Vagabond wrote:
Hi All,
I had the opportunity to swing by the NASM - Udvar-Hazy Center for a quick shoot to update our SmugMug gallery of images. I was fortunate to get to see and photograph the recent additions to the museum displays including the: Helldiver, F-100, Shuttle Discovery, Kikka and Shinden, as well as “Flak Bait,” the Horten, and the JRS-1 in the restoration area. I added the images to the end of the gallery.
http://www.vgbimages.com/AirMuseums/NAS ... -Chantilly
In Junior High School (40+ years ago) I got a copy of Roger A. Freeman's "
The Mighty Eighth - a History of the U. S. 8th Army Air Force" in which Chapter 7 dealt with the subject of "
Martin's Maligned Madame"
It related that...
"Monday May 17th 1943 was a black day for the 322nd Group, the gloom thereof persisted, and indeed deepened, in the weeks to come. Lt. Col Glenn Nye, a staff officer at 3rd Wing who had been mentor to the group prior to Stillman's arrival from the US, was given command of the 322nd. He informed the Group that operations would cease for the time being although training for low-level attack would continue. The situation was not helped by another fatal accident on May 29th when a Marauder practicing violent evasive action at low altitude, lost part of its tail and crashed into one of the Bury (St. Edmunds) hangars. After that few could doubt that the barracks room cynics were right - one had no chance of survival in a B-26 unit, if the enemy didn't get you the plane would! Surely, some asked, no further proof was needed, the Marauder was unsafe to fly let alone fight in. Many confidently predicted the group would now convert to another type of aircraft. The irony of the situation was that on that very airfield stood two Marauders, untried in combat, and as of yet identified only by their numbers, 41-31819 and 41-31773, that would in time have considerable bearing upon establishing the worth of their kin."
5 pages later, the chapter concludes with this:
"Preserved in the Smithsonian museum, Washington D. C., is a drab twin-engined aeroplane from World War Two. It bears the name
Flak Bait, has 202 hand-painted symbols for bombing missions in a hostile sky and visible signs of repair. No other USAAF bomber completed so many operations over Europe. This Marauder, 41-31773, flew with the 449th Bomb Sqdn. of the ill-starred 322nd Group. It had been one of the aircraft parked at Bury St. Edmunds in late May 1943, when few believed the Marauder worthy of flying one combat mission - let alone 200."
I am always moved when I read those words and think that they are quite powerful - and I thought about them the last time I saw Flak Bait in person and touched its skin as so many had done before me, rubbing the paint off of its skin while its forward fuselage section was on display in NASM on the Capitol Mall.
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