The Martin B-26 Marauder

The B-26 was initially deployed on combat missions in the South West Pacific in the spring of 1942, but most of the B-26s subsequently assigned to operational theaters were sent to England and the Mediterranean area.

By the end of World War II, it had flown more than 110,000 sorties, dropped 150,000 tons (136,078 tonnes) of bombs and had been used in combat by British, Free French and South African forces in addition to US units. In 1945, when B-26 production was halted, 5,266 had been built

Photo Data has been collected from many books and websites over the years. There are some fantastic WWII veteran websites out there and I have combined the information and matched the photos with the USAAF serial numbers. Because many aircraft served with several different Groups and Squadrons, during their service life.

Hence individual aircraft are often mentioned in several websites with different names and squadron and group codes. It's often very hard to determine the order in which each aircraft served with which group and when. So what I have done, when an aircraft which severed with more than one group I used + sign to indicate the additional units it served in. I have given preference to the last known Group to operate the aircraft or the Group which provided the most information about the particular aircraft.

With photos I have tried to identify as many planes as possible by their unique USAAF serial number then by Bombardment Group and Bombardment Squadron hence the BG & BS coding. Out of 5,266 aircraft produced I can only claim to have identified 155 aircraft by serial numbers so far. I you have any additional photo's or information of any of the aircraft featured here please email me a copy so I can make the photo and record list more complete. I am trying to create a photographic and historic database of US aircraft used during WWII. With combining the history of the various 'veterans websites' I hoped to get a better understanding of the unique history of each aircraft.

In doing this I hope I haven't offended anyone. Since the USAAF records where destroyed we all need to try and combine all the information available so we can have a more accurate historical view point of each aircraft and the men who flew them. There courage and sacrifice made our world a better place and as the years roll on the historical accuracy and lack of records makes keeping track of the data harder and harder.