B-25 - Night Fighter

Re:B-25 - Night Fighter (barneybolac)

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 04:35:38 GMT

Managed to locate Mr Raymond Duethman a crew member of the Blues in the night aircraft shown in the pictures in prior posts. He helped me & the fellow who did the skin as to what the aircraft looked like. Excuse the top turret & 75MM cannon as they are hard wired in to the flight sim this skin was done for & cant be removed.

Re:B-25 - Night Fighter (barneybolac)

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:14:20 GMT

Well I got a reply from a former 418TH NFS member Mr Paul Harrington & this was his reply.

Our B-25s were plain old slate gray. They had an air force blue stripe on the tail from top left to bottom right the Bar Sinister in Heraldry, indicating illigitimacy or " Bastardy" if you wish. I know because I designed it. I had read quite a bit about "Wandering Knights" of the round table etc, so I figured "why not'? We were kinda the "Bastards" of 5th Fighter`Command, at least I thought we were.

Well that was a bit of a surprise to me that they are gray. It makes sense though as it would be a good colour in light of the day & night use of these planes.

Re:B-25 - Night Fighter (barneybolac)

Thu, 28 May 2009 16:24:16 GMT

k9iua

Barneybolac wrote: "Plus they are the only B-25h's that ever added a co pilot."

Barney, I'm not sure if you are referring to just the 418th night fighters when you made that statement, or B-25H's in general. Lots of B-25Hs in many of the squadrons and groups had a second set of controls added back in and flew with copilots, not just the night fighters. My uncle flew in such planes as a copilot with the 42nd BG in mid-1944.

Kevin Anderson

I am not sure what book I read the above statement in as I can't seem to find it now. It would make sense that other units added in a co-pilot though as the plane was not very well liked for that reason alone. With your uncle confirming that point I would have no reason at all to doubt it.

Re:B-25 - Night Fighter (k9iua)

Thu, 28 May 2009 13:41:53 GMT

Barneybolac wrote: "Plus they are the only B-25h's that ever added a co pilot."

Barney, I'm not sure if you are referring to just the 418th night fighters when you made that statement, or B-25H's in general. Lots of B-25Hs in many of the squadrons and groups had a second set of controls added back in and flew with copilots, not just the night fighters. My uncle flew in such planes as a copilot with the 42nd BG in mid-1944.

Kevin Anderson

Re:B-25 - Night Fighter (barneybolac)

Fri, 22 May 2009 11:50:38 GMT

You are correct the top turret was gone on all of the 418TH birds as well as the 75mm cannon & replaced them with two 5o cals.

Plus they are the only B-25h's that ever added a co pilot. I also wrote to the author of the book Queen of the midnight skies about the colour of these planes he is going back to look at his notes as well as touch base with former members of the 418TH.

I think the colour pictures may be when they flew these planes back from Australia after first takeing delivery you can see they have no tail markings as yet. Then again they may just be a squadron hack at this point.

So we may get to find out what colour for a fact they may have been. Regards Rodney. Also there is this picture from the book that no one else has posted.

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (catch 22)

Fri, 22 May 2009 09:20:33 GMT

barneybolac

Well again the host i chose for posting pictures has gone belly up so here is the last pictures again.

Barneybolac,
I'm sorry I couldn't write until now. Your copies are perfect. Giving undoubtedly the information the B-25's were used as "Fat Cats for various commands" after their short duty as heavy night fighters.
For those who have troubles with the negatives below are links to normal scans:
http://s235.photobucket.com/albums/ee109/catch22-forum/?action=view&current=Nightfighters1.jpg
http://s235.photobucket.com/albums/ee109/catch22-forum/?action=view&current=Nightfighters2.jpg
I checked the crash described in the document - it's MACR 8784 for B-25H-1 s/n 43-4129 with pilot 1-st. Lt. Gordon J. Schmeisser.
It's interesting to find the plane had a 4-men crew: pilot, radio observer, radio operator and gunner. So the radio observer was the radar-operator I guess. From the MACR and some photos in the first postings above one can easily see the night "Mitchells" were modified planes, with standard 4 nose guns and 2 additional guns instead of a canon.
In the MACR 12 0.5 guns are listed under "installed weapons". Possible armament is: 4 in the nose, 2 in the canon tunnel, 2 blister guns (co-pilot side). The other 4 are in standard positions, but which 2 were missing is hard to guess (tail or waist maybe?) Or maybe the top turret was deleted? You posted a photo of Maj. Smith's a/c above and no turret is visible on it.

On your photos no nose, tail, waist guns or turret are visible. Maybe these are already the unarmed "Fat Cats"?!

Best Regards!

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (barneybolac)

Wed, 20 May 2009 11:01:27 GMT

Well again the host i chose for posting pictures has gone belly up so here is the last pictures again.

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (barneybolac)

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 12:47:50 GMT

The microfilm arrived checked it all there is no mention of the colour of the aircraft. How ever they do mention the fate of the 418TH B-25's.

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (barneybolac)

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:18:45 GMT

No I have ordered a microfilm on the 418TH to see what is there should be a few weeks.

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (catch 22)

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 10:16:35 GMT

The text next to the last photo is obviously misleading!
Barneybolac, do you have any information were any of these a/c's returned to another unit, depot or back in the States after the short period with the 418.NFS?

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (barneybolac)

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:09:40 GMT

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (barneybolac)

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 09:08:40 GMT

My first pictures from the picture share company is gone so I here they are again. Also I have a picture from an Osprey book that lists the 418TH nfs B-25'S as black?

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (barneybolac)

Fri, 30 May 2008 18:08:37 GMT

Here are those pictures.

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (gmat)

Thu, 29 May 2008 20:48:39 GMT

The B-25s used by the 418th NFS were OD/NG aircraft used for night intruder bombing missions. Alas they were not pained black nor used to intercept aircraft. The excellent Queen of the Midnight Skies, by Pape and Harrison has more information including pictures, some in color.
Grant Matsuoka

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (brickhistory)

Fri, 23 May 2008 13:50:08 GMT

ORIGINAL: Warbird Mechanic

The 415th, 416th, 417th and 418th NFS started out flying combat missions in Bristol Beaufighters as part of reverse lend lease. Other aircraft they trained with, but never to my knowledge flew actual combat missions with in Europe and in the Med, was the Douglas P-70 night fighter, (a special A-20 Havoc variant). I don't recall them ever using B-25H's for the night fighter role in those theaters, but the squadrons in the Pacific may have used the Mitchells in that role until the introduction of the P-61 Black Widow. Hope this helps!

Jim

The US Beau squadrons were the 414th, 415th, 416th, 417th flying in North Africa, Italy, southern France, and eventually Germany.

The 418th flew, as noted, in the SW Pacific.

I don't know definitively about the 418th's ground attack role once equipped with the P-61, but the other so-equipped units, both ETO and PTO, used the P-61 as in the night ground attack role since airborne 'trade' was pretty sparse.

see my "Beaufighters in the Night" as well as Mauer Mauer's Aircraft Combat Units of WWII

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (maxs75)

Wed, 21 May 2008 13:46:58 GMT

Mike,
thanks for the info.
Does it mean that the B-25 were not properly "interceptors" but rather night bombers, depsite being assigned to a night "fighter" unit?
AFAIK the P-61 were able (and were used) to carry bombs. Do you know (or think) if the squadron remained a night attack unit after the P-61 was assigned?

Thanks in advance
Max

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (shooshoobaby)

Wed, 21 May 2008 13:40:32 GMT

Max -
The 418th NFS Began Ops 1/44
Operated P - 70s , P - 38s
5/44 - 8/44 Operated B - 25s
Converted to P - 61s 9/44
There are a few Pages on the 418th in Book:
The Flying Buccaneers by Steve Birdsall
Photo Of 418th Commander Major Caroll Smith
Only B - 25 Night Intruder Missions mentioned were
attacks on Fields at Vogelkop.
Mike

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (maxs75)

Wed, 21 May 2008 13:14:35 GMT

In the history of USAAF in WW2 lists 5th air force units in august 1944, and says that 418th NFS was equipped with B-25H, based at Wakde. I wish I have more info about that.

Max

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (tonystro)

Sun, 04 May 2008 08:11:43 GMT

Yves,

If I can find it... I have a veteran's story about at least one occurrance where 11th Bomb Sq flew a "night intercept" mission with a few B-25s, at a base in China sometime in 1943. The idea was to disrupt night bombing raid(s) by the Japanese with the B-25s which could stay airborne longer that the P-40s. Although it had some success, I believe it was not continued due to the higher fuel consumption of the B-25s and the severe shortage of aviation gasoline in China at the time.

RE: B-25 - Night Fighter (tonystro)

Sun, 04 May 2008 08:01:51 GMT

ORIGINAL: catch 22
(Extract)
3 Air Forces used "Mitchells" in Europe: 12-th AF, RAF and VVS (Soviet Air Force). All of them used different versions of the B-25 for night bombing raids too, but they were not assigned to night fighter units. The soviet B-25 used for night bombings (partially with black camo) were part of the Long Range Bomber Command (AAD).
B-25H from the 12-th BG. in Burma (after leaving the MTO and becoming part of the 10-th AF.) were also used as bombers and strafers in night missions. B-25s from the 14-th AF and China attacked targets during day and night (famous is the "double raid" on Hong Kong).
Photos of the only all black "Mitchell" I could find show a B-25C-5 in the CBI (India) - s below.
(end extract)

Yves,

Your reference to 10th and 14th AF B-25s, especially the all black on pictured, caught my interest because I am trying to identify all the aircraft flown by the 341st Bomb Group (M). Therefore, I checked Joe Bauer's serial number listing for 42-53357, as shown in the photos. For whatever it is worth here is the information listed...

42-53357 arrived in UK from North Africa Mar 29 43 and used for communications work. Acquired by 7th PG Sep 1943 as "Miss Nashville" and used as hack until loaned to 25th Group Jul 1944 for night photo missions to V-weapons sites. Last sortie on this work was Aug 18, 1944. Thereafter used for courier work until strayed over front lines in France Oct 26, 1944 and damaged by AAA and crashed near Chalons-sur-Saone.