26 April 2011

About the B-26 Marauder Men

Twenty thousand Marauder Men, pilots of the Martin B-26 Marauder with survivors now in the twilight of life, A time when old soldiers are normally honored, The surviving B-26 Marauder Men of World War II Did awaken to discover that a group of uninformed civilians, Along with a U.S. Congress and president who endorsed The view of the uninformed, Had, by public law, asserted that these very special pilots, Pilots who flew the B-26 Marauder from The beginning of World War II to its end, Had been credited with being afraid to fly their assigned aircraft And had walked away -- literally deserting their duty.

Due to the manner in which the uninformed stated their claims, The humiliating and onerous charge applied equally To the U.S. Air Corps, to the USN and USMC, and to allies of the United States.

We all know of the ballad line: Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.

The Marauder Men may now be fading away, But those living will not, at this late hour, or ever in remaining lifetime, Tolerate their fellow Marauder Men and themselves Being trampled on by the uninformed.

Regardless of the bullets that were fired. The men who died, or the injuries suffered, Those men who flew the B-26 Marauder did not falter in war, And, at the end of life, they will not now falter In protecting the reputation of those who served So faithfully and gallantly.

So help us God and may God bless the Marauder Men! Read Women Air Force Service Pilots, WASP, The Gender War Story

/s/ Major General John O. Moench, USAF (Ret)
On behalf of all B-26 Marauder Men

RESTORING HISTORY
The WASP and the B-26 Marauder Men

An analytical reflection and historical correction by
Major General John O. Moench, USAF (Ret)
B-26 Marauder pilot and historian

Copyright © 2011 John O. Moench

History would be an excellent thing, if only it were true. Leo Tolstoy

22 January 2011

A major complaint of the U.S. Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) of World War II was that they existed in an environment that was not prepared for women to succeed in roles that were associated with and desired by the men, i.e. that of pilot. According to WASP writings, they fought a war on a different battlefield than that of the men with the primary enemy of the WASP being “the men” who, during World War II, allegedly viewed the WASP as an important target to be counter attacked.

As the status of power of women in America began to shift, attempts were made by the dominant male power structure to conserve and defend the previously existing system, a construction of national identity that already had been weakened by the experiences of the Great Depression. As the likelihood of victory for the United States and its allies increased, so did attacks against female participants in the war effort. (Molly Merriman, Clipped Wings, The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of World War II.)

The described dominant male power is further set forth by the WASP as including the media, the public in general, and the U.S. Congress, but with a special focus on male pilots as being the adversary of female pilots. In the overall scope and personal commitments to support the nation, this anti-male orientation was to drive the thoughts of many who came to be WASP. As to the male pilots flying the B-26 Marauder (the Marauder Men), no attack by them on the WASP has been found.

Eventually, dealing with the decision to disband the WASP in December 1944, Molly Merriman would parrot a common view of the WASP community that:

… the most important factor leading to the demise of the [WASP] program was a negative media campaign participated in part by the return of combat pilots from overseas and the release of Army Air Force cadets and pilot trainers into the “walking army” for service in anticipated large scale ground assaults against Japan’s military. The male civilian pilots organized a lobbying group and discovered in the WASPs a target against whom they could articulate claims of preferential treatment, thus deflecting attention away from their real intent of refusal to serve as combat soldiers … [Read more ...]

12 March 2011

During WW II, the WASP, under the leadership of Director Jacqueline Cochran, had established long term objectives for themselves that in the environment of the time were not to be realized. Eventually, the blow of failed aspiration fell on the WASP in December 1944 when the WASP organization was, by Congressional action, disbanded. Almost immediately, this event was over-shadowed by developments in Europe, e.g. the 1944-1945 Battle of the Bulge wherein, along with other forces, the entire inventory of B-26 Marauder combat units was engaged. Then, in 1945, the war in Europe ended and the surrender of Japan took place. Those culminating events, along with following peacetime problems, suffocated stories about the B-26 Marauder, the Marauder Men and the WASP. There was, however, a lingering/smoldering fire in the WASP community and, fanning that fire, was the alleged achievement of the WASP (at least some of them) to have flown the B-26 Marauder and/or its variants – allegedly (promoted as), the most difficult and dangerous aircraft to fly. For more than the next half century that much-fanned fire would become the driving WASP cause célébre ... [Read more...]