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Most of you are probably somewhat familiar with the origin story of the legendary P-51 Mustang. The British Purchasing Commission, desperate for fighter aircraft, approached North American Aviation about building the Curtiss P-40 under license. North American thought they could do better than that, and proposed an all new design. The Mustang, with the rather anemic Allison V-1710 engine, was soon flying, and proved to be quite good at  low altitude.

Here’s where the story gets a little weird, and shows that even World War II procurement had its issues.

The Brits wanted more Mustangs. But they ran out of Lend Lease funds for the fiscal year. And the US Army Air Forces wanted to keep the production line running as well, for their own reasons. So the AAF decided they would buy some of the contracted Mustangs. The problem was, the AAF had burned through its allocation of funds for fighters.

What they hadn’t spent that fiscal year was all the funds for attack aircraft. And so, the AAF wen to North American, and asked for an attack version of the Mustang. Dive brakes, a slightly revised armament, beefed up wing and bomb racks led to the dive bomber version, the A-36 Apache.

 

Orders for 500 were promptly made. The next question was, what to do with them. Two groups in the Mediterranean theater were eventually equipped with A-36s, and served in the Sicily campaign.

One interesting aspect of the Apache was the armament. There were four .50cal machine guns in the wings, and two .50cal guns mounted below the engine, synchronized to fire through the propeller.

 

The Apache was a capable, accurate dive bomber, but its Allison engine meant that its performance above about 12,000 feet was mediocre at best. Furthermore, its mission meant that it would spend considerable time at very low altitude, exposing it to light flack and small arms fire. And that was a real problem. The underbelly radiator was very vulnerable to damage. Any hit would almost certainly cause the coolant to leak out, inevitably leading to the loss of power, and the loss of an aircraft. Combat losses were quite high.

By 1944, the losses were such that it was withdrawn, and the ground attack mission was pretty much handed over to the Republic P-47, whose air cooled R-2800 engine was less vulnerable.

One unit of Apaches also served in the China/Burma/India theater as well, with mediocre results at best.

With only 500 built, the A-36 was something of a footnote to the legacy of the Mustang lineage. It was not a failure, really, but a stepping stone toward what would become the legendary Merlin powered Mustangs that would serve with such distinction.

The first half of this video follows the A-36 in the Mediterranean (FYI, the crews liked to call it the Invader, vice the Apache). The second half of the video is a fascinating look at Nazi propaganda celebrating war production. All in all, worth grabbing a cup of coffee and enjoying.