The Marauder

Monday May 17th 1943 was a black day for 322nd Group; the gloom thereof persisted, and indeed deepened, in the weeks to come. Lt Col Glenn Nye, a staff officer at 3rd Wing who had been mentor to the group prior to Stillman's arrival from the US, was given command of the 322nd. He informed the Group that operations would cease for the time being although training for low-level attack would continue. The situation was not helped by another fatal accident on May 29th when a Marauder practicing violent evasive action at low altitude, lost part of its tail and crashed into one of the Bury hangars. After that few could doubt that the barrack room cynics were right - one had no chance of survival in a B-26 unit, if the enemy didn't get you the plane would! Surely, some asked, no further proof was needed; the Marauder was unsafe to fly let alone fight in. Many confidently predicted the group would now convert to another type of aircraft. The irony of the situation was that on that very airfield stood two Marauders, untried in combat, and as yet identified only by their numbers, 41-31819 and 41-31773, that would in time have considerable bearing upon establishing the worth of their kin.

The gloom had spread to the 322nd's two other squadrons recently arrived, and to some extent to a new group, the 323rd that came into nearby Horham. However, the emotional solutions aired around the Marauder bases were not com-patible with those soberly contrived by higher command.

Two more B-26 groups (386th and 387th) were due to arrive in England within a month giving the Eighth over 250 mediums. While Command would have been happier if these had been B-17s, in the circumstances there was nothing to be done but find some profitable means of employing the B-26.

Although dogged by a series of mechanical troubles and not the easiest of aircraft to fly, it was also a fact that current Marauders, handled by properly trained crews, were incurring an accident rate no greater than with other bomber types. Furthermore, the last two squadrons of the 322nd to arrive and those of following groups were all equipped with late production models incorporating numerous improvements, in particular a six feet increase in wing span, larger tail surfaces and greater fuel capacity.

Eaker decided that since Vill Bomber Command was fully committed to furthering the strategic bombing campaign, to which the Marauder units could apparently add little weight, the mediums would be placed under Vill Air Support Command, an organization primarily devoted to the support of ground forces and hitherto a quiet backwater of the Eighth's operational activity. Whether there was more to this decision than meets the eye is a matter for conjecture, for it could have been an implied suggestion' to Washington that the Marauder was not suitable for bombing operations in the ETO. The change of command was accompanied by the movement south of the 3rd Wing and its units from Suffolk to Essex, which, apart from bringing the mediums nearer to the Continent, placed them in an area where it was planned to establish a US tactical air force for the coming invasion of the Continent. In reality, the move was an interchange of bases with the 4th Wing Fortresses. The first group into Essex was the 386th, which, after a few days sojourn at Snetterton Heath, moved into uncompleted Boxted airfield near Colchester. The 322nd moved to Andrews Field near Braintree, the 323rd to Earls Colne and the 3rd Bomb Wing traded one mansion for another, although Elizabethan Marks Hall was not quite so luxurious as their former residence. Towards the end of the month, the 387th Group arrived at Chipping Ongar from America. Like its predecessors it, too, was trained for low-level attack.
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