B-25 Bomber - The Bloody 500. Remembering the 345th Bomb Group, The Air Apaches Of WW2

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Proudest achievement of my Dad''s life was to pilot one of these. He was deemed too old for the Army Air Corp at first. They didn't want to take him because he was "too old" (at 27) and had a child. They called him "Pops" in his group. He did his training at Garner Army Air Field in Uvalde, Tx. He said that with the engines just outside the cabin you couldn't hear yourself scream. I still have his silver wings and his dress uniform.

My wife's uncle completed 35 missions on a B25 as a rear gunner. in the Canadian Air Force. The entire crew of this plane survived the first 25 missions and volunteered for an additional 10 more missions.

My dad flew 50 missions as a pilot in the 345th/500th and survived to tell the stories!! He was also a courier for Doolittle!

My father was a B-25 pilot in the 500th Bomb Squadron, 345th Bomb Group. He deployed with the unit from SC to Port Moresby and flew missions until late 1943. His plane was SNAFU/MFUTU that was lost over Rabaul. He ditched Lil D Icer without loss to his crew. His last mission involved friendly bombs dropped on his plane, Bugger-Off, that sustained significant damage and injured he and others of the crew. It never spoke about his time in the pacific theater. It was tough time for his squadron and he ended flying just before it really got tough. God Bless all of these Air Apaches! F. Naigle

My Grandfather was in new New Guinea and Rabaul. Been looking for a doc about the Rough Raiders! Thank You!

I grew up in Wichita Kansas the air capital, God bless Jimmy Doolittle.

At one point Pappy had 14 forward facing .50 cal Duces in a Mitchell, 8 in the nose 2 in blisters each side cockpit plus the 2 dorsal ball turret, I've read it would put out so much mass that ships hulls would start coming apart at the welds:face-orange-raised-eyebrow:

One of the greats from the greatest generation.

I have a signed copy of Warpath Across The Pacific the story of the 345th Bomb Group. They had high resolution cameras in the planes. The pictures in this book are insane.

I'd suggest that the PB4Y-2—the single-tailed Navy version of the B-24—was the original inspiration for the DC-3 and, later, the AC-130 gunships. While the B-25 was deadly in a head-on strafing attack, the essence of the later gunships is the orbiting attack, in which many guns are sighted down one wing, allowing incredible weight of fire to be poured onto a single target point for many seconds. A PB4Y-2 could point as many as 10 .50 machine guns down one wing, allowing the pilot to circle the target and destroy it almost instantly. This was a tactic used by PB4Y-2s in attacking subs and shipping. The first plane would attack in the circle maneuver, eliminating any crew on deck manning AA guns, while a second bomber set up for a bombing run to sink the enemy ship.

Not sure if mentioned, there is a J model B-25 gunship at the Military Aviation Museum, Virginia beach, Virginia. Worth the $17 bucks alone.

My father was based at Nadzab and other New Guinea and Phillipines bases

My father flew 45 B25 combat missions with the 500th squadron and he went thru two aircrews, all killed. He was grounded for one mission and his crew was shot down over Clark AFB, but that’s when it was held by the Japanese. Ground troops murdered all of his friends by their damaged B25. His 2nd B25 crew were all killed on a Formosa mission after Dad rotated home after he had enough points. Pappy Gunn was a retired Naval aviator who knew how to make things happen. He couldn’t stand pencil pushers, so he was well respected by all of the B25 combat crews. My Dad never talked much about the war until his kids were all grown. Dad and I went to one reunion in the 1980’s and their combat stories are wild. Someday their story will be told. It would make one hell of a movie. The 345th Bomb Group were the original Wild Bunch!! 👍👍🥃🥃🍺🍺😎

An Engineer friend of mine at Ft. Belvoir, VA was part of this Squadron, and flight. Man the tales he told were jaw dropping. 👍👍🤴⭐

My dad was in the 3rd Attack Group 90th Squadron 5th AAF as a gunner in one of, or perhaps the only A 20 in the B25 Squadron. So I believe he might've flown his parafrag missions with the 89th as he went to their reunions. I wish I'd have gotten more detailed information about that before he passed away. He was transferred to New Guinea only about a month before they moved into the newly liberated parts of the Philippines and spent much of his time in the new Douglas A26 Invader. He said that in New Guinea he shot a huge rat off the foot of his cot with a .45 ACP but only once by popular demand of tentmates . . . that and the cleanup on which he soloed. . He missed out on the Battle of the Bismark Sea where they and Australian Beufighters wrecked a Japanese Army armed transport convoy by skip bombing and strafing. That's probably fortunate because you could get shot up on the approach to those transports by deck guns that the Beufighters 20 mm nose cannons either missed or they were re-manned and if you had to ditch an A20 in the water the Gunner didn't really have a handy way to escape the aircraft as his compartment was separate with access on the bottom of the fuselage. . He claimed he never got to use the fancy new-tech gun turrets defending the A26 because their P38 escorts, like the Aces loaded 475th, wouldn't let anything that could actually catch them from behind anywhere near them. They also had the eight M2 Fifty calibers in the nose so a head-on attack was going to be your last act in any event. He certainly didn't mind and thought the world of those guys. He got to occupy Japan for awhile stationed in Osaka and went to the States on some merchant scow seasick the whole way.

It’s no surprise the manually loaded 75mm gun was too slow firing. The British Tsetse Mosquito had a 57mm six pounder (high velocity) anti tank gun with auto loader. It could easily sink U-boats but at about 40 rounds per minute they could only deliver about five rounds in an attack dive. The type was not continued, because eight rocket projectiles did more damage and the plane could keep its four 20mm cannons. 30mm guns with AP rounds would have probably been more useful than the single Six Pounder.

It would be physically impossible for the plane to come to a complete stop in the air, as he claimed, when firing the 75mm. That had always been just a tall tale and an absurd one

It’s great to see areas of WW2 unpacked more thoroughly (aside from typical Band of Brothers June 1944 to V.E. Day.) I recently read that the US supplied Soviet Russia with 450,000 trucks through the course of the war. One country, almost half a million trucks. Remarkable. Also a recent rewatch of The Pacific (HBO, Playtone 2010) reminds viewers that the first American beach invasion was not North Africa in November of 1942. It was the US Marines on Guadalcanal in August of ‘42. Interestingly it’s the Guadalcanal Campaign where we see many concrete examples of fast switches to newer technologies: •’03 Springfield to the M1 Garand •Browning .30 cal machine guns with water cooling jackets to the more ubiquitous air cooled versions. •Thompson’s in .45ACP with the fore grips and drum magazines over to the later models with stick mags •The often forgotten Johnson machine guns quickly lost to the BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle in .30 caliber) Lastly some of the greatest stories of tactical pulse quickeners and valor are hidden to this day from casual students of WW2 in the CBI Theater. China-Burma-India. Roosevelt even entertained a US led invasion of Mainland China in 1942-43 in lieu of what became the Sicilian-Italian Campaign. It seems that the American focus of her involvement in WW2 will forever be those final 14 months in Western Europe but from innovations to extremely high battle casualties the big war was often in the Pacific. Many Americans are unaware that of the 438,000 American KIA’s the majority of those lives lost occurred outside Europe. Predominantly in the PTO. Pacific Theater of Operations. For further reading? “Helmet For My Pillow” by Robert Leicke USMC. “With The Old Breed” by Eugene Sledge. And a great page turner novel by PT Deuterman “Pacific Glory.” These are, for the the War in the Pacific, what authors like Ambrose and Kershaw are regarding Europe.

It is so great and wonderful that this clip began with the story of Paul Irvin (Ingram?) "Pappy" Gunn - The war in the phillipines was exceptionally brutal and savage. There are many many things that were skipped over in history class, things much too unsuitable for even teen agers. Two books about Americans that stayed or got left or missed the boat you might say with families fighting in corregidor or imprisoned by the enemy in the Phillipines at the time are (1) The saga of Pappy Gunn by general George Kenney (2) "Miss Margaret Utinsky" - by herself. Note: the book miss U is harrowing so be warned - war is not for the faint of heart and it should be said that there were thousands of stories of lives wrecked by war that will never be known that were snuffed out - Japanese as well as American and many others in that terrible conflict so be warned - they are written in the time and we must be glad and thankful for the days of peace that we've enjoyed that so many who fought and died never knew - we must not forget them, friend or foe.