#b-26

[usaac-official]

A B-26 and her crew during training at Lake Charles, Louisiana, 1944

[usafphantom5]

On this day in 1952 the United Nations decided to throw more aircraft at one city in a single day than had ever hit it before, and they actually warned the people first.

By the summer of 1952 the Korean War had frozen into a bloody stalemate. The front line barely moved, the peace talks at Panmunjom were going nowhere, and the Communists seemed happy to just sit and stall forever while men died over the same hills again and again. So the air commanders decided to change the math. If they could not win it on the ground, they would make staying in the war unbearable from the sky.

The target was Pyongyang, the enemy capital. The operation was called Pressure Pump, and the whole point was in the name. Keep the pressure on until something breaks.

Here is the part that surprises people. Before the raid, the Americans told the city it was coming. Radio broadcasts and leaflets warned civilians of the coming attack and told them to get out and stay away from military targets. Then they hit it with everything they had.

On July 11 more than twelve hundred aircraft came over Pyongyang in daylight. Not just American planes. Air Force, Navy and Marine aircraft flying alongside South Korean, Australian, South African and British pilots, wave after wave all day long. Then after dark the B-29 heavy bombers came and worked the city over through the night.

Thirty separate targets were marked out across the city. When the smoke cleared, most of them were wrecked, a handful completely obliterated, and only a couple came through untouched. Radio Pyongyang, the voice of the North Korean government, was knocked clean off the air. The enemy lost the day for the price of only three aircraft.

It did not end the war. Nothing in that grinding stalemate summer did. But Pressure Pump was a message written in fire above the enemy capital. You can drag out the talks as long as you want, but every day you stall, we own your sky.

@TheForgottenpic via X

[nocternalrandomness]

Martin B-26G Marauder at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio

[dronescapesvideos]

Closeup view of Martin B-26C in flight, 1944 (Colorized)

➤B-26 VIDEO: https://youtu.be/UmhJlArOBk0

➤HD IMAGE: https://dronescapes.video/Marauder

➤U.S. AIRCRAFT VIDEOS: https://dronescapes.video/US

[stone-cold-groove]

Give us more B-26’s.

[carbone14]

Bombardier moyen Martin B-26B Marauder “Shootin’ In” du 556th Bomb Squadron du 387th Air Expeditionary Group de la Ninth Air Force – 1944-1945

©National Archives and Records Administration

[radarsteddybear]

On the left is a Douglas B-26C Invader; this plane actually served in WWII as an A-26, but was re-designated the B-26 after WWII (even though there was already a Martin B-26 Marauder, because what's an Air Force without a little confusion once in a while?).  I love the nose art.  

[bigglesworld]

Martin B-26G Marauder. 320th Bomb Group. First flew in 1940.