Скачать или смотреть They Said It Was Against the Rules — Then His Gun-Packed B-25s Sank an Army

They Said It Was Against the Rules — Then His Gun-Packed B-25s Sank an Army
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They Said It Was Against the Rules — Then His Gun-Packed B-25s Sank an Army

In August 1942, Captain Paul “Pappy” Gunn began secretly fitting B-25 Mitchell bombers with machine guns salvaged from destroyed fighter aircraft, acting without official approval. His goal was to turn the medium bomber into a low-altitude strafer capable of overwhelming enemy defenses with sheer firepower.

When Major General George Kenney assumed command of the Fifth Air Force, he discovered Gunn carrying out modifications that broke every established regulation. Rather than stopping the work, Kenney recognized its potential and formally allowed Gunn to continue.

By March 1943, twelve modified B-25 strafers from the 90th Bomb Squadron took part in the Battle of the Bismarck Sea. In just fourteen minutes of coordinated attacks, they helped sink eight Japanese transport ships and four destroyers. The battle killed an estimated three thousand enemy troops and completely halted Japanese reinforcements bound for New Guinea.

The results were so decisive that North American Aviation later adopted these battlefield innovations into standard production, leading to the B-25G, H, and J variants, some armed with as many as eighteen forward-firing machine guns.

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