B25 Mitchell Bomber – with Thumping Radial Engines

The North American B-25 Mitchell is an American twin-engine, medium bomber manufactured by North American Aviation (NAA). It was named in honour of Major General William “Billy” Mitchell, a pioneer of U.S. military aviation. 

Introduced in 1941 the aircraft was used by many Allied air forces, and it served in virtually every theater of World War II. Many of the more than 9800 examples of the type built remained in service after the war, with the last military user (Indonesia) retiring their last B-25’s in 1979.

The majority of B-25s in American service were used in the war against Japan in the Pacific Theatre, and also in the Asian (China-Burma-India) theatre. The types excellence in performing low-level ground attack roles was realised in the Pacific Theatre where the thick jungle cover reduced the effectiveness of medium-level bombing.

Further refining the low-level attack tactics used on land, and using ‘skip bombing’ techniques, the B-25 was also developed into a very successful anti-shipping attack aircraft, with the reuslt that many enemy ships were sunk by the type.

The Royal Air Force was the only service to use Mitchells in the north-western European Theatre (the USAAF operated the type in the mediterraen and Italy), with over 900 examples of the type being operated form August 1941 onwards.

The RAF issued B-25’s to No 342 Squadron which was made up primarily of Free French aircrews, and by 1945 No. 320 Squadron which operated mainly with personnel formerly serving with the Royal Dutch Naval Air Service was also using the Mitchell.

This B-25 wears the colours of B-25C-15 (s/n N5-149) which was assigned to the Netherlands East Indies Air Force (NEIAF), and which flew with No. 18 (Netherlands East Indies) Squadron Royal Australian Air Force. No 18 Sqn generally flew bombing raids against Japanese targets in the East Indies.

Source: YouTube