I always wondered if a B-25 bomber had ever actually landed on a World War II aircraft carrier
If you're fascinated by World War II like I am...
...then you know about the Doolittle Raid during World War II...
...where sixteen B25 bombers actually took off from the U.S aircraft carrier Hornet to bomb Japan
But I always wondered in the back of my mind...
...if a B-25 bomber had actually landed successfully on an aircraft carrier
If you've ever searched online, I don't know...
...for example "B-25 bomber landing on an aircraft carrier"...
...you'll come across all kinds of video gamers simulating a B-25 landing on an aircraft carrier
But had the real thing actually occurred? Ever?
And then the answer came right out of the blue. I never saw it coming
I'm Bob Kettenheim. I'm the historian for the USS Shangri-La Association
I was interviewing Bob Kettenheim about the history...
...behind the WWII aircraft carrier USS Shangri-La...
...when he started telling me this crazy story...
"Well, it was a project out of the Naval Air facility in Philadelphia, Mustin Field..."
"...and that's where the experimental aircraft came from"
"The idea behind the PBJ, which was a very high speed aircraft...
...was to be a forward-strike aircraft capable of coming back and landing aboard the carrier"
"Obviously you're not going to carry as many as you would...
...dive bombers and torpedo planes and fighters..."
"...but the idea was... Will this work?"
Now just when I thought this investigation couldn't get any more interesting...
...Bob then started sending me copies of the deck log from the USS Shangri-La
Here you can see on November 14th, 1944, an entry in the aircraft carrier's deck log...
...stating rear Admiral L.B. Richardson from the Bureau of Aeronautics...
...came aboard the USS Shangri-La...
and hoisted his flag in order to observe the experimental landing and take-off tests...
...of the B-25 PBJ-1 bomber
I wanted to find some imagery for this landing test.
I was hoping to find maybe some old NewsReel footage, but no luck
I had to settle for some still photographs, which...
...really helped to tell this amazing story
Here you can clearly see the tail hook from the modified PBJ-1...
...and here you can see the arresting wire on the deck of the USS Shangri-La
Okay, they first proved B-25 bombers could take-off from an aircraft carrier during the Doolittle Raid
And then they proved that B-25 bombers could land on an aircraft carrier...
...so the answer to my first question is 'Yes'...
...a landing by a B-25 bomber on a World War Two aircraft carrier could actually be done
But now I was left with another question...
Why would you ever want to do this?
"There were several different scenarios
One is that you'll launch them
They will return somewhere else
...but they do have the capability of coming back for the carrier"
"The idea was to go out there...
...with heavy attack capability...
...and destroy shipping
It was going after merchant and light naval shipping
The nose of that thing was heavily armed.
Some of them had a 37mm cannon in the nose...
...and they would go out and strike these supply ships
Pretty fascinating story, right?
I mean who knew during WW2 there was actually a test to see if you
could land a B-25 bomber on a World War II aircraft carrier?
Okay, so after these tests were conducted on November 15, 1944...
...what happened to the program?
"You don't just do this, find out it works,
and then put a whole bunch of these planes on a carrier"
"This thing needs to be developed.
Crews need to be trained. All these other aircraft need to be modified"
"We were actually advancing faster in the Pacific...
...we were capturing islands and building airfields faster
than these programs were able to keep up"
"So that's really the reason why it didn't come to fruition"
And what is at the beginning of the November 15th entry of the USS Shangri-La's daily deck log?
Does this mean a P-51 was also part of that test?
An actual P-51 Mustang had landed on an aircraft carrier during World War II?