With war approaching America knew it would be called upon to aid their Allies so a new aircraft would need to be developed. Douglas Aircraft designer Ed Heinemann's DB-7/A-20 was chosen to be the new attack-bomber. The prototype flew in December 1938 with the first production aircraft flew on August 17, 1939. Production ran until September 1944 with 7,478 aircraft built. During WWII these were supplied to French, British, Australian, Dutch and Soviet forces as well as their own U.S. forces.

The Aircraft

The men of the 312th BG had originally been trained on the P-40 but found themselves transitioning to the A-20G Havoc. The unit was called the “Roarin’ 20s” because of their goal was to roar across the Pacific and drive the Japanese back. Combat crews weren’t happy with the fire power so they began to field-modify the aircraft by getting rid of the bombardier position and replacing the glass nose with .50 caliber machine guns. So soon after Douglas began building aircraft with these modifications creating the A-20G.