EAW high resolution North American B-25D Mitchell medium bomber - flyable strafer version for the P38J slot.

Working at the USAAF maintenance depot in Australia in 1942, Capt. "Pappy Gunn" conducted a number of experiments with B-25's and A-20's to get more firepower and destructive capability from the types. His most successful project was to convert medium level bombers into ground attack aircraft by packing the nose full of .50 Caliber machine guns and painting over the glazed nose panels. All the medium bomb squadrons in the SW Pacific, whose ground crews did all the conversion work in the field, rapidly adopted the idea. It became common Practice to completely cover the nose with a painting of the head of the squadron "mascot" which quickly became standardized as squadron markings. There were falcons, bats, tigers, black panthers, dragons etc.


Tondelayo - B-25D-1 serial number 41-30669 - was from the 500th Bomb Squadron, 348th Bomb Group. She was named after Hedy Lamarr's sexy character in the movie "White Cargo". It was an early replacement aircraft sent to the 500th at the time it was converting its planes to the gun nosed strafers in August 1943. This is how she appeared in May-June 1944. The plane flew an epic mission on Oct. 18, 1943 when she was part of a 3 plane flight that attacked shipping in Rabaul Harbor, sinking a 6000 ton freighter. The flight was attacked by Jap fighters as they retired. The other two B-25s were shot down and Tondelayo had its left engine shot out.  In the running battle, Todelayo's top turret gunner, Sgt. Murphy, shot down 5 Japs and the other gun crews got 4, for a total of 9 (nine) Jap fighters confirmed destroyed. She finally got away and returned to base so damaged that she was in repair for 6 months while a complete wing and both engine nacelles had to be replaced. Sgt. Murphy later shot down another Jap fighter. She soldiered on with the squadron until the unit re-equipped with B-25J models. She then be came the "fat cat" plane for the 500th - the squadron aircraft used for VIP transport and supply runs back to rear bases to load up on fresh food and liquor for the crews. She was finally lost in a crash landing in the Philippines on March 30, 1945.

The regular Tondelayo crew members were:

Pilot - 1st Lt. Ralph G. Wallace
Copilot - 2nd Lt. Edward J. Hicko
Flight engineer - S/Sgt. Weldon Isler
Top turret gunner - S/Sgt. John A. Murphy
Radioman / gunner - S/Sgt. Burton E. Eaton
Ground Crew Chief - S/Sgt. Allen R. Puckett

New 3DZ model by Captain Kurt
Skin by DeanH 

To load into your game, drop all files into your EAW folder. Use the included Flt. file to have the flight profile of the plane. Do not use with ECAPanel, because if you open this .exe, it will overwrite the Flt. file with the P38J flight model.

If you want decode te .tpc files into the original .pcx graphics files, simply click on the tpc-pcx exe file included in the folder.

We hope you like her.

Cheers 

Captain Kurt
October 7, 2005