The Birth of the Air Commandos: The Roots of USAF Special Operations

Colonel Orde Wingate, a most unconventional British officer

The fall of Burma in early 1942 threatened to derail the Allies' plans for Asia. The British withdrawal from Burma to India was the biggest, costliest, and longest not to mention most humiliating withdrawals in the military history of the British Empire. Coupled with the loss of Singapore, it left India as the only bulwark against Japanese expansion in Southeast Asia. With 12 million acres of rice paddies and an annual rice production of 8 million tons, Burma was an important logistical asset to the Japanese Empire and it also gave them control over the southern end of the Burma Road, a 717-mile supply route that was being used to provide supplies for General Chiang Kai-Shek in central China in his fight against the Japanese. Japanese military planners hoped that cutting off Chiang would mean less troops would be needed in central China to keep him in check. With dark days ahead on the minds of British officials in India, a most unconventional British officer arrived with an audacious plan to take the fight back into Burma. Colonel Orde Wingate had already gained a reputation as an unconventional war specialist leading guerrilla units in Africa and the Middle East against Axis forces. What he lacked in conventionality for a British officer he more than amply made up in his leadership abilities to inspire the men in his command. He created a jungle force made up of Indians and British called the "Chindits", which was a corruption of the Burmese word "chinthe", the fierce dragon that statues that guarded Burmese temples depicted. In February 1943, Wingate led 3,000 Chindits in Operation Longcloth. They penetrated deep into Burma on foot and scored early successes cutting Japanese rail routes. But Wingate lacked heavy guns as the Chindits were on foot and the Royal Air Force proved unable to provide the necessary air support. Wingate also counted on a conventional counter-offensive to keep the Japanese occupied while he harassed their rear supply lines. When that didn't happen, the Japanese were able to focus on defeating the Chindits and in early June, Wingate and only 2/3 of his Chindit force made it back into India. 

Phil Cochran and John Alison, the first leaders of the Air Commandos

Despite the disaster of Operation Longcloth, Wingate gained the support of Prime Minister Winston Churchill who was a known admirer of the unconventional in military operations. When Churchill headed to Quebec to meet with President Franklin Roosevelt to confer on war plans, Churchill brought Wingate to explain to Roosevelt plans for a second assault on Burma. While Churchill was thinking ahead and wanting a new Burma assault as a means of strengthening the British Empire in Asia, Roosevelt was intrigued with Wingate's plans as it could reopen the Burma Road and strengthen Chiang Kai-Shek's position in China which might provide the Allies bomber bases for which to take the war to the Japanese Home Islands. As Wingate briefed Churchill and Roosevelt, he had in mind a much bigger operation that Operation Longcloth with a much larger Chindit force that had its own air transport and air support, in effect, giving the Chindits their own air force. Roosevelt was captivated by the plan and passed it on to the head of the USAAF, General Hap Arnold, to organize the air assets that Wingate and the Chindits needed. Ordinarily this sort of order would have been a distraction from General Arnold's vision of a massive strategic bombing campaign against Germany and Japan, but he saw a chance to prove the value of air power in supporting a large ground formation deep behind enemy lines. General Arnold needed a USAAF officer who could lead the new unit and interviewed Colonel Phil Cochran who made his name as an aggressive pilot in North Africa. The other was a friend of Colonel Cochran, Colonel John Alison, who had flown hazardous supply missions "over the Hump" from India to China to keep Chiang Kai-Shek supplied. Prior to that, Alison had six kills while flying P-40s with the Flying Tigers in China. Each man recommended the other to General Arnold as they each wanted a fighter combat command in Europe. General Arnold settled the issue by choosing both Cochran and Alison to get Wingate's air force organized with the order "To hell with paperwork; go out and fight!" Figuring that two commanders made no sense, they agreed that Cochran would be the commander and Alison would be his deputy. But their long prior friendship made them highly attuned to each other's thinking as they set out to create the most unique force in the history of the USAAF. 

Initially calling their outfit Project 9, they went to London to meet with Wingate and Lord Louis Mountbatten, the supreme Allied commander in Southeast Asia. Cochran and Alison quickly enlarged their force well beyond what Wingate initially requested and one month later, briefed General Arnold and Arnold's own boss, Army Chief of Staff General George Marshall. The Project 9 force was more than just C-47s and some medium bombers. It would have its own fighters, light aircraft for jungle resupply missions, gliders for insertion of troops and even helicopters. Arnold and Marshall were impressed with the plan and gave them the go-ahead. Instead of the Chindits marching back into Burma, the Project 9 transport force of C-47s and gliders would insert the entire Chindit force deep into Burma and keep them resupplied. Medium bombers and fighters would provide dedicated air support to the Chindits and no one else. All the pilots were volunteers and training began in North Carolina on 1 October 1943 at Raleigh-Durham Airport and Seymour-Johnson Army Air Field. The Project 9 force grew to 346 aircraft with Douglas C-47s and Waco CG-4 gliders for transport. Stinson L-1 Vigilant and L-5 Sentinel light aircraft would be used for air evacuation and resupply given their short field performance. North American B-25 Mitchells and P-51 Mustangs formed the sharp end of the force's spear with a handful of Sikorsky R-4 helicopters which were still in testing at Wright Patterson Field. Even General Arnold was impressed with the resourcefulness of Cochran and Alison in getting what was still an experimental program added to their force. 

Emblem of the 1st Air Commando Group, the first Air Force special operations unit

After arriving in India, the Project 9 force was designated the 5318th Provisional Unit (Air), but General Arnold had always been referring to the group as air commandos, so on 29 March 1944, they were redesignated with his blessing to become the 1st Air Commando Group. For most of early 1944 the air commandos trained with Wingate's Chindits but they weren't sure if the Chindits were comfortable with flying into Burma at night on the C-47s and CG-4 gliders. Wingate sent a message "Please be assured that will go with your boys any place, any time, any where." The gliders even carried pack mules which would be used in moving about the jungle in Burma, hence the mule on the patch of the 1st Air Commando Group. 5 March 1944 was the go-day for Operation Thursday when the air commandos and Wingate's Chindits would take the war back to the Japanese in Burma. But that'll be a subject for a future blog post! The 1st Air Commando Group is now the 1st Special Operations Wing of the USAF Special Operations Command based at Hurlburt Field in Florida. Wingate's assurance "Any place, any time, any where" remains the motto of the air commandos with the emblem of the 1st SOW showing the words "Any Time Any Place".

Source: From a Dark Sky: The Story of U.S. Air Force Special Operations by Orr Kelly. Pocket Publishing, 1997, pp 21-42. Photos: USAF, Imperial War Museum, Wikipedia.

The North American XB-28: Too Much, Too Late

The sole XB-28 prototype. Note the remotely operated turrets.

With the North American B-25 Mitchell prototype (internal company designation NA-40B) already in the hands of the US Army Air Corps for flight testing in 1939, the promise of cabin pressurization offered a leap in bomber performance by being able to fly higher and faster. Accordingly, in August 1939, the Army issued the XC-214 specification which called for a pressurized medium bomber to supplant the medium bomber types that were soon to become operational. Only Martin and North American responded to XC-214. Martin's submission was for the XB-27 but the USAAC felt Martin didn't have a full grasp of the challenges of high altitude pressurization in their design and North American's submission, the XB-28 won the development contract. This took place on 15 November 1939 just three months after the Army issued its specification with North American inking a contract to begin formal design work on the XB-28. To give you an idea of the pace of development and the pressure of the looming clouds of war, the contract for the development of the XB-28 was signed around the same time that the Army ordered the B-25 Mitchell into production! The XB-28 had started out as a pressurized version of the B-25 Mitchell with a circular fuselage and Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engines with GE Type-C turbosuperchargers replacing the Wright R-2600 Twin Cyclone radials used on the B-25. Design work proceeded rapidly since the company was already at work on a pressurized successor to the B-25 at the time of the release of the XC-214 specification in August 1939. As design work progressed, changes were made stating with abandoning the Mitchell's twin fins for a single fin. Eventually the XB-28 as designed bore little resemblance to the Mitchell. The contract for three prototypes was signed on 13 February 1940. 

The five crew all sat in a pressurized compartment in the forward fuselage. 

Besides the change to more powerful R-2800 Double Wasp engines with GE turbosuperchargers, a third supercharger was also fitted to provide cabin pressurization. Heaters powered by gasoline warmed the air in the pressurization ducting for the pressure cabin located in the the forward fuselage. The elongated nacelles had an opening in the rear for the turbo-supercharger exhaust which added some forward propulsive power. The four bladed propellers were counter-rotating to cancel each other's torque to ease handling. Integral self-sealing fuel tanks took up most of the wings. Relatively unique for the day nose wheel steering was fitted and controlled by a lever in the cockpit similar to modern nose wheel tillers. Another unique feature was the use of fluorescent paint on the instrument panel and instruments that would glow at night from overhead UV lamps as an aid to night flying.

Overall configuration of the XB-28.

To simply the structure of a pressurized aircraft, the pressure cabin only occupied the forward fuselage. All the joints were sealed during assembly and the interior sprayed with a plastic sealant before installation of the cabin items. The cabin atmosphere was maintained at the equivalent of 8,000 feet up to an operating altitude of 33,000 feet. The crew of five was crammed into this space- with the pilot and co-pilot sitting side by side, behind them sat the primary gunner and the radio operator/secondary gunner. The bombardier/navigator sat in the nose compartment but could access the cramped flight deck via a floor panel by the co-pilot's feet. The bomb bay could carry up to 4,000 lbs of bombs and the three defensive turrets consisted of twin 50-caliber guns in dorsal, ventral and tail turrets that were operated remotely by the primary gunner and the radio operator/secondary gunner. Each gunner had a hemispheric observation window next to them and sighted the guns via a periscope system that protruded from streamlined twin fairings above and below the fuselage just aft of the flight deck. Initial plans for were for North American-designed turrets tied to a Sperry fire control system, but Sperry's resources were tied up with current production aircraft. It was decided to switch to General Electric for the remote fire control system and to have them be responsible for the turrets as well well. This imposed delays in the development as changes needed to be made to accommodate GE's equipment and systems. There was also a prevailing opinion at North American that Sperry's system was more advanced. A compromise was reached with the XB-28 defensive systems to use GE turrets and the Sperry sighting system. It's worth noting at this point that when the work on the remote turret fire control system on the XB-28 was under development, both Sperry and GE were working on getting the contract for the remote turret fire control system on the Boeing B-29 Superfortress- ironing out the kinks in the XB-28 gave GE valuable experience that helped the B-29 and made its system the production standard on the Superfortress.

Engine run up test at Mines Field in the summer of 1942.

The US entry into the Second World War slowed development of the XB-28 as priority shifted to production types and much of North American's resources were devoted to the production of the B-25 Mitchell and the P-51 Mustang. The maiden flight of the first prototype took place on 24 April 1942 at Mines Field (the site of today's Los Angeles International Airport/LAX) and the flight test program showed the XB-28 to be quite fast at high altitude, capable of 372 mph at 25,000 feet. Following the conclusion of North American's flight test program, the USAAF portion of the flight test program took place with the XB-28 operating out of Wright Field outside of Dayton, Ohio, for service trials. It was decided during the service trials that the third XB-28 prototype would be completed as a reconnaissance and photo-mapping aircraft designated XB-28A. North American was instructed to set aside work on the second XB-28 to get the XB-28A variant flying. The speed and altitude performance of the XB-28A was increased by reducing weight as well as installing more powerful versions of the R-2800 engines. The XB-28A made its maiden flight on 24 April 1943 (exactly one year after the first XB-28) but was unfortunately lost in flutter incident during dive testing on 4 August 1943 with the crew able to parachute to safety. At the time of the accident, design work on the production B-28 was underway with the most significant change being some extra scanning windows on the nose compartment for the bombardier/navigator.

By this point, however, it was realized that despite the outstanding performance of the XB-28, the realities of war showed that medium bombers already in service like the B-25 Mitchell and the Martin B-26 Marauder were most effective at low to medium altitudes flying interdiction missions where pressurization wasn't necessary. In the Pacific, B-25s equipped with extra forward firing machine guns were becoming very effective low level anti-shipping weapons while in the European theater, B-25s and B-26s operated most effectively at medium altitude (though some low level anti-shipping missions were flown in the Mediterranean against Axis vessels along the French and Italian coasts). The final nail in the XB-28's coffin was the Douglas product that was also first flown at Mines Field just a few months after the XB-28's maiden flight. The prototype Douglas XA-26 Invader first flew on 10 July 1942. It used the same engines as the XB-28, carried the same bomb load, but lacked pressurization which made it simpler to build and it only had a crew of three versus the crew of five on the XB-28. The sole XB-28 prototype was still at Wright Field at the time of the program's cancellation- it had its outer wings removed and sat out the war as a ground test article for pressurization tests before being scrapped.

Anigrand released a 1/72 resin kit of the XB-28 and this page has a great series of photos of a completed model that show the overall configuration of the XB-28. Take note of the hemispheric scanning bubbles on the upper lateral fuselage ahead of the wing for the gunners as well as the streamlined twin fairings above and below the forward fuselage for the sighting system to control the remote turrets.

Source: American Bomber Aircraft Development in World War 2 by Bill Norton. Midland Publishing, 2012, pp 66-69. Photos: USAF Museum, Anigrand

The First B-25 Mitchell Executive Transports

General Eisenhower's personal B-25 transport in its later years.

Until the arrival of the Grumman Gulfstream I in 1958, the Lockheed Jetstar in 1960 and the Hawker Siddeley HS.125 in 1962, there weren't any aircraft that were designed specifically as business transports. From the end of the Second World War until the 1960s, most companies had the option of buying up surplus Douglas DC-3 or C-47 aircraft, getting a small piston-engined aircraft from the likes of Cessna, Beech, or Piper, or a refitted surplus bomber- this latter option was clearly the high end as ex-bomber aircraft usually had a speed and range advantage over both the DC-3 and smaller piston aircraft. These executive conversions were the cream of the crop of business aviation in those days, the 1950s and 1950s counterpart to today's Gulfstreams and Global Express bizjets. A whole new industry developed in the postwar era to cater to this high-end market. 

One of the more common executive conversions from any several companies in those days used the North American B-25 Mitchell as the base aircraft- they were inexpensive to acquire, readily amenable to modification, and had a reputation as good-handling aircraft (which was why there were so few B-26 executive conversions after the Second World War). But years before the 1950s boom in the market, North American Aviation itself pioneered the concept of using the B-25 as an executive transport. 

The very first B-25 Mitchell to be converted just so happened to be the very first B-25 Mitchell with the serial number 40-2165. That's right. The prototype production B-25 that made its maiden flight in 1940. It had been modified in several ways as the flight test program proceeded and by 1942 it was deemed to have cost too much to have had it modified to the standard that was being delivered to the USAAF in those days, so it sat in a corner of the North American Aviation's facility at Mines Field (today's LAX). At this point in the B-25 program, North American now had two plants running at full capacity turning out Mitchells- the Fairfax plant in Kansas City, Kansas, and one at Hensley Field in Dallas (which later became NAS Dallas). In addition, North American executives and engineers were regularly moving amongst the suppliers nationwide as well as Washington DC and Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio, where the USAAF's technical division was located. During the war, airline service wasn't dependable as most of the air capacity was used by the military to support the war effort and travel by train was too slow. Dutch Kindelberger, president of North American Aviation, ordered the stored prototype to be converted into an executive transport. Seven passengers seats were installed, two ahead of the bomb bar and five  in the aft fuselage. The bomb bay became a baggage compartment and bunks were installed above it. Four windows were installed in the aft fuselage for the passenger cabin and the glass nose was made solid with a smooth aluminum skin. Carpeting, upholstery and extensive soundproofing were also added as well as a small bar- something not highlighted or admitted to by North American- which got the aircraft the nickname "Whiskey Express". It was used extensively by the North American corporate brass until January 1945 when it had to be scrapped after a runway overrun at Mines Field. 

The second B-25 modified by North American belonged to USAAF General Henry "Hap" Arnold- visiting the Inglewood facility at Mines Field one day, Arnold got to see the Whiskey Express and as the Chief of Staff, he decided he needed one, too. This was 1943 and production was rapidly accelerating in the B-25 program, so it was easy to divert a B-25C from production to be fitted out by North American to a similar standard as Whiskey Express. After the war, General Arnold's personal transport was purchased by Howard Hughes who used for another twenty years before it was retired. 

The same year Arnold got his own B-25, a B-25J was taken off the production line in Kansas City and flown to Inglewood on a "secret" mission. Tail number 43-4030 was fitted out to become the personal transport for General Dwight Eisenhower. Unlike Arnold's B-25 which had olive drab upholstery, Ike's Mitchell had a more stylish blue interior. Clamshell doors were fitted to the nose for easy access to the extra communications and navigation equipment and more floor space in the aft fuselage was created by moving the gunner's aft hatch further back, giving the rear cabin more seating and a drop leaf table. Overhead luggage racks were also fitted and extra fuel tanks were fitted to the bomb bay to give it more range. Officially it was designated an RB-25J to hide its true nature as Ike's personal transport, but as the war in Europe progressed, it was redesignated CB-25J and when Eisenhower moved up to larger aircraft as the Supreme Allied Commander, the CB-25J was passed on for use by lower ranking generals and was used by the USAF postwar until it ended up in the possession of the South Dakota Air and Space Museum where it can be seen today. 

In 1944, General Arnold traded up to a newer Mitchell transport. Maybe it was knowing Ike had a nicer one than him, who really knows, but tail number 44-28945 was taken from the production line and fitted out identically to the Eisenhower's aircraft. Arnold used it until 1946, but it remained in USAF use for a number of years flying colonels around well into the 1960s. 

When the Whiskey Express got scrapped, the North American brass decided a replacement was needed. The same month that the Whiskey Express had its accident, a B-25J was pulled from the production line and fitted out to nearly the same standards as Eisenhower's aircraft and Arnold's second aircraft. But knowing the war was soon over, North American decided to go the extra mile thinking there might be a postwar market for the company in such a conversion (years before any such companies specializing in such conversions were in that business!). Extra navigational equipment as well as a cabin heater were added and it entered service in March 1945. Between flying for North American executives, it was flying a test program to get certification as an executive transport. But on 27 February 1946 during a test flight out of Mines Field over the Pacific, the flight crew radioed a mayday that a wing was on fire before the aircraft tragically exploded. 

N5126N, North American's last shot at a business transport

North American decided it had had enough of the conversion market after that tragic loss, but in 1950 with the rise of aftermarket companies that were doing the very same thing North American had done during the Second World War, they decided to take a second shot at the executive transport market. A surplus B-25J was used and this time a new nose that was 14 inches wider was added which allowed room for four passenger seats ahead of the bomb bay but behind the flight deck in addition to the aft fuselage cabin. The bomb bay was permanently closed and replaced with an baggage door and an electric lift at the front of the former bomb bay. Because of the wider nose, a new windshield was needed and the windshield from the Convair 240 worked perfectly. To reduce noise, a circular exhaust collector was used on the engines instead of having several separate exhaust stacks. Nicknamed the "Bulbous Nose B-25", it had the tail number N5126N. Flight testing began, but ended tragically a second time on 25 March 1950 when N5126N broke up in a thunderstorm over Arizona, killing seven North American flight crew and engineers. With that loss, North American decided to abandon the project. 

Through the 1950s, though, the USAF still had quite a few B-25s flying as transports on strength and contracted the Hayes Aircraft Company in Birmingham, Alabama, and the Tucson, Arizona, branch of Hughes Tool Company to carry out conversion work on the B-25s. While not as extensive as the Bulbous Nose B-25 aircraft, they definitely drew upon North American's work. Many of these converted B-25s became trainer aircraft with the military through the 1960s, not just with the USAF but also the Royal Canadian Air Force. 

Source/Photos: Deadly Duo- The B-25 and B-26 in World War II by Charles A. Mendenhall. Specialty Press, 1981, p101-111.

The Genesis of the B-25 Mitchell Strafer-Bomber

The first strafer package installed on a B-25 Mitchell.

The first half of 1942 in the Pacific were dark days for the Allies. With the loss of the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies and the fall of Singapore in February, Allied forces fell back in the face of the Japanese, seeking refuge in Australia to regroup for the offensive. Australia would soon become the base of operations for General Douglas MacArthur's South Pacific offensive as war materiel from the United States along with personnel began to flow in via a logistical supply line stretching from California via Hawaii and Fiji. It was via this route that the first North American B-25 Mitchell medium bombers began to arrive in Australia- rather unusually, though, the first B-25s to arrive were earmarked for the Dutch and were accompanied by Jack Fox, North American's field service representative. With ten brand-new B-25s present, it wasn't long before some back room dealings resulted in the B-25s along with Jack Fox being transferred to the US Army Air Forces at their new base in Charters Towers which was built in only six weeks by the Australians. Arriving at Charters Towers, Fox saw "his" B-25s arriving with American crews which was unusual as few pilots had been checked out in the new bomber. Fox queried one of the arriving pilots who gruffly responded "Who needs checking out? The damn thing has a stick and throttle, doesn't it?"

That was the legendary Captain Paul "Pappy" Gunn that Fox had just met. A retired Navy flight instructor, Gunn was living in the Philippines working for Philippine Air Lines when the Japanese invaded. Managing to assist the ultimately futile battle against the Japanese, Gunn managed to fall back to Australia where his intimate knowledge of the Philippines was put to use with an immediate commission in the USAAF. Gunn's initial meeting with Fox would be the start of the development of some of the most lethal aircraft fielded against Japanese forces in the South Pacific, the "strafer-bombers". But before we move on, we have to back track a little bit to January 1942 and back to the United States when the tactics of a minimum altitude bombing attack on ships and troops were being discussed within the USAAF. Soon tests were underway at Eglin Army Air Field in the Florida panhandle to develop the technique. By this time the USAAF in the South Pacific under General George Kenney, head of the Thirteenth Air Force, recognized the low-level attack virtues of the Douglas A-20 Havoc and North American B-25 Mitchells, roles they were not originally designed to perform. But Kenney was dissatisfied with the armament and bombs of the two attack aircraft as they weren't completely suited to how he wanted to employ them. 

With flight tests at Eglin AAF and with Kenney's own aircraft in Australia, skip bombing was developed which involved a low level approach against the heavy defensive fire of the Japanese ships. Lacking proper American fuses to perform skip bombing, Kenney had Australian fuses which were longer substituted on the bombs. With A-20 and B-25 crews training locally on skip bombing, the first attacks were found to be more successful if combined with Australian Beaufighters which strafed the ships to kept the defensive fire to a minimum. It was at this juncture that Pappy Gunn enters the picture. He had come up with a field modification for the A-20 that put a battery of four fifty-caliber guns in the nose since a bombardier wasn't needed on low level attack runs. This way skip bombing and strafing could be combined in a single aircraft. The results were better, but extra fuel tanks had to be installed in the Havoc's bomb bay to increase its range, which in turn reduced its bomb load. By by the summer of 1942 A-20s were in short supply as A-20 deliveries to the Russians were increasing.

"Pappy's Folly" with Pappy Gunn at the helm.

And that's when the B-25 entered the picture. It had longer "legs" than the Havoc and could carry a heavier load. Early skip bombing missions had already shown the B-25 eminently suitable for the role. Gunn and Fox come up with a field modification with General Kenney's blessing that put four fifty-caliber guns in the nose section with plenty of ammunition as well as an additional two pairs of fifty-caliber guns on external blisters on each side of the forward fuselage. By the summer 1942 Jack Fox issued a memo to all the other North American field reps in the South Pacific on how to modify the B-25 into a strafer-bomber. North American dispatched an engineering team to the field depot which was located at Eagle Farms in Brisbane to further assist Pappy Gunn and Jack Fox in their development work. The first B-25 Mitchell modified as a strafer-bomber was aptly named "Pappy's Folly" and personally flight tested by Gunn himself as well as Jack Fox. Working out the bugs, General Kenney then sent the two men and "Pappy's Folly" up to Port Moresby closer to the front lines for more testing. By February 1943 the North American team at Eagle Farms converted twelve more B-25s which were then assigned to crews with the 90th Bombardment Squadron in Port Moresby. Tactics were worked out and crews trained on a wrecked ship off the coast of Port Moresby- a pair of B-25s would approach enemy ships at 1,000-1,500 feet and then drop to 500 feet or lower on the final run in to the target. One Mitchell would open up with its gun battery to suppress the defensive fire while the other Mitchell would drop a string of three 250-lb bombs in a skip bomb attack. After the first pass, the pair returned for a second run, this time switching roles. 

During the first half of 1943 General Kenney's "commerce destroyers" wreaked havoc on Japanese shipping in the Bismarck Sea that supported the Imperial war machine. Soon airfields also came under attack by the strafer-bombers dropping 23-lb fragmentation bombs slowed by parachutes- "parafrag" bombs. They would soon be a decisive force in the campaign in the Southwest Pacific on the road back to the Philippines. 

Source/Photos: B-25 Mitchell: The Magnificent Medium by Norm L. Avery.  Phalanx Publishing, 1992, p95-103.

During the war in the Pacific, the kamikaze threat required increasing numbers of fighters in the Navy's carrier air groups which in turn displaced bombers like the TBF Avenger. To give the fighters more offensive air-to-ground striking power, unguided rockets became standard for fighter aircraft like the Corsair and Hellcat. One of the ultimate unguided rockets to be used in the Pacific was the Tiny Tim, which was created by adding a 500-lb armor piercing bomb to the front of a standard oil well casing which was filled with rocket propellant. The oil well casing had the same 11.75 inch diameter as the 500-lb bomb. Finished off with a rocket nozzle and fins, the Tiny Tim was 10 feet long and weighed 1300 lbs.

The first firing took place in June 1944 and unlike previously used smaller rockets, it couldn't be fired off the rail due to the blast. As a solution, the rocket was dropped and a lanyard ignited the rocket motor once clear of the aircraft. The first aircraft carrier carrying Tiny Tim, the USS Franklin, was nearly sunk near Okinawa from kamikaze attacks before strikes with the rocket could begin. But the rocket was employed to effect against Japanese shipping by land-based Marine Corps PBJ bombers (B-25 Mitchells).

Source: Strike from the Sea: U.S. Navy Attack Aircraft from Skyraider to Super Hornet, 1948-Present by Tommy H. Thomason. Specialty Press, 2009, p17.