Martin B-26 Marauder: The Ultimate Look: From Drawing Board to Widow Maker Vindicated (The Ultiimate Look, 5) Hardcover – November 28, 2014

My copy of the book arrived last Wednesday, and I couldn't put it down. What struck me was the multilayered history, not just of an airplane and its design, but of an entire era. Dr. Wolf takes us from the early days of aeronautical engineering to the end of World War II. The Glenn L. Martin Company's B-26 Marauder was a product of its time, and of the particular circumstances under which this aircraft, and those like it produced by other aircraft manufacturers, came into being. Some aircraft manufacturers, such as North American aviation, Lockheed, and Douglas, were blessed with farsighted designers who could see what would actually be needed as their designs grew to maturity, both in World War II, and beyond. Without men like James Kindleberger (North American Aviation), Kelly Johnson (Lockheed), and Ed Heinemann (Douglas), American combat aviation during World War II might have been a collection of also-rans. Much has been made of the Martin Marauder's design deficiencies, but even Peyton McGruder, Martin's talented chief designer of the Marauder could not overcome the consequences of the Army Air Corps' design requirements that emphasized aircraft speed over all other considerations. A design emphasis on speed necessarily required an elongated, streamlined fuselage, and above all, a short wing span and a small vertical tail. A short-span wing was very efficient at high speed, but takeoff and landing speeds were unacceptably high; and if an engine quit on takeoff, the airplane became very difficult to control. Worse yet, aeronautical engineers trained on designing civilian aircraft for commercial markets frequently lacked any sort of experience of what it took to survive in a combat environment, where the all-up weight of an airplane might be much more than its designers could have imagined. Much of the work was done by subcontractors newly recruited to provide essential equipment and matériel, and coordination and quality control frequently involved steep learning curves for everybody involved.Consequently, under the pressure of wartime conditions when thousands of young men were being hastily trained to fly high performance combat aircraft, the consequences of official shortsightedness became readily apparent, with a rash of accidents occurring during pilot training, many of them fatal. So great was the criticism of the Marauder that on three separate occasions Army Air Force officials and congressional investigators gave serious consideration to terminating the Marauder program entirely. To remedy the situation, Martin redesigned the Marauder's wing and tail empennage to improve the Marauder's flight characteristics at low speeds during takeoffs and landings. But the cost was not just lives lost and aircraft destroyed in accidents. The Marauder cost the government half again as much as its nearest competitor, the North American B-25 Mitchell, whose production run was almost twice as large as Martin's. By mid-1943, the Glenn L Martin Company was told by Army Air Force officials to begin closing down their assembly lines in Baltimore, Maryland, and Omaha, Nebraska. Ironically, beginning in the summer of 1943 and until the end of the war, Marauder combat losses shrank to near insignificance, 0.5% of all sorties flown, but by then it was too late. The Marauder could not be deployed to theaters of operation, principally the Southwest and Central Pacific, where maintenance facilities were primitive, and where operational requirements emphasize ruggedness, adaptability, and ability to withstand battle damage. Most combat occurred at very low altitudes, frequently at treetop or masthead heights above the ground. The Marauder was not designed for that sort of warfare.For those of us, including myself, whose passion includes knowing every detail about the engineering and wherewithal of World War II aviation, I give Dr. Wolf's magisterial work my highest recommendation. It is fully on a par with his earlier works and his most recent work (2015) on the Douglas A-20 Havoc, which I purchased along with his book on the Marauder, and which will be the subject of a review on a later date.World War II ended 70 years ago, and between then and now there have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of book titles that deal with the air war and the road to Allied victory. Many, if not most focus on unit actions, and the experiences of individual aircraft and their aircrew. Some of these are devoted to describing the aircraft camouflage and markings. Dr. Wolf includes some of that information, mostly as succinct summaries, giving basic information to readers that can be supplemented elsewhere. What we get, however, is a detailed exposition in the Marauder's and anatomy and physiology. It is history; it is engineering; it is the story of the people around, in and about how the Marauder was conceived, designed, produced, and ultimately utilized. You can't ask for more. Dr. Wolf's audience is aimed at those with deep and abiding interests in that long-ago era, and he respects his readers enough not to skimp on the detailed technical information that soon maybe lost to most of us now forever. We own a debt of gratitude for this and other labors of love for his subject matter and those who made it happen so long ago.

This is an amazing book on this subject and could be argued that it is the definitive book on the B-26 Marauder. The book is big. Very big and very heavy. You know you have the last word in this subject in your hand when you pick it up. With a page count of 640 pages of high quality and acid free paper, the book is covered in 10 chapters:1. Glenn L. Martin and His Company2. Design and Procurement3. Production4, Variants5. Major Components and Equipment6. OUT-RTU training7. Handling, Maintenance, and Inspection8. Flying the B-269. B26 in Combat10. Postwar MaraudersMany of the photographs are period black and white with many photos that I have never seen before and I have been studying this aircraft for over 20 years. There are color photos of restored aircraft at Fantasy of Flight B-26 and the National Museum of the Air Force. The end of the book covers existing B-26’s that are flying, displayed or under restoration with the current condition of the aircraft where possible. This is a nice piece of icing on the cake after reading the main body of the book.Chocked full of interesting facts like one of the first trailer parks was made by Martin to house his instant workforce needed during wartime on plant grounds and the ski manufacturing mogul Howard Head developed the techniques used in his revolutionary new skis while working for Martin.The plane had many unusual problems and over time each one got ironed out but not before the plane got a bad reputation by pilots. When the accident rate started to erode the confidence of the Army Air Corps flying community, General Hap Arnold sent in his big gun, the 5’-4” diminutive Jimmy Doolittle who learned everything he could about the B-26. Doolittle continued to fly the plane and learning its unique characteristics, he reported back to Arnold that there wasn’t anything about the B-26 couldn’t be overcome by proper training.Even though Doolittle’s confidence building demonstrations at training schools were impressive, it did not actually cover what combat crews were facing. Taking off from makeshift airfields with a full fuel load, bomb load and armored up with the tail gunners positions and other crew stations completely configured for combat action. The plane was in a drastically different configuration than Doolittle’s striped down demo plane but Doolittle, flying alone or with his plane crew chief as copilot to skirt regulations, gave the crews the confidence that they needed to continue to train and believe in their abilities with the aircraft.In conclusion, Author William Wolf does an excellent job of bringing the story of the B-26 together in one comprehensive work. The flow of the book is excellent. The drawings, photographs and research tables match and enhance the narrative of the individual chapters complimenting each subject matter. Mr. Wolf should be commended for this amazing book. If you have an interest in the B-26 then you need this book. Just put your weight lifting belt on before reading.