The 75th Division Veteran’s Association had a day trip to the Woodring Wall and Museum in Enid, Oklahoma. The museum is in a hanger on an air field. After seeing the museum we were invited to go to another hanger to see the A 26B Invader.
The invader looks a lot like a B52 Bomber but much smaller. The bomb bays on the bottom of the aircraft were open and a few 5 foot tall bombs were standing next to the lecture area. A volunteer stood in front of a table with tall poser boards to give his lecture. The poster boards blocked my view of the aircraft, so I took a chair and sat over near a large fan.
This A 26B Invader is still functional and it’s last flight was in May of this year. The Invader is an an American twin-engined light bomber and ground attack aircraft. Built by Douglas Aircraft Company during World War II. It was a fast aircraft capable of carrying a large bomb load. A range of guns could be fitted to produce a formidable ground-attack aircraft. The A-26B gun-nose could be equipped with a combination of armament, including .50 caliber machine guns, 20 or a 37mm auto cannon.
Alongside the pilot in an A-26B, a crew member served as navigator and gun loader for the pilot-operated nose guns. In Europe, American bombardment groups started using the A 26B starting in November of 1944. The A-26 was well received by pilots and crew alike in European operations, and by 1945, the 9th Air Force had flown 11,567 missions with the planes, dropping 18,054 tons of bombs, recording seven confirmed kills while losing 67 aircraft.
the plane is 18 feet 6 inches tall with a wing span of 70 feet. It can hold a crew of 3.