The new hydraulics were also trouble-prone, as were the huge four-blade, variable-pitch Curtiss propellers.

The problem was the ratio of the MarauderвЂ™s weight to the area of its small wings, which meant that the airplane required a relatively high airspeed for both takeoffs and landings. forces on Hawaii, Wake Island, and the Philippines, a second factory was turning out Marauders in Omaha, Nebraska.Д«y then, MartinвЂ™s Miracle had become known as the вЂњWidow MakerвЂќ or (since it had no visible means of support) the вЂњBaltimore Whore.вЂќ Airmen jested that the B-26 needed all of Texas to take off and came in to land like a cold flatiron. By December 1941, when Japan attacked U.S. In November 1940 the Martin plant in Baltimore delivered to the Army its first B-26, which an obliging American press described as вЂњMartinвЂ™s MiracleвЂ¦the fastest bomber in the worldвЂќ and as вЂњmaneuverable as a pursuitвЂ™вЂ™ or fighter airplane. Altogether, the B-26 was as fearsome-looking as it was beautiful, and the Army, gambling that the airplane could be taken into service without testing or modification, ordered 201 straight off the drawing board for low-altitude missions. The wings were short and set high on the fuselage, and each had a Pratt & Whitney radial engine slung beneath it in a streamlined nacelle. It suggested a flying torpedo: slender fuselage, clear plastic nose, tail drawn to a point. Army could use to destroy bridges, rail depots, and ships. Martin Company in Baltimore, Maryland, sketched a medium bomber that the U.S.

In fact, the B-26 Marauder had been built to fly just the sort of mission it was handed on D-Day. Oh yes! WeвЂ™d have gone to 500 if we had to.вЂќ Then he added, as cocksure as the young pilot of half a century before: вЂњBut weвЂ™d have gone to 500. When I talked to him many years ago, at the Vermont homestead where he retired in the 1980s, he shook his head at the notion that the Marauders were asked to fly so low. вЂњDid he say 500 feet? Boy, that shook us some.вЂќД¬aptain James Wilson was a flight leader in the 386th. вЂњWe were to bomb individually from 500 feet,вЂќ he recalled in an oral history account from the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans. Sergeant Roger Lovelace, top-turret gunner in one of the groupвЂ™s Marauders, believed that the altitude he heard was hundreds of feet, not thousands. The enlisted men got a separate and no doubt cursory briefing. вЂњThese men knew that the attack might be suicidal if they bombed below 1,000 feet.вЂќ вЂњA low whistle penetrated the silence in the room,вЂќ RyanвЂ™s account went on.

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