The Douglas A-26/B-26 Invader Fought in Three Big Wars and Many Smaller Ones
The Douglas A-26 Invader was created as a replacement for the company’s previous twin-engine attack aircraft, the very successful DB-7 Boston/A-20 Havoc. The A-26 Invader didn’t become the B-26 Invader until 1948. By that time the new US Air Force was no longer flying the previous B-26, Martin’s B-26 Marauder medium bomber, having retired the last of them the previous year, so the redesignation of the A-26 to the B-26 made sense. But the two aircraft were vastly different in design if not mission.
Designed by Legends
The A-26 was designed beginning in 1940 by none other than the renowned Ed Heinemann, along with Robert Donovan, Ted R. Smith and A.M.O. Smith. A full-scale mock-up of the A-26 was inspected by the US Army Air Corps in April of 1941. A contract for development was awarded the following June. Design highlights included a high shoulder-mounted laminar flow wing section with squared off wingtips, pronounced dihedral, and a pair of 2,000 horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-2800-27 Double Wasp radial piston engines mounted in tight-fitting nacelles turning three-bladed Hamilton Standard Hydromatic constant-speed propellers, a boxy fuselage with a conventional squared-off empennage, and tricycle landing gear. The A-26 was about three feet longer with a nine foot longer wingspan and 80 square feet more wing area than the A-20. The A-26 also outweighed the A-20 by about three tons when empty.
Interchangeable Parts
A-26s were manufactured in two different basic configurations. The A-26B was normally equipped with what was called the All-Purpose Nose, which mounted six or later eight forward-firing .50 caliber machine guns, although it was possible to mount 20 millimeter cannons or even a 75 millimeter howitzer in lieu of some or all of the .50s. The A-26C had the Bombardier Nose, which included a Norden bombsight, two fixed forward-firing .50 caliber machine guns, and clear unframed Perspex in the nose. But either nose configuration could be swapped for the other by the ground crews in just a few hours. This gave the A-26 tremendous operational flexibility.
Heavily Armed
The A-26 was crewed by three- pilot, navigator/bombardier, and a gunner who operated the remotely controlled ventral and dorsal gun turrets, each of which had a pair of .50 caliber machine guns. The navigator/bombardier’s duties were determined by which nose his A-26 was wearing on a given mission. In the C the B/N rode in the nose, but in the B he sat with the pilot. Later production A-26s were equipped with three .50 caliber machine guns in each wing when the All Purpose Nose armament went from six to eight .50s, giving the A-26B 14 forward firing .50s- 18 if both turrets were aimed forward. A-26s with wing-mounted .50s also received rails for carriage of seven rail-mounted High Velocity Aerial Rockets (HVARs) under each wing.
Initial Findings
The prototype XA-26 Invader flew for the first time on 10 July 1942. Aside from some engine cooling issues which led to cowling modifications and the elimination of the spinners from the propellers and issues with the nose gear that resulted in the redesign of same, the A-26 fairly sailed through testing. Pilots reported it was a sweet-flying aircraft with excellent performance and predictable handling. Later the original A-26 flat canopy was replaced with a dual-clamshell design which provided better visibility beginning in late 1944.
To War in the Pacific…Sort of
The A-26B went to war beginning in August of 1943 with General George C Kenney’s Fifth Air Force in the Southwest Pacific. A-26Bs first went into combat on 23 June 1944. Pilots of the new aircraft found that although they were fast, outward vision from the cockpit was limited by the engine nacelles, making the A-26B inadequate for the low-level attack work for which the Fifth Air Force became famous. In fact Kenney was quoted as saying, “We do not want the A-26 under any circumstances as a replacement for anything.” Ouch! So Fifth Air Force A-20G Havocs flew alongside the few A-26B Invaders in the area for the rest of the war- but the A-26B never replaced the A-20 Havoc or the North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber in Fifth Air Force service. Some A-26Bs did see duty with the Seventh Air Force on Okinawa but arrived too late to see significant combat.
To War in Europe. For Real This Time
In the European Theatre of Operations (ETO) the Ninth Air Force began receiving A-26Bs in late August of 1944. The 553rd Bomb Squadron (BS) of the 386th Bomb Group (BG) took the A-26B to war beginning on 6 September 1944. No A-26Bs were lost during eight missions, resulting in the Ninth Air Force buying in- so much so that they said their war-weary A-20 Havocs and B-26 Marauders were ready for replacement by the Invader. Invaders were used by several more Ninth Air Force squadrons for bombing, strafing, night interdiction, and even tactical reconnaissance. The Twelfth Air Force also began using A-26Bs in the Italian campaign beginning in January of 1945 and also reported exemplary results with their new Douglas attackers.
