Aircraft History
Built by North American Aviation (NAA). Delivered to the U.S. Army. Ferried overseas via Hawaii to the Central Pacific.

Wartime History
Assigned to the 7th Air Force, 41st Bombardment Group, 396th Bombardment Squadron. No known nose art or nickname.

Mission History
On April 30, 1944 took off from Makin Airfield on a flight to Engebi Airfield, with radio call sign 6V326. During the flight, radio stations at Midway and Tarawa reported they had been in contact with this B-25. A radio messages at 4:30pm was received by Engebi tower asking for a bearing at 208 degrees and estimated 90 miles from the tower, and was asked to turn on emergency IFF for two minutes. Enewetok radar picked up IFF at 40 degrees and tracked a target until lost. Several F4U Corsairs were sent to intercept and lead the B-25 to the airfield, then estimated as 75 miles from the airfield, but failed to find it. Aware they were lost, it was assumed the crew of the B-25 had time to ditch or bail out.

Search
No searches were flown that night. The next morning, eight B-25s of the 396th BS took off at 7:00 and searched for 200 miles bearing 180 - 260 degrees. A faint radio message was heard by one plane, the others found nothing.

On May 1, another search in the vicinity of the radio message was flown by six more B-25s of the 396th BS. The source of the radio message was deemed to be from a "gibson girl" from a PB2Y at Enewetok and was ruled out. Also, from Makin, five B-25s also searched, but found nothing, nor a PBY Catalina, both were negative.

On May 2, another search by nine B-25s of the 396th BS after completed their bombing mission and shipping search near Ponape continued to search for this missing B-25 without results.

On May 3, another search was flown by eight B-25s, based on a radio fix from Midway. Later that same day 20 SBDs searched another sector, without results.

Memorials
The entire crew was declared dead on February 8, 1946. All are memorialized on the tablets of the missing at Honolulu Cemetery (Punchbowl).

References
Missing Air Crew Report 4672 (MACR 4672)

Last Updated
January 12, 2023