I paid a visit to a local Army/Navy store on Saturday with a good friend and I found a packaged R-2600-8/-9/-13 Handbook of Operating Instructions which also contained one other unidentifiable document. The price was right, so I picked it up and brought it home, opened it up, and my jaw dropped wide open... the second document turns out to be the original USAAF Form 41-B Maintenance Inspection Record for B-25H-10-NA 43-5047. Contained inside an attached envelope in the back are a blank B-25 preflight checklist (!!!!) and the ORIGINAL bench test documents for the two Wright R-2600-29 engines from the Wright Aeronautical Corporation. The 41-B itself contained just a few notes; the aircraft was inspected and delivered on June 26, 1944, and the last flight date noted is July 12, 1944. I quickly learned why it was so sparsely noted: the aircraft was delivered to the US Navy as a PBJ-1H. And not just any -1H... THE LAST ONE. That's right, based on what I've found from Joe Baugher's site and
http://pbjmitchell.com/buno, 43-5047 became BuNo 89071, the very last PBJ-1H delivered to the Navy and thence to the Marine Corps.
Needless to say, I am stoked beyond reason over this, and am trying to find out all I can about "my" PBJ. The only info for the aircraft that I can find so far indicate her delivery date (which matches the 41-B), the acceptance date (9/22/44) and the strike date (10/31/45)... and nothing else. I started digging through all the Aircraft Location Records I've saved from the Naval Historical Center, and think I might've at least narrowed a few things down... as of 9/26/44, I was able to pin down the location of 244 out of the total 248 PBJ-1H's delivered to the USN/USMC, with the vast majority being with HEDRON MAG 62 down at MCAS Cherry Point. I went through the aircraft listing for VMB-613 and didn't find it in there, and saw 614 switched to Js before shipping overseas due to the lack of shipping targets. I've not found other aircraft listings for other VMBs yet, though, and I'm hoping Alan or someone else here might be able to help me narrow down the service history of 89071. Based on what I've seen in later Aircraft Location Records, it looks like there was a large pool of PBJ-1Hs which was shuttled from MAG-62 to SERVRON-34, then on to SERVRON-81 down at Cherry Point; at some point around May 1945, the numbers of -1Hs just start dwindling and by August, there are just a few noted at that base. I'm getting the feeling the ship never made it overseas; I saw there was a detachment of -1Hs up at Elizabeth City, which isn't far from Norfolk (where I found the document) so it wouldn't surprise me to find it stayed stateside until it was stricken from the inventory in October 1945.
Still, if anyone can help me pin down more info on this, I would be most grateful!
Here's a scan of the outside and inside front cover; I'll post additional scans of other pages if folks are interested.
Cheers,
Lynn
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