripped everything they could to lighten the plane. Those two guns were replaced with broomstick handles that were painted black. Apparently this ruse fooled the Japanese fighters, that were launched, as their were no attacks from the vulnerable rear.

Yamamoto was allowed to push forward with Operation MI, the attack on Midway, but the army  still wanted their slice of pie and so continued preparations for an attack in the Solomon Islands so they could build airstrips on Guadalcanal and nearby Tulagi while also invading the southern portion of New Guinea with the intent of capturing Port Moresby. This would have devastating consequences for the Japanese juggernaut.

Barely three weeks later, in a running two-day battle on May 7/8, the United States Task Force 11 (USS Lexington and supporting ships) and Task Force 17 (USS Yorktown with her supporting ships) fought the Imperial Japanese Navy’s Fifth Carrier Division’s Shokaku and Zuikaku, two veterans of the Pearl Harbor strike in December 1941, and the Tulagi Invasion Force with the light carrier Shoho.

Although the Japanese won a tactical victory by sinking the Lexington, destroyer Sims, and fleet oiler Neosho while also damaging the carrier USS Yorktown, the United States, won a strategic victory when the Japanese aborted their attack on Port Moresby. As history will show, that was the closest the Japanese Empire came to invading Australia.

Meanwhile, the United States only managed to sink the light carrier Shoho and damage the fleet carrier Shokaku. The Americans did, however, destroy a large portion of Zuikaku’s aircraft. Both of these carriers would not be available for the Battle of Midway one month later. This would have critical impact on the battle that many have called “the turning point of World War II.” In addition, U.S. forces sank the IJN destroyer Kikuzuki and three minesweepers and damaged an additional four ships that were supporting the landings on Tulagi.

A month later, on June 4, 1942, the results of Jimmy Doolittle’s raid would really bear fruit. Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo’s 1st Carrier Striking Force struck the island of Midway, 1,074 miles from Pearl Harbor. This time, however, there would be a far different outcome. He would have four aircraft carriers, all veterans of the Pearl Harbor raid not quite six months before, but he would not have the carriers Shokaku and Zuikaku. While trying to appease the army and at the same time conduct his Midway campaign, Admiral Yamamoto overstretched his resources. The loss of the two carriers from the Coral Sea campaign would come back to haunt him.

That’s the dorsal turret, with it’s two .50 caliber machine guns. The Flight Engineer manned this top turret during the flight.
The cockpit of the B-25. A fighter had the “yoke” or joystick to fly his plane. The bombers had a more traditional-type steering wheel. The pilot flew in the left-hand seat while the co-pilot sat on the right.

I could spend an entire day talking about the Battle of Midway, but the purpose of this article is not about that glorious day which changed the course of history. Needless to say, it was a great victory for the United States and was the turning point of World War II. At the loss of one carrier, the USS Yorktown and one destroyer, the USS Hammond, the combined fleets under Rear Admirals Frank Jack Fletcher and Raymond A. Spruance, sank the IJN aircraft carriers, Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, along with the heavy cruiser Mikuma. Those four carriers were veterans of the dastardly attack on a sleeping Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. From this point forward, the Japanese found themselves retreating, as for the first time, the allies in the Pacific could finally go on the offensive. Although there would still be three more years of bitter fighting in the Pacific Ocean, The United States had turned the corner, and it all started with a raid by 80 hard-charging fighters in their sixteen jaunty B-25 bombers.

There was a tube running underneath the cockpit. This led to the nose, and was how the bombardier/navigator reached his post.
This model, the J-model, had two .50 caliber machine guns in the nose, one firing through the front and a second on the right side. But there was only one crew member. Again, he would have to make the decision as to which gun he could use.
As you can see, on this later “J-model” there was only one seat in the nose. The bombardier was also the navigator. On the earlier models, such as the B-25B, the one that Doolittle’s raiders flew, there was both a bombardier and a navigator.

For his role in this epic attack, Doolittle was promoted two ranks, to Brigadier General, a one-star rank, and awarded the Medal of Honor. He went on to command the famed 8th Air Force as a Lieutenant General, three stars and helped force Adolf Hitler’s 1,000-year Reich into submission. Forty years later, President Ronald Reagan, at the behest of the United States Congress pinned a forth star on his shoulders. At that time, Doolittle was on the Air Force retired list.

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