“The preservation of Flak-Bait ensures that future generations of museum visitors will be able to see the beat-up old bomber.that Americans used to help save the world in the 1940s,” says Kinney. Much of the aircraft had been kept in crates since the end of World War II, so there’s a lot of work to do.” The job is expected to be completed by 2025. “We’re cleaning and stopping any corrosion. “We are preserving, not restoring, this great plane,” says Jeremy Kinney, curator in the Aeronautics Department at the museum. Dedicated experts are painstakingly conserving the aircraft so that future generations will have an opportunity to understand the sacrifices made by a generation of people during World War II. Much like on that historic day 75 years ago, crews are once again working to prepare the plane for another mission-this time as a testament to the aircraft that helped win a war and the brave men who flew it. Today, Flak-Bait is undergoing preservation in the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar at the National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. Unfortunately, the de Havilland B Mk IX bomber crashed during a war-bond tour in Canada on May, 9, 1945, two days after VE Day. The only bomber to fly more missions was an RAF Mosquito known as F for Freddie, which made it 213 times over enemy territory.
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Samuel would later say.įor its 200th mission, Flak-Bait lead the entire 322nd Bombardment Group to bomb Magdeburg, Germany.Īll told, Flak-Bait flew 200 combat missions, plus six decoy operations, for a grand total of 206 flights. “Two hundred missions are a lot for any ship, but Flak-Bait carried her age well,” Col. For two years, the aircraft took everything the Germans could throw at her, including shrapnel from flak and machine-gun bullets from enemy fighters, and became the American bomber to survive the most missions of World War II. This was the 200th for the B-26B-25-MA, manufactured by Martin in 1943. They successfully led a strike against the German defensive positions and returned safely to the airfield in Belgium.īut what made this day special for Flak-Bait was the number of missions. Samuel, commanding officer of the 332nd Bombardment Group in the Ninth Air Force, had selected this aircraft as his “flagship” for the assault against Nazi targets in Magdeburg.
This would be a historic flight for the aptly named Flak-Bait, and not just because it was leading the attack that day. Across its fuselage was a quiltwork of more than 1,000 patches covering holes-some as large as 16 inches-caused by shrapnel from exploding antiaircraft shells on previous combat missions.
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The airmen must have wondered how this plane-marked with serial number 41-31773, but better known by the nickname Flak-Bait-was even able to fly. One flight crew examined their two-engine medium bomber with particular interest. It was April 17, 1945, and World War II in Europe was nearing an end, though the killing was far from over.Īs teams of men lifted heavy bombs into the weapons bays and started rotating the large propellers on the B26 Marauders in preparation for takeoff, aircrews went through checklists and studied maps in advance of their next target: Magdeburg, Germany. Flak-Bait made history on April 17, 1945, when it became the only American bomber to fly 200 missions.Īt a forward airfield in Le Culot, Belgium, ground crews worked feverishly to ready the 449th Bombardment Squadron for another mission.
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