Marauder Men of the Metroplex - Marauder Specs

THE B-26 MARAUDER

One of the most successful warplanes of WWII, the Matin B-26 had a record unequaled, particularly in the European Theater.

Manufacturer:
Glenn L. Martin Company of Baltimore, MD.

Designer:
Peyton M. Magruder

Nicknames:
Widowmaker, Flying Prostitute, ....

Bombers Built:
5,157 between Nov. 25, 1940 and March of 1945.

Armament:
Eleven .50 caliber Machine Guns:
* One flexible nose gun
* Two fixed guns on each side of forward fueselage
* Twin fifties in the upper deck turret
* Two individual waist guns
* Twin fifties in the tail
Maximum bomb load of 5200 pounds

Power:
Two 1850 hp Pratt & Whitney R-288-5 Wasps with
four bladed 13 ft. 6 in. Curtiss electric Props.
Later 2000 hp Pratt & Whitney R-2800

War Record:
Flew 53% (129,943 sorties) of all medium bombing missions, delivering 169,382 tons of bombs, and claiming 402 airborn enemy aircraft destroyed.
This was achieved with a loss rate of only .07 percent (911 aircraft) or less than half of her sister B-17 and B-24 bombers.

1st Missions:
Used by the RAF in the Middle East in early 1942.
USAAF began utilizing the Marauder on April 5, 1942 in an attack from Australia on the Japenese fortress at Rabaul. On June 4, 1942, four B26s flew from Midway Island with underslung torpedoes during the Battle of Midway. This was the turning of the tide in the Pacific.

European:
USAAF began opeations in the ETO on May 14, 1943 with the 8th Air Force. When the 9th AF was reassigned to England as a tactical airforce in October, the B-26 became its principal attack bomber. The success of the Normandy invasion on D-Day was due in part to the isolation of the battlefield by the 9th AF Marauder attacks against Luftwaffe airfields, railway marshaling yards, and bridges.

Durability:
By the end of the war, the B-26 set a record for any bomber type in Europe with more than 250 individual aircraft flying greater than 100 missions apiece.

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