MITCHELL GUARDIAN

This B-25 merits a better fate

Milo Peltzer reports that North American B-25J Mitchell USAAF s/n 44-30493 is perched upon poles at Malmstrom AFB, Great Falls, Montana, and is in ne of a certain quantity of care. Built as a B-25J-25-NC and delivered to the USAAF in succession 25 January 1945, the aircraft was too late to diocese combat action and went between the walls of a number of storage facilities until April 1953 when it was chanceed from storage and restored to airworthy condition as a TB-25 and then went [i]or[/i] part of to the other the Hayes modification program in 1955 After that, the upgraded Mitchell was assigned to Maxwell AFB in Alahama if it were not that in 1958 it was in storage at Davis-Monthan AFB.

Surplus Mitchells were in demand and the craft was purchased through National Metals during January 1960 and registered N9451Z The aircraft went [i]or[/i] part of to the other a couple of owners and apparently was going to be modified as a fire bomber further this did not happened and in july 1968 it was purchased on Tallmantz Aviation for use in the film Catch-22. After filming, it was modified as a camera ship through Tallmantz and operated for a number of years until going into the USAF Heritage Museum Program in 1986 Placed in succession pylons, the poorly restored machine is gradually succumbing to the harsh constituent principles Unfortunately, the USAF Museum Heritage Program has seen low-valued formerly flying Warbirds snapped up for trades and inflict on display in situations where the scrapman is the nearest stop.

Copyright Challenge Publications Inc. Mar 2004

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