North American Aviation B-25 Mitchell
Named in honor of military aviation advocate Billy Mitchell, the twin-engine B-25 was America’s most produced medium bomber of the war, with nearly 10,000 built. A versatile and durable airplane that could absorb significant punishment and keep flying, it was designed in response to a 1939 Air Corps solicitation that called for an airplane capable of carrying a 2400 lbs bombload for 1200 miles at 300 m.p.h. First flown in 1940 and entering service in 1941, the B-25 exceeded the bomb load and range requirements, with 3000 lbs for 1350 miles, while coming close to the solicited speed at 272 m.p.h. Later versions flew faster than 300 m.p.h., were capable of carrying bombloads of more than 5000 lbs, and, with drop tanks, had a range of over 3000 miles.
The B-25’s range made it ideal for the vast expanses of the Asian and Pacific Theaters, and it was there that most Mitchells served during the war. Their first major operation was the Doolittle Raid in April of 1942, when B-25s were flown off aircraft carriers to bomb Tokyo – a raid that caused the Japanese high command such loss of face that it set in motion what turned out to be a catastrophic attempt to seize Midway a few months later.
The B-25’s versatility lent itself to a variety of roles revolving around interdiction, close air support, and especially in Burma, battlefield isolation and destruction of communication links. Designed for medium-altitude level bombing, that proved ineffectual over the dense vegetation of Asia and the Pacific, so the B-25s came down and performed superbly in low-level attacks with parachute-retarded bombs that slowed their descent, allowing the Mitchells to exit the blast zone before detonation. Ground attack versions equipped with up to 18 forward-firing .50 caliber machine guns were employed in strafing runs that shredded their targets. B-25s were similarly adaptable at sea, where they proved lethal against Japanese shipping in skip bombing attacks whereby Mitchells skimmed the waves before releasing their bombs to skip over the water’s surface to their targets.
In North Africa and the Mediterranean, B-25s were used in ground support, and in the Italian Campaign, were employed in severing rail and road links. The US Army Air Force did not use B-25s in the European Theater of Operations, but the RAF received 900 Mitchells through Lend-Lease and put them to good use in ground support roles, as did the Free French.