Engineers Called His B-25 Gunship "Impossible" — Until It Sank 12 Japanese Ships in 3 Days

Video from the channel WW2 Records about North American B-25 Mitchell, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 32:45. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

The video tells how Paul "Pappy" Gunn, a special projects officer of the US Fifth Air Force, turned medium bombers into low-level attack aircraft with heavy forward firepower, and follows his career up to his death in 1957. It combines the technical history of the B-25 Mitchell modifications with combat episodes and the situation of Gunn's family, interned by the Japanese at the Santo Tomás camp in Manila.

In August 1942, at Eagle Farm airfield near Brisbane, Gunn fitted four .50 caliber machine guns into the nose of a Douglas A-20 Havoc, in place of the bombardier's station, using weapons salvaged from wrecked P-39 and P-40 fighters. The idea was to attack ships at very low altitude, silence deck anti-aircraft guns with forward fire, and drop skip bombs at close range. Since the A-20 had limited range and payload, in December he moved the concept to a B-25C, replacing the bombardier's station with machine guns in the nose and in side packages. According to the video, engineers at Wright Field advised against the modification over balance and weight concerns, while General George Kenney backed it.

The decisive test came in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea, in early March 1943, against a convoy sailing from Rabaul to Lae with eight transports and eight destroyers. High-altitude bombing by B-17s failed to sink anything; the modified B-25s and A-20s, supported by Australian Beaufighters and P-38s, attacked at wave-top height. The video gives the result as eight transports and four destroyers sunk.

After the battle, North American Aviation carried the concept into production: the B-25G added a 75 mm cannon, the B-25H added machine guns along the fuselage sides, and the B-25J dropped the cannon in favor of more machine guns. The video also covers the November 1943 raid on Rabaul, the use of rockets and parachute fragmentation bombs, and the wound Gunn suffered in the Japanese bombing of Tacloban, Leyte, in November 1944. His family was liberated from Santo Tomás in February 1945. After the war Gunn worked for Philippine Airlines and died in October 1957, when the twin-engine aircraft he was traveling in crashed near Baguio.