Flak-Bait, the Martin B-26 Marauder That Flew Two Hundred and Seven Missions and Came Home, Now Being Pieced Back Together at the Smithsonian

Flak-Bait is a Martin B-26 Marauder that flew 207 combat missions over Europe in World War II - more than any other American aircraft in the theater - and came home every time. Today she is being carefully pieced back together at the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles Airport in Virginia, where conservators are preserving her exactly as she returned from war, flak holes and all. It is one of the most remarkable survival stories in military aviation, and the airplane at its center once carried a reputation for killing the very men who flew it.

Why Flak-Bait Is in the News

The Smithsonian’s conservation team is reassembling the complete aircraft - not just her famous nose section, which has been displayed on its own for years. For a long time the rest of Flak-Bait sat in storage in pieces. Now the whole airplane is being cleaned, stabilized, and prepared to stand assembled so the public can walk around her and look up at every scar she earned.

This matters because only a handful of B-26 Marauders survive anywhere in the world. An entire type that helped win the war was very nearly scrapped out of existence. Flak-Bait is not just a rare Marauder - she is the single most combat-flown American aircraft of the Second World War.

Why the Marauder Was Called “The Widowmaker”

The B-26 Marauder was built by the Glenn L. Martin Company of Baltimore, and on paper it was a beautiful piece of engineering. It was the fastest medium bomber America had when it rolled out, with a sleek, cigar-shaped fuselage and twin Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engines, each producing around 1,800 horsepower.

To achieve that speed, engineers gave it a small, stubby wing with very little area for the weight it carried - what aviators call high wing loading. In plain terms, the Marauder had to be flown fast, all the time. It came down final approach at around 130 to 140 miles per hour, while other bombers floated in at roughly 90. Lose an engine on takeoff in the early models, and that little wing would roll the airplane toward the dead engine and into the ground.

Young pilots fresh out of training began dying - not in combat, but in training. At MacDill Field in Tampa, so many crashed into Tampa Bay that the men coined a bitter rhyme: “One a day in Tampa Bay.” The airplane collected ugly nicknames - the Widowmaker, the Flying Prostitute (a joke that it had “no visible means of support,” meaning that tiny wing), the Baltimore Whore, the Martin Murderer. There was even a move in Congress to cancel the program entirely.

How Jimmy Doolittle Saved the B-26

Instead of canceling it, the Army sent Jimmy Doolittle to fix the problem. Doolittle flew the airplane the way it demanded to be flown. In front of terrified student pilots, he would take off, deliberately shut down one engine at low altitude, feather the propeller, and fly the entire pattern and landing on a single engine.

He proved the Marauder was not a killer - it was honest. It simply demanded respect for the numbers: fly the speeds, keep your airspeed up, and it would bring you home. Training changed, later models added a bit of wingspan to ease the landing speeds, and crews were taught the truth about the machine.

The result was extraordinary. By the end of the war, the B-26 Marauder had the lowest combat loss rate of any American bomber in the European theater. The airplane everyone wanted to cancel came home more often than any other bomber America flew.

The Story Behind the Name “Flak-Bait”

In April 1943, one Marauder rolled out of the Martin plant in Omaha, Nebraska, and was assigned to the 459th Bombardment Squadron of the 322nd Bombardment Group. A crew chief named Jim Farrell gave her a name. “Flak” came from a German word for anti-aircraft gun, and Farrell had a little dog back home named Flak Bait - so that is what he painted on her nose.

It proved to be the most fitting name any airplane ever wore. Flying from England, and later France and Belgium, Flak-Bait attacked bridges, marshaling yards, gun positions, and V-1 rocket launch sites along the coast. This was medium-altitude work - low enough for ground gunners to see, range, and hit her. On a bomb run, she had to hold heading, straight and level, with no evasive maneuvering, while the bombardier did his work.

How Much Damage Flak-Bait Survived

Over the course of the war, Flak-Bait was struck by enemy fire more than 1,000 times. She once came home with over 200 holes from a single mission. She lost engines over targets and flew home on one. Her hydraulic system, electrical system, and rudder were shot out. Her crews were wounded in their seats. Every single time, she brought her men home.

By the time the fighting in Europe stopped, Flak-Bait had flown 207 combat missions - more than any other American aircraft in the entire European theater. No other bomber or fighter flew more combat missions and survived.

Conservation vs. Restoration: Why the Difference Matters

The Smithsonian is deliberately conserving Flak-Bait, not restoring her. Restoration strips an airplane down, replaces what is rotten, and makes it shiny and new. Conservation preserves the actual airplane - the real thing - with all of her wounds intact.

Conservators are cleaning her, stabilizing her, and treating decades of corrosion, but they are keeping the flak damage, the field repairs her ground crews improvised, and every one of those thousand-plus holes. Each hole is a piece of the truth that cannot be faked, bought, or recovered once it is gone.

Inside her, the team found artifacts sealed away since 1945: original grease-pencil markings, a crewman’s scribbled notes, and period debris - mud, grime, and sludge from wartime England - tucked in places no restorer had ever disturbed. They are photographing and documenting all of it, treating the airplane less like a machine and more like an archaeological site with wings.

Why This Airplane Should Never Fly Again

There is a long-running debate in aviation over whether a warbird should fly or sit in a museum. Flak-Bait is the rare case where preservation clearly wins. To make her airworthy, you would have to cut away the damage, sand out the history, and replace the wounded skin - and the moment you did, the real Flak-Bait would be gone, leaving only a beautiful replica wearing her name.

There is only one of her, and there will never be another airplane that flew 207 missions and lived. Some airplanes belong to the sky; this one belongs to memory. When the conservation is complete, the full aircraft will stand assembled for the public at the Udvar-Hazy Center - honest to the last rivet.

Key Takeaways

• Flak-Bait is a Martin B-26 Marauder that flew 207 combat missions, the most of any American aircraft in the European theater of World War II.
• The B-26 was fast but had a small, high-loading wing that earned it deadly nicknames like the “Widowmaker” until Jimmy Doolittle proved it could be flown safely.
• Flak-Bait was hit by enemy fire more than 1,000 times, once returning with over 200 holes in a single mission, yet always brought her crew home.
• The Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center is conserving, not restoring, the aircraft - preserving all battle damage rather than replacing it.
• Only a handful of B-26 Marauders survive worldwide, making Flak-Bait a uniquely irreplaceable artifact of the air war.