Old "NEW" Mitchell's ...

[Mark Allen M]

Here's a batch of North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber factory photos from both the Kansas City and Inglewood plants.














Fairfax Airport in the foreground and Kansas City Downtown Airport








































The last B-25J-35 Sn45-8899 rolled out of Fairfax October 15th, 1945

[Joe Scheil]

Great pictures....some Inglewood too. Some random serial number stuff...

Last picture, the color one, shows a great lineup of B-25G, P-51B and SBD aircraft that are brand new. Interestingly 43-4432 is shown being prepped for delivery and she is still with us today flying as “Berlin Express” albiet masquerading as a B-25J. A rare subtype of the B-25, the G was equipped with the 75mm cannon and I think they did not get many hours put on them. Many were surpluses, converted and flew in a variety of roles. Perhaps one day she will go back to “stock”.

41-30647 was a neat plane in that she was the 1000th Fairfax built B-25 so the factory fresh shot may have been taken on her completion date of May 14, 1943. She stayed stateside flying from Fresno, Tonopah, Portland and Sacramento. On March 6, 1947 she was delivered to the RFC in Harlingen, Texas and probably ended her days there.

From Find a grave...B-25 “129684”

“1Lt Norman F. Benesch was a crewmember of B-25 medium bomber, tailnumber 41-29684. The plane and crew belonged to the 434th Bomb Squadron, 12th Bomb Group. On 16 October 1943 the plane crashed into the east slope of Mount Etna, near Catania Sicily. All crewmembers were killed in the crash. All men were buried in the temporary American GELA Cemetery in Sicily.
Lt Benesch was buried in grave I-93-1113. Date of burial was 19 October 1943.
After the war Lt Benesch found his last resting place in grave J-14-39 of the Sicily Rome Cemetery in Nettuno, Italy.”

[Dan K]

Great pictures....some Inglewood too. Some random serial number stuff...

Last picture, the color one, shows a great lineup of B-25G, P-51B and SBD aircraft that are brand new. Interestingly 43-4432 is shown being prepped for delivery and she is still with us today flying as “Berlin Express” albiet masquerading as a B-25J. A rare subtype of the B-25, the G was equipped with the 75mm cannon and I think they did not get many hours put on them. Many were surpluses, converted and flew in a variety of roles. Perhaps one day she will go back to “stock”...

Joe, I think you meant to write that the last photo shows a great lineup of B-25H Mitchells.

Here's what the Baugher site has on B-25H-5 43-4432:


4432 (MSN 98-21433) taken on strength on Dec 28, 1943 and flown to the modification center at Fairfax Army Air Field, KS, for two months of work. From early February through the end of March 1945 the plane traveled back and forth as an administrative aircraft between the modification center at Fairfax and several other bases, and then it was assigned to Lowry Army Air Field in Denver, CO. From then on until it was retired, the plane was assigned to several bases in Washington and California, returning to Fairfax twice in late 1944. On Nov 1, 1945 the plane was sent to Altus Army Air Field, OK, for storage, and in 1946 was turned over to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation at Altus. The plane was sold to Joe Zappa/Delta Drilling Co. of Dallas, TX on Jun 25, 1947 and registered N90399. It was then passed through three other owners before being purchased in February 1952 by Mechanical Productions, Inc, of Jackson, MI, who registered it as N10V. In September 1952 the cannon nose was replaced by a standard B-25J 8-gun nose, and a couple months later low drag wingtips were installed. In October 1955 it was sold to Husky Oil Co. of Cody, WY, and several executive modifications were made, including the installation of an air stair and pointed tail cone. After five more owners the plane was acquired by Tallmantz Aviation of Orange County, CA, in September 1968, and then sold to Filmways Inc of Hollywood, CA who used it in the 1970 movie, “Catch-22.” Registration N410V was a film serial, presumably mistaken for a US registration. In May 1971 it was sold to Sherman Cooper of Merced, CA, and one year later he donated the plane to the EAA Aviation Foundation of Oshkosh, WI. From 1975 to 1985 the plane went through a complete restoration and a standard B-25J glass nose was installed. Now with Experimental Aircraft Association of Oshkosh, WI as N10V.

[ZRX61]

Is that building in the first pic still standing?

[Warbirdnerd]

In the third pic- What would that trailer have been used for?

[Cubs2jets]

In the third pic- What would that trailer have been used for?

To carry looooooong things?

C2j

[JohnB]

I toured the Kansas City plant...albeit circa 1966 on an elementary school field trip.
Sadly, they were only building Chevelles and El Caminos, not B-25s.

I can't imagine that trailer was road legal, states had pretty strict trucking regs back then regarding length. Even with a war on, I'm sure some bureaucrat got bent out of shape over it.

[Pat Carry]

Great one's Mark!!

[JohnTerrell]

For those that may not know, there is a rather big project underway to add signage throughout the Fairfax District of Kansas City, to re-brand the area in honor of its connection to B-25 production (make sure to watch the video):

https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/ne ... U42Z9VL79k

According to Dan Desko (B-25 History Project), the current concept includes technology that will make the propellers on the signage appear to spin, hence the appearance of extra blades in the static concept illustrations.

[sandiego89]

In the third pic- What would that trailer have been used for?

This article indicates that parts for the firsts 100 bombers were shipped in sub-assemblies the final assembly center in Kansas City, with the first 6 being further along in assembly. I can picture a B-25 sizish fuselage load in one of those trailers, but just a guess.

Article also says the wings were produced by Fisher Body in Memphis, and brought to the Kansas city assembly center with special rail lines installed, but not hard to imagine some trucks were involved with this also.

https://b-25history.org/history/fairfax.htm

Neat to see the photo of early US, Netherlands (inverted triangle roundel), perhaps Russian? and French? aircraft lined up.

[Invader26]

Great group of picture . My old B-25J 44-86791 was a late build Kansas City machine.

By the way the line-up in an early picture is USAAC, Russian, Dutch East Indies, RAF models...

[Bomber Builder]

Is that building in the first pic still standing?

Unfortunately, no. It was at 2921 McGee, Kansas City, Missouri.

[Bomber Builder]

In the third pic- What would that trailer have been used for?

The trailer was indeed used to move B-25 parts. The Leeds plant in was used as a temporary storage area for the North American Aviation plant. Parts were shipped from the Fisher body plant to the Leeds storage area, and then trucked over to the plant when needed. These trailers were indeed street legal and were actually used all over the US. They were originally designed for use hauling B-24 parts, and were indeed used at other plants (including Willow Run) for that purpose.