B-25 Mitchell: coming attractions

Two things happened recently that drew my attention to the B-25 Mitchell, a WW II medium bomber that saw limited use as an air tanker in the lower 48 and more extensive service as an air tanker in Alaska and Canada. The first thing was reading a book, In the Shadow of Eagles: From Barnstormer to Alaska Bush Pilot, written by Rudy Billberg. I’ll write more on Rudy in a little later article next week. For now, suffice it to say that Rudy flew a B-25 for a few fire seasons in the mid 1960s in the State of Alaska. The second was watching Pearl Harbor recently on cable, where I watched the dramatic re-enactment of Dolittle’s raid on Japan in early 1942 using B-25’s.

There is a long list of historical aircraft, most of them former military aircraft, that have seen service as air tankers at one time or another. It has been on my mind for awhile now to write about some of these aircraft, its military (and/or civilian use), its use as an airtanker, and restored versions.

After reading Rudy’s book, I got interested in the history of the B-25 and quickly found out about her use in Dolittle’s raid. So when Pearl Harbor was showing on cable recently, I took the opportunity to watch the portion of the movie with the dramatic re-enactment of Doolittle’s raid. And I saw the B-25’s used in the movie.

Given these two events, I decided to write about the B-25. I am still in the process of working out this series of article as I write this, but I do have the next couple of articles worked out:

June 23: About the B-25
June 25: Dolittle’s raid
June 28: B-25 in WW II, South Pacific Theatre