by James M. Day
During the war, armor came in just two flavors—homogenous (the same toughness
all the way trough its depth) and face-hardened. Since the later part of the
19th century, armor manufacturers clearly understood that it was possible to
harden armor to a point that it could withstand just about any attack. However,
as its hardness increased, its toughness decreased. Really hard armor would be
so brittle that it would more than likely shatter when hit by a projectile.
The answer was face-hardened armor. An American invented a process where the
face of armor could be hardened without affecting the overall toughness of the
armor behind it. When high-velocity AP projectiles struck
face-hardened armor plates, they had a tendency to shatter. Attaching a soft
steel cap to the nose of the shell solved that problem—hence APC (Armored
Piercing Capped). It took the stress of the initial impact and spread it over
the whole diameter of the shell rather than concentrating it just on the nose.
As an added benefit, the soft steel cap melted as it transferred the stress
thereby serving as a lubricant through the face-hardened plate.
Problem solved? Well not quite. Putting the cap on the projectile’s nose upset
its ballistic shape to the point that it increased drag, thereby bleeding off
its velocity. The final answer was a second cap of the appropriate ballistic
shape that covered the soft metal piercing cap. The result was APCBC.
SOME FAMILY HISTORY
THE 820TH
This is the story of a World War Two combat unit. The official records show
that the old 820th Bombardment Squadron (Medium), along with the rest of the
41st Bombardment Group (Medium), was disbanded in January 1946. I always
assumed that the squadron was one of those high number designation World War
Two units that would never be used again but I was wrong. Imagine my surprise
when I caught a news report in the 1990s that covered the 820th Maintenance
Squadron in Italy during the bombing campaign on Serbia. So it goes.
"Little Joe" and crew
"Peg O' Me Heart" and crew
Have you ever watched the evening news and realized that a story was chosen
mainly because they had great pictures available? Well, this article was
selected for very similar reasons – I chose to cover this one partcular combat
squadron because my late father served in it during part of World War Two and
he took the accompanying pictures, unpublished until now. There were many
pictures and I tried to pick the best and most evocative but some are faded or
torn after over 60 years and, unfortuneately, many stuck together in the album
and were lost or ruined over the years. I also had to weed out nose art not
suitable for our family Newsletter – they were lonely men a long way from their
wives and girlfiends! This was a fairly obscure unit that most historians would
overlook. On the other hand, this squadron saw its fair share of action and its
record can stand as an example of the the fighting air units of the war. Until
the large ground campaigns with their accompanying bloodbaths started in the
second half of 1944, the combat air crews suffered the highest casualty rates
in the Unites States military.
Acoording to the records, the 521st Bombardment Squadron (Heavy) was activated
on October 13, 1942 as part of the rapid growth that was to propel the United
States Army Air Force into the status as the mightiest air armada in history.
Initially part of the 378th Bombardment Group (Heavy) and equipped with O-46
trainers, the unit was redesignated in December as the 16th Antisubmarine
Squadron of the 25th Antisubmarine Wing and re-equipped with B-34 bombers.
After months of antisubmarine patrols out of Hawaii, the unit was once again
re-designated and re-equipped, this time as the the 820th Bombardment Squadron
(Medium) on September 22, 1943.
B-25G in flight
The 820th was eqipped with and trained on the new B-25G "Mitchell"
medium bombers. The B-25G was developed out of experience with the
field-modified B-25C-1 "strafer" bombers that had been developed by
the legendary "Pappy" Gunn and used by the innovative General George
C. Kenney’s Fifth Air Force in New Guinea. The bomber had two (increased to
four in many aircraft in the field) .50 heavy machineguns in the solid nose
along with an awesome 75mm cannon. Two more .50 heavy machineguns were mounted
in blister packs on each side of the nose to also fire forward. All nose
machineguns and the cannon were angled slightly downward so they could pound
ground and sea targets while the aircraft’s nose remained relatively level,
although individual pilots could have this modified to suit their flying style.
The nose armament alone could practically chew right through a merchantman or
any warship smaller than a heavy cruiser. The aircraft also had a top power
turret with two more .50 heavy machineguns, a .50 heavy machinegun on each side
in flexible waist positions and two more .50s as a tail stinger. After the
first 100 G-model machines, there was no lower ventral turret as it was not
intended to ever fly high enough for an enemy interceptor to attack from below.
Most of these initial production aircraft had the ventral turret removed before
entering combat – it saved weight and the aircraft required one less crewman.
Only 400 G-models were built and it was not considered an especially successful
design as firing the 75mm a few hundred times caused strucural damage such as
rivets popping out of the nose assembly. The 1000 B-25H model aircraft, which
were similarly armed and moved the top turret forward to make it easier to add
the turret’s firepower to the unprecedented nose battery, remedied most of the
defects of the B25G and was already in production as the first G models roared
into combat in New Guinea and the Central Pacific. The penultimate version of
the strafer B-25 was the later J-model which came in glass nose and strafer
versions. The B-25J strafer dispensed with the cannon and added four more .50s
in the nose, for approximately the same unpleasant effect on ground or sea
targets and, with no need for a gunner; a savings of one crew member.
The 41st Bombardment Group Tally Board, probably mid
1944
The 820th was assigned to the 41st Bombardment Group (Medium) as that Group’s
fourth and its strafer squadron on October 11, 1943 and remained part of the
41st for the remainder of the war. Assigned to the 7th Air Force to participate
in the new offensive in the Central Pacific, the group’s four squadrons (47th,
48th, 396th and 820th) started combat operations from their new airfield on
Tarawa on December 28, 1943. Tarawa had been taken by the Second Marine
Division in a brutal battle scarcely one month before. The strategy in the
Central Pacific was to seize islands, build air bases on them and use the
land-based air units to blockade the Japanese garrisons on other islands and
provide air support for further advances. Colonel Murray A. Bywater commanded
the group during its entire wartime stint in the Pacific.
Monument to the Second Marine Division on Tarawa
Dad shaving near luxurious tent crew quarters on Makin Island,
Spring 1944
Dad participated in the squadron’s combat operations, usually as a top turret
gunner and radioman, flying from a succession of Central Pacific bases as the
Central Pacific offensive blasted its way through the Marshalls, Carolines and
Mariannas. Missions included base attacks, ship attacks, search and rescue and
ground support. The 41st lost 30 aircraft during their first month in combat
and once ate pancakes for breakfast every morning for 40 straight days (these
are things that are remembered – Dad hated flapjacks for the rest of his life).
Their worst day was when they played tourist and tried to get a close look at
the massed Pacific Fleet – the approaching twin-tail medium bombers were
misidentified as Japanese "Nells" and friendly antiaircraft fire
brought down four Mitchells in a tragic "friendly fire" incident –
Sergeant Samuel C. Taylor was on one of the surviving aircraft and later
mentioned this to his eldest son just one time.
Dad flew many missions on the "Coral Princess"
"Paper Doll" and crew
He was lucky enough to avoid being awarded a purple heart but suffered life-long
back problems from jumping out of a just-landed but still-moving B-25G headed
for a bowser with its brakes shot out. They had just returned with one engine
out and the other leaking oil. My father finished his combat tour and separated
from the unit when they returned to Hawaii in October, 1944. He returned to the
Forty-Eight, training duties and marriage to my mother while the 41st got newer
B-25s and intense training with rockets before moving to Okinawa in mid 1945
and resuming combat operations.
Wrecked Japanese Flying Boat
"Tagalong Ann" and crew
Even though he eventually took a commission and served for 27 years in the Air
Force, like many combat veterans, Dad didn’t talk much about his wartime
experiences. It was the mid 1950s before he organized these pictures into an
album. Over the years, he made a few comments that I found both interesting and
revealing. I once showed him a magazine article about the B-25G and he looked
at the serial numbers listed there and started matching many of them to an
aircraft name – 30 years later and he still remembered – time must have weighed
heavily during long flights across
endless stretches of the Pacific with nothing to look at but the other planes
in the formation and their names and serial numbers. When I was working on my
DAUNTLESS board game, I went to him for what was involved in "skip
bombing", a technique the old gunships perfected and used to sink many
Japanese ships.
"A run had to be made at between 200 and 250 miles an hour for the bomb to
skip across the waves and into the side of a ship."
The excellent view from the top turret; part of a multi-photo sequence of a B-25
strike, of which this is the best picture – it appears to show a hit or near
miss on a Japanese warship
"How low?"
"The props should be kicking up spray!" (This is low! They really had
to trust their pilots.)
"How many shells were carried for the 75mm cannon?"
Original World War II 7th Air Force Patch
Original World War Two 820th Bombardment Squadron Patch
"21."
"How long did it take to fire them?"
"I think the official rate of fire was supposed to be just five or six
rounds per minute. Our standing orders were to make additional passes on an
airfield if any shells were left. The gunners got so they could always fire all
21 in about a two or three minute pass or they would catch it from the rest of
the crew who felt one strafing run through aroused antiaircraft batteries was
enough to earn their day’s pay. The recoil from each round seemed to physically
slow the plane – you could really feel it - although I have no idea how much a
firing pass would actually affect the speed. By reflex the pilot would almost
always gun the engines during a firing pass."
The rather elegant nose art on "Marie"
"When a nearby gunship fired it looked like the nose was exploding."
That French 75 [the preferred terminology for their airborne cannon] was a
frightening weapon. When we attacked an airfield in waves, we liked the waves
to be at least a mile-and-a-half apart so the following aircraft wouldn’t
accidentally blast the lead ones out of the sky."
There were a few postscripts. On Guam in 1961, we took a trip to "Tarzan
Pool", a popular swimming hole with a waterfall you could ride down at the
expense of a few scrapes and bruises and handy vines to use to swing over the
water. Nearby was a crashed B-25 that was well-known to the locals. It was
supposed to have been from the 41st and lost there in 1944 (Guam was liberated
in August 1944 and some 41st aircraft bombed the island from a newly-captured
base on Saipan) but it was hard to tell much; the wreck was crumpled, burnt,
thoroughly looted and seriously rusted.
One of the 41st Group’s "glass nose" B-25s.
A notation on the back of this photo reads "going on a raid"
One of the 41st Group’s "glass nose" B-25s. As can be seen, these also
packed a fair number of heavy machineguns in the nose and stirred up their
share of low-level trouble.
In 1969, we visited the Strategic Air Command Museum at Offutt AFB. At that
time, the display aircraft were open and accessible to visitors. The old aerial
gunner and aging communications officer pulled himself into the lower hatch
with practiced ease while my 22 year old self had to be helped in by the old
man. Dad never went to any unit reunions but occassionaly some old buddies
would turn up to toast lost friends and faithful old aircraft – the ones
pictured in this article.
The 
Sometimes the old-fashioned virtues of hard work and steady effort are best. We
warned Jeff that the beatings would continue until his morale improved and he
"found the joy" and produced this desert sands tile set. So, now we have this
spanking new 
By the end of the Second World War, most armor-piercing
projectiles were of the APCBC (Armored Piercing, Capped, Ballistically
Capped) variety. Why were two caps better than one? It was a result of the
ongoing struggle between armor and the projectiles that attempt to defeat it.