North American B-25 Mitchell B-25J

The B-25J was introduced in December 1943 in response to a lesson from combat: the 75 mm cannon of the B-25G and B-25H did not pay its way, while the field-modified strafers, the four-gun B-25C1/D1s improvised by Paul Gunn and Jack Fox in the Pacific, and conventional medium bombers remained indispensable. North American returned to a medium bomber with a bombardier aboard, but kept all the structural and armament advances of the H. It is often described as a cross between the B-25C/D and the B-25H: forward of the cockpit it brought back a glazed nose almost identical in appearance to that of the earliest Mitchells, with a bombardier's station and Norden bombsight; from the cockpit aft it followed the H, with the forward dorsal turret, waist positions and tail turret. Unlike the H, it restored the co-pilot's seat and dual flight controls.

All Js left the factory with four light-barrel Browning AN/M2 guns in two "fuselage packages", conformal pods flanking the lower cockpit with two guns each, although by 1945 combat squadrons had removed them. The glazed nose housed two fixed guns and one flexible gun. For strafing, factory-made kits were supplied to the Air Depot system to convert aircraft into the solid-nose, eight-gun B-25J-2; in that configuration the aircraft carried eighteen .50s (eight in the nose, four in the packages, two in the dorsal turret, one at each waist position and two in the tail), fourteen of them aimed or aimable straight ahead. Some aircraft also carried eight 5-inch HVAR rockets. Depending on the source, the J could mount between 14 and 18 machine guns, most of them forward-facing.

Power came from two supercharged fourteen-cylinder Wright R-2600 Cyclones of 1,700 hp each. For a late preserved J (44-30129) the quoted figures are a length of 53 ft 5 3/4 in, a wingspan of 67 ft 7 in, 19,490 lb empty and 33,400 lb loaded, a maximum speed of 293 mph, cruising speed of 230 mph, range of 1,350 miles, ceiling of 24,500 ft and an initial climb of 1,110 ft/min, with up to 3,200 lb of bombs or depth charges and a crew of six (pilot, co-pilot, bombardier/navigator, radio operator, flight engineer and tail gunner). The Pilot's Flight Operating Instructions dated 25 December 1944 covered the J-1, -5, -10, -15, -20 and -25 blocks together with the naval PBJ-1J.

All J production took place at the Kansas City plant beside Fairfax Field, hence the -NC suffix in its designation, where North American built 6,608 aircraft of the family in total. With 4,318 examples the B-25J was the most numerous Mitchell series and the last to leave the factory. From it were derived the CB-25J utility transport and the VB-25J staff and VIP transport (Henry H. Arnold and Dwight D. Eisenhower both used converted B-25Js as personal aircraft; the last VB-25J in active service was retired in May 1960 at Eglin), as well as the trainers: the AT-24D conversion became the TB-25J and another 600 B-25Js were modified after the war, followed by the Hughes E1 radar TB-25K (117), the Hayes pilot-trainer TB-25L (90), the Hughes E5 radar TB-25M (40) and the Hayes navigator-trainer TB-25N (47).

The J served in every theatre of the war with the USAAF. The Navy adopted it as the PBJ-1J, the designation for B-25J-NC blocks -1 through -35 with improved radio and other equipment, which the Marines often fitted with "package guns" and wingtip search radar for anti-shipping and anti-submarine work, plus 5-inch rockets under the wings. The Marine bombing squadrons (VMB), sixteen in all from the commissioning of VMB-413 on 1 March 1943 at Cherry Point, flew from 1944 onwards from the Philippines, Saipan, Iwo Jima and Okinawa, chiefly on radar-directed night strikes against enemy shipping with HVAR and 11.75-inch "Tiny Tim" rockets; to gain range on those long missions the top turret and side blisters were removed. The Marine Corps operated roughly 700 PBJs of all versions.

The RAF received 316 B-25Js as the Mitchell III; at least 21 went to No 342 Squadron, made up largely of Free French aircrews, which moved to France after the liberation. Canada received 19 Mitchell IIIs from RAF orders and in 1951 added another 75 B-25Js from USAF stocks; the auxiliary squadrons Nos 406 and 418 flew them until 1958, No 12 Squadron of Air Transport Command until November 1960, and the RCAF retained the Mitchell until October 1963. Other air forces kept it for years: Brazil operated 75 Mitchells of the B, C and J versions; Mexico received three B-25Js in December 1945 and used them until at least 1950; Peru received eight in 1947 to form Bomber Squadron No 21 at Talara; and Indonesia inherited 25 ex-Dutch aircraft in 1950, among them ten B-25J bombers and nine J strafers, with which it attacked a radio station at Ambon in August 1950 and bombed rebel targets during the PRRI and Permesta revolts; the last served until 1974.

In the USAF the J lived on as a trainer and transport until the end of the 1950s. The last B-25 in the inventory, TB-25J-25-NC 44-30854 assigned to March AFB, flew from Turner AFB to Eglin AFB on 21 May 1960 in the last flight by a USAF B-25 and was presented to the town of Valparaiso, Florida.

As the most numerous version and the longest in service, the B-25J accounts for almost the entire fleet of preserved and airworthy Mitchells today, many of them painted as the B-25Bs of the Doolittle Raid. The National Naval Aviation Museum's aircraft was delivered to the Army Air Forces on 24 August 1944, spent its whole career as a training and administrative support aircraft, was struck from the USAF inventory in 1958, served the Venezuelan government for decades, including fighting forest fires, and, acquired by the museum in 1998, was restored in the markings of Doolittle's B-25B after damage in Hurricane Ivan. The Military Aviation Museum's 44-30129 was delivered in December 1944, served as a trainer until 1958, accumulated around 6,800 flying hours and passed through no fewer than ten civilian owners, once for as little as $500; its "Wild Cargo" nose art recalls a post-war crash-landing with a cargo of exotic reptiles.