What's a PBJ-1 you ask?
It looks familiar, doesn't it?
The PBJ-1 is the World War 2 Navy/Marine Corps nomenclature for the B-25 Bomber. In World War 2 there were more B-25s produced than the Army Air Corps needed, so they sent some to the Navy, who then gave them to the Marines. The Marines used them for anti-ship and close air support missions.
The PBJ-1 instead of the clear nose had machine-guns installed for additional firepower for anti-ship and marine close air support missions.
Devil Dog is a B-25 that was restored and converted to the PBJ-1 variant by the Commemorative Air Force as there are no existing original PBJ-1s. The aircraft is named for the original Devil Dog that was lost in the Pacific with all its crew during a night operation.
Original or not, Devil Dog is still an absolutely stunning aircraft.
4 comments:
At first I thought this was going to be about those sandwiches Mom used to make (PBJ, get it?), but then I saw the picture.
Eight 50's in the nose can really ruin somebody's day!
drjim: Maybe they calle d them PBJs because the Eight .50s in the nose plus those on the body would turn the enemy to jelly nicely.
drjim:
you missed the cheek guns. Normally the B-25 would have two .50's mounted on each side behind the cockpit, when set up for interdiction efforts, in addition to the 8 in the nose. Ive read that some enterprising ground support guys would mount a couple more of them in the wings. In addition, the top turret could be locked to fire ahead with the rest of the guns, giving a minimum of 14 of those 50 bmg's for the pilot to play with, not counting any additional add-ons. Looks like the Marine version has the top turret deleted, and maybe one each of the cheek guns. I'm a little surprised that the Marines would want less guns than the Army, although I can understand the loss of the turret. Oh, and one version had a 75mm tank gun mounted offset in the nose. Still had the 50's. Wasn't much liked by the crews.
Oh, I knew about the cheek guns; I just didn't mention them.
The 50's in the nose get your attention, and hold it!
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