The Martin B-26 Marauder Flak Bait, the Smithsonian's Most Battle-Scarred Bomber, and the Two Hundred Two Missions That Made Her a Legend

Flak Bait, serial number 41-31773, flew 202 combat missions over occupied Europe - more than any other American aircraft in World War II. Assigned to the 322nd Bomb Group, 449th Bomb Squadron, 9th Air Force, she sustained more than 1,000 documented hits from flak and enemy fire across those sorties. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum is currently completing a full restoration of the aircraft at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

Why the B-26 Marauder Nearly Never Made It to War

The Martin B-26 Marauder arrived in frontline service carrying a reputation that nearly ended the program before the war could settle the question. Stateside training accidents were killing crews at a rate that alarmed commanders from the base level up to Congress, producing the grim shorthand circulating among instructors: “one a day in Tampa Bay.” Congressional hearings were held. Scrapping the program entirely was a live option.

The problem was wing loading - the ratio of an aircraft’s weight to its wing area. The Marauder was designed for speed. Its narrow, high-wing-loading airframe required precise energy management on every approach. Pilots transitioning from trainers and early fighters found it unforgiving: let the speed decay below minimums on final, and the airplane stopped flying with no warning and no recovery.

The Army Air Forces did not cancel the program. They fixed the training. Better simulator work, harder qualification standards, and instructors who taught the Marauder as the demanding machine it actually was. Proper approach speeds, proper technique, no shortcuts. The accidents that had threatened the program stopped.

How the B-26 Rewrote Its Own Reputation in Combat

Once crews were trained to the airplane’s actual requirements, the Marauder became one of the most survivable combat aircraft in the American inventory. Its combat loss rate over the European theater ranked among the lowest of any American bomber type - not because it avoided the fight, but because it could absorb punishment and keep flying.

The 9th Air Force B-26 groups flew tactical bombing, distinct from the high-altitude strategic missions of the Eighth Air Force’s B-17s and B-24s. They flew lower, hit harder targets, and went after infrastructure that directly bled the German war machine: bridges, rail marshaling yards, airfields, and the V-weapon launch sites scattered through the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France that were putting buzz bombs on London.

Those last targets - designated Crossbow missions - were among the most heavily defended in western Europe. The Germans understood exactly what the Allies were after. They ringed the sites with 88mm anti-aircraft guns capable of reaching the Marauders’ operating altitude, backed by smaller-caliber weapons that filled the air at lower elevations. Crews flew into that coverage again and again because those launch sites were still pointing at London.

Flak Bait: 202 Missions, 1,000 Holes, Zero Total Losses

Flak Bait arrived in England in 1943 and began flying combat missions when D-Day was still months away - every sortie went into German-held territory with no friendly ground below.

Over the course of her combat service, ground crews documented more than 1,000 separate hits from flak and enemy fire. Not near misses. Hits. Every return meant a maintenance crew working the airframe with flashlights and sheet metal, assessing each new puncture, deciding whether she was still airworthy. Mission after mission, the answer came back yes.

Some sections accumulated patches on top of patches, the original factory aluminum now a minority of what was actually there. Her skin records what anti-aircraft fire over occupied Europe looked like across three years of combat - almost geological, each layer marking a sortie that she flew and survived.

She flew over the beaches on June 6, 1944. The 9th Air Force B-26 groups hit coastal defenses in the early morning hours as troops in Higgins boats made for shore. Flak Bait made it home from D-Day, from the missions as the army pushed inland, from targets that moved deeper into France and then into Germany itself. She was still flying when the war in Europe ended in May 1945.

Crews flew their tours and rotated home. New crews inherited her. The mission tally on the nose kept accumulating. Every crew that ever strapped into Flak Bait’s cockpit brought her home.

The Record That Has Stood Since 1945

202 combat missions is the most logged by any American aircraft in World War II. The record has stood since 1945 and remains unchallenged.

The B-26 Marauder never achieved the cultural recognition of the B-17 Flying Fortress, which became the symbol of American strategic bombing - the aircraft of postwar memoirs and Hollywood films. The B-24 Liberator was built in numbers that dwarfed every other American bomber program. The Marauder flew in the shadow of both, doing the low-level tactical work that supported the ground campaign and never quite breaking into the popular imagination the way the others did.

The people who flew it knew what they had.

What the Smithsonian’s Restoration Is Actually Preserving

For years, Flak Bait’s forward fuselage section - the nose, cockpit, and bombardier’s compartment - was on display at the National Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Visitors could read the mission tally painted on the side and see the patches up close.

The full restoration project moved to the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, where the complete airframe - including sections that had been in storage for decades - is being brought together for the first time in roughly 80 years.

The restoration confronts a genuinely hard question: what are you actually trying to preserve? Filling every hole and repainting to factory-fresh condition would produce a beautiful airplane and erase the history. Leaving her exactly as she came out of the war means a deteriorating airframe that will not survive another century.

The Smithsonian’s answer: long-term structural preservation with wartime repairs left visible where the structure allows. Some of those patches - applied by ground crews in England in 1944 - are staying exactly where they are. Those patches are not blemishes to be corrected. They are the entire point of the aircraft.

When the restoration is complete, visitors to Udvar-Hazy will be able to stand next to the whole airplane - all sections together, mission tally on the nose, original patches intact - and take in what 202 missions over occupied Europe actually cost.

Key Takeaways

• Flak Bait (serial 41-31773) flew 202 combat missions with the 322nd Bomb Group, 449th Bomb Squadron, 9th Air Force - the most of any American aircraft in World War II, a record unbroken since 1945.
• She sustained more than 1,000 documented hits from enemy fire and returned from every single mission.
• The B-26 Marauder’s early training accident rate nearly ended the program; a reformed training regimen turned it into one of the most survivable combat aircraft in the American inventory.
• Flak Bait flew on D-Day, June 6, 1944, and continued flying through the end of the European war in May 1945.
• The Smithsonian is restoring the complete airframe at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, with original wartime patches preserved in place as part of the historical record.