Lubbock man remembers the unruly B-26

There’s a Martin B-26 model plane on the coffee table in Henry Jennings’ home.

He has a maximum amount of experience in the twin-engine B-26 bomber, all of it gained in the United States while training and then training others in the mechanical side of the plane during World War II.

Although he saw how pilots needed to pay constant attention to how they handled the plane so it wouldn’t drift into a crash mode, it had one thing he thoroughly appreciated — there was a lot of room inside.

Jennings graduated from high school in 1940, and by 1942 he was a prime candidate for the military draft.

He knew he didn’t want the infantry. And a friend on the draft board gave him warning while he was working for an aircraft company in California that he was about to be summoned.

“I had wanted to fly so bad, and I was too tall,” he said.

At 6 feet 5 inches tall, he wasn’t welcomed into military service.

“I even tried the Navy. They said, ‘We don’t want you — you would beat your head against the bulkhead.’ So, I thought, well I better try to do something else.”

The Army Air Corps did accept him, but not for pilot training. He could be an engineer, and they had the perfect plane for him — a B-26 with a lot of space inside.

He contrasts the plane with a similar aircraft that was made famous by Jimmy Doolittle in his raid on Tokyo — the B-25 bombers that were launched from an aircraft carrier.

“The B-25 was strictly for little people. Jimmy Doolittle would be fantastic in it because he was a little person. But I had all kinds of room in the B-26,” Jennings said.

According to Jennings, Vice President Harry Truman, who handled much of the coordination of gathering aircraft for the war, didn’t like the B-26 and didn’t want it produced. He asked Doolittle to fly it and give him a personal opinion.

“Jimmy Doolittle took it, even though he fit the B-25, he flew it, wrote the letter to Truman, and said it’s a wonderful aircraft,” Jennings said. “He wrote that you do have to fly it, if you’re not careful you can be hurt, and if a pilot has an accident in it, it’s more than likely pilot error.

“They said Truman came unglued. So when the war was over in Europe, he didn’t bring any of the B-26s home.”

In his service to the Army Air Corps, Jennings became a flight engineer.

“As an aerial engineer I would check the gears … and I would fly with the students. We had American students, which were officers or flight officers, and then we got the free French also with the American students.

“Then we got the WASPs,” he said of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, who ferried all types of military aircraft across the country to bases where they were needed.

“The WASPs were real fine pilots. Most of the WASPs that we heard about wound up as tow-target pilots. Some went to Harlingen and flew off the coast and that type of thing.”

Jennings remembers of his job, “I was an engineer and not a pilot. I always called myself a flying mechanic.”

He said of his height restrictions, “I thought that was so wrong, because in the B-26 I had all kinds of room.”

Still, he persevered and did his job as engineer.

“I had to get 100 hours so I could take a flight test, which I passed with no problem. Then I could fly without having to have my crew chief with me. And I could take a cross-country flight. Each class got a cross-country. Normally, you’re gone three to five days.

“They didn’t send me overseas.”

Jennings remembers that the Army Air Corps was busy training pilots during World War II. “Of course, they had instructor pilots.”

He watched new pilots come through who were lost because of the difficulties in flying the B-26.

“You had brand-new pilots who had just graduated and they may not have had 200 hours total, and the B-26 was the wrong airplane for them to come to. They needed to know more about flying than that. They had to know that you can stall, and you had to know different things and they had to practice it.”

He said, “I had been down at Sheppard [Air Force Base in Wichita Falls] during one year, and they had just lost an airplane with six people. It was real bad at first, but we had several accidents afterwards.”

The B-26 developed a dark reputation, Jennings said. “The B-26 had the reputation of being ‘The Flying Prostitute’ and ‘The Widow-Maker.’ ”

He explained that if men were flying and another airplane and crew was lost, by the time they could land, authorities had already cleaned out the barracks where that crew lived. “By the time you got back there was no evidence they were ever there,” he said.

According to Jennings, in the years leading up to World War II, a college degree was required to become a pilot in the Army Air Corps.

“But during World War II, they had people who had graduated high school at the age of 19 as a pilot and went overseas. Some didn’t reach their 20th birthday before they were in combat. They found out that a person didn’t have to be a college graduate to become a very good pilot.”

Jennings was stationed at Frederick, Okla., when World War II ended. He doesn’t recall a special celebration.

“They grounded all airplanes. We were up flying, and they called us in and they grounded us. We didn’t finish what we were doing. They just called us all in, and said we had the weekend off.

Jennings and others in his group were asked if they wanted to go to Japan, and if they did, it would be for two years additional service.

“I said, ‘No, I’m through. Goodbye.’ I automatically went to my father’s furniture store — laid linoleum, laid carpet, delivered furniture and did design work.”

He retired in 1986 in Lubbock, where he and his wife, Betty and their three children were living at the time.

As far as Jennings knows, the only semblance of the B-26 is the model on his table.

“We were told that all the B-26s that were in Europe, some with only a few hours on them, were taken to a place in Germany where the gas was drained, the oil was drained, and they were cut up and blown up.

“They did not bring any back to the States.”

This story was originally published October 3, 2015 at 5:55 PM with the headline "Lubbock man remembers the unruly B-26."