Flak-Bait, the Martin B-26 Marauder That Flew Two Hundred and Seven Missions and Never Killed a Crewman, Now Being Rebuilt Rivet by Rivet at the Smithsonian

Flak-Bait is a Martin B-26 Marauder that flew roughly 207 combat missions in World War II - more than any other American aircraft in the war - and brought every one of her crews home alive. Not a single crewman aboard her was ever killed across all those sorties. Today the National Air and Space Museum is conserving her at its Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles, Virginia, preserving every flak scar rather than restoring her to look new.

What Was Flak-Bait?

Flak-Bait was a B-26B model Marauder built by the Glenn L. Martin Company in Baltimore in 1943. She was assigned to the 449th Bomb Squadron, 322nd Bomb Group, Ninth Air Force, based in England.

Her pilot was a young officer named Jim Farrell, and the name came from his family’s dog back home - a mutt called “Flea Bait.” Expecting his new bomber to draw German antiaircraft fire like a magnet, Farrell turned “Flea Bait” into Flak-Bait. The name went on the nose, and beneath it the crew began painting a running tally of missions in small yellow bombs.

Why Was the B-26 Marauder Called the “Widowmaker”?

The Marauder was fast for a medium bomber - close to 300 mph - powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-2800 “Double Wasp” radials, each an 18-cylinder engine. To keep that speed, Martin’s engineers gave her a small, stubby wing that cut drag.

A small wing means a high landing speed. Flak-Bait and her sisters had to be flown onto the runway at roughly 130 mph, or they would simply stop flying. Pilots fresh out of gentle trainers in 1942 struggled, and accidents piled up.

They gave her grim nicknames: the Widowmaker and the Baltimore Whore (said to have “no visible means of support,” a jab at that tiny wing). At the training base in Tampa, so many went down that crews coined the phrase “one a day in Tampa Bay.”

Was the Marauder Actually Dangerous?

The airplane wasn’t the problem - the training was. Once the Army Air Forces taught pilots to respect the numbers and keep the speed up, the Marauder became one of the safest bombers of the war. By the end of the conflict, the B-26 had the lowest combat loss rate of any American bomber in the European theater and brought more men home per mission than the B-17 Fortresses and B-24 Liberators that got most of the glory.

What Did Flak-Bait Do in Combat?

Flying from England, Flak-Bait struck bridges, marshaling yards, airfields, and gun positions across occupied Europe. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, she was over the Normandy beaches hammering German defenses, then flew through the breakout and the push into Germany itself.

The word “flak” is short for the German Flugabwehrkanone - antiaircraft cannon. On a bomb run there was no dodging it: crews had to fly straight and level through black bursts of shrapnel bursting at their exact altitude.

Flak-Bait flew into it again and again, and it showed. Over the course of the war she took more than 1,000 holes. She came home with:

A wingtip shot away
Hydraulics and electrical systems knocked out
An engine gone
Control cables severed down to a single strand that held just long enough to land

How Many Missions Did Flak-Bait Fly?

Her tally climbed past 50, past 100, past 150. She flew her last mission on April 26, 1945. The number painted on her nose reached 202 - her missions credited under her own group plus a few others. Counting operational sorties including recalls and aborts, her true total runs to roughly 207.

For context: most bomber crews in that war were hoping just to survive a tour of 25, and later 30 to 35, missions. Early in the war, the odds of finishing a full tour were worse than a coin flip. One airplane grinding out more than 200 sorties was, statistically, almost impossible - and across every crew that rotated through her, not one man aboard was ever killed.

Why Is Flak-Bait at the Smithsonian?

When the war ended, the vast majority of the nearly 5,200 B-26 Marauders ever built were scrapped and melted down. Today no airworthy Martin Marauder survives anywhere in the world - there is not a single flying example.

But someone could not send Flak-Bait to the smelter. She was the airplane with the record. Her nose section and key components were crated, shipped back to the United States, and given to the Smithsonian in 1960. For decades she sat in storage in pieces, her famous nose - with its mission markers and patched holes - rarely seen.

How Is the Smithsonian Restoring Flak-Bait?

The National Air and Space Museum decided Flak-Bait was too important to leave in pieces, but also too original to simply make new. Every patch, scrape, and faded stencil is a historical document. Sanding her down and repainting her would destroy the very thing that makes her matter.

So conservators at the Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles, Virginia, took the slow road. They are conserving her, not merely restoring her - documenting every one of the roughly 1,000 holes, preserving the original paint, patches, and skin, and stabilizing damage using reversible methods. The work treats a 70-plus-year-old bomber the way a museum treats an old master painting.

The restoration hangar has windows, so visitors can watch the work in progress. When it is finished, Flak-Bait will never fly again - and that’s fine. She’ll stand in the museum and tell the truth in olive drab, every scar still visible.

Key Takeaways

Flak-Bait flew roughly 207 combat missions - the most of any American aircraft in World War II - with 202 painted on her nose, and never lost a crewman.
She was a 1943 Martin B-26B Marauder of the 449th Bomb Squadron, 322nd Bomb Group, Ninth Air Force, named after pilot Jim Farrell’s family dog.
The B-26’s “Widowmaker” reputation came from poor early training, not the aircraft; it ended the war with the lowest combat loss rate of any U.S. bomber in Europe.
She took more than 1,000 flak holes, flew on D-Day (June 6, 1944), and flew her last mission on April 26, 1945.
The Smithsonian is conserving - not repainting - Flak-Bait at the Udvar-Hazy Center, preserving every scar as a historical record, with the work visible to the public.