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The A-26, the last aircraft designated as an "attack bomber," was designed to replace
the Douglas A-20 Havoc/Boston. It incorporated many improvements over the earlier Douglas designs. The first three XA-26 prototypes first flew in July 1942, and each was configured differently: Number One as a daylight bomber with a glass nose, Number Two as a gun-laden night-fighter, and Number Three as a ground-attack platform, with a 75-millimeter cannon in the nose. This final variant, eventually called the
A-26B, was chosen for production.
Upon its delivery to the 9th Air Force in Europe in November 1944 (and the Pacific Theater
shortly thereafter), the A-26 became the fastest US bomber of WWII. The A-26C, with slightly-modified armament, was introduced in 1945. The A-26s combat career was cut short by the end of the war, and because no other use
could be found for them, many A-26s were converted to JD-1 target tugs for the US Navy.
A strange aircraft-designation swap occurred in 1948, when the Martin B-26 Marauder was
deactivated and the Douglas A-26 was re-designated the B-26. (It kept this designation until 1962.) B-26s went on to serve extensively in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. In Vietnam, they were commonly used in the
Counter-Insurgency (COIN) role, with very heavy armament and extra power. This version, the B-26K, was based in Thailand and was, to confuse things further, called the A-26 for political reasons. B-26s were also used for training, VIP transport, cargo, night reconnaissance, missile guidance and tracking, and as drone-control platforms.
Post-war uses of the airplane included luxurious executive transport (Smith Tempo I; Tempo II and
Biscayne 26; LAS Super-26; Berry Silver-Sixty
; Monarch-26; On-Mark Marketeer/Marksman), aerial surveying and, most notably, firefighting, a role in which it is still occasionally used today.
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