More U.S. Navy and Marine Corps pilots trained in the SNJ Texan in the 1940s and ’50s than in any other aircraft. The U.S. Army Air Forces and (from 1948) the U.S. Air Force trained most of their pilots in Texans as well, while more than 30 other countries flew the aircraft— some in combat.
The Texan originated with the North American Aviation NA-16, which first flew in 1935. After U.S. Army evaluation it entered service as the basic trainer BT-7, and following several evolutions it flew as the Army’s definitive advanced trainer AT-6 in 1939 (that designation being assigned in 1940).
The Navy ordered 40 of these aircraft in 1936 as the NJ-1; it was the first Navy aircraft built by North American, with the letter “N” indicating training and “J” the firm. (At the time, the Navy used “T” for torpedo aircraft, and the letter “N” was used for planes produced at the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia.) Given the popular name Texan, the aircraft were soon ordered in large numbers for both services, with the Navy shifting to the designation SNJ. The “SN” indicated scout trainer, although the “scout” designation was meaningless. Those Navy aircraft with carrier arresting gear had the suffix letter “C” (as SNJ-3C). In U.S. aircraft one or two fixed .30-caliber, forward-firing machine guns and a flexible .30-caliber gun in the aft cockpit could be provided for gunnery training. Bomb racks for small practice bombs also could be fitted.
Meanwhile, numerous other countries were procuring variants of the aircraft, some of them armed. Japan purchased two early models, while Germany took possession of several French aircraft after France capitulated in spring 1940. Thailand ordered six armed—and camouflaged—single-seat aircraft and six armed two-seat models. Those aircraft had machine guns, 20-mm cannon in the former, and could carry bombs. None reached Thailand. The U.S. Army designated them P-64 and A-27, respectively, and the A-27s were diverted to the Philippines, where U.S. forces flew them at the start of World War II. (Probably four were captured intact by the Japanese.)
The massive U.S. military aircraft programs of World War II demanded thousands of pilots, and the AT-6/SNJ was produced in large numbers. More than 16,000 Texans were built in the United States and Canada. Just more than 7,000 were flown by the Army Air Forces, the Navy procured 4,024 as SNJs, and about 5,000 were Harvards flown by Commonwealth air forces. In Canada, the Noorduyn Company built another 1,500 aircraft under license as the Harvard, most going to the Royal Canadian Air Force under the U.S. Lend Lease program. And the Australian government, after purchasing a couple of aircraft from North American, produced 755 at the Commonwealth Aircraft factory, all given the name “Wirrway” (the aboriginal word for “challenge”). Some of those aircraft were in combat in the South Pacific, with at least one shooting down a Japanese Zero in 1942. Sweden, neutral during the war, purchased one aircraft and produced another 53 with the designation Sk 14.
Including the early pre-AT-6/SNJ aircraft, North American direct sales to other countries, and Australian, Canadian, and Swedish production, the total count of these similar designs probably exceeded 21,000 aircraft.
While Navy aircraft were used primarily for training, a few went aboard carriers, as utility aircraft and others were assigned as flag and base liaison aircraft. (In December 1941, 12 SNJs were assigned to carrier commands and squadrons, although normally they remained ashore.)
In 1948 the newly established U.S. Air Force changed the Texan’s designation from AT-6 to T-6, and most of the more than 2,000 aircraft remaining in Air Force service underwent extensive modernization. An estimated six Navy aircraft were similarly updated, with those models becoming SNJ-7. An improved Navy SN2J design of 1946 did not go into production and a Navy order for 240 SNJ-8s placed with North American Aviation in 1952 also was canceled.
Aircraft went to other nations during and after the war, with more than 30 using the aircraft. The British flew armed Harvards against the Mau Maus in Kenya and terrorists in Malaya, and the Egyptians and Syrians used them against Israeli forces (which also flew the T-6). During the Korean War a number of Texan variants were flown by the U.S. Air Force, carrying Army observers on sorties behind enemy lines. Those were known as “Mosquito missions” with the aircraft carrying smoke rockets to indicate targets for air or artillery attack.
The aircraft remained in U.S. military service as a first-line trainer into the late 1950s. The U.S. Navy recorded its last SNJ in inventory in June 1968. Other nations kept them longer; the last known to be in military service were South Africa’s Texans and Harvards, finally retired in 1996.
The Texan was an all-metal, low-wing monoplane that resembled a fighter aircraft, with a radial engine and clean lines. The student and instructor sat in tandem under a long, glazed canopy. The early models had a fixed landing gear (as in the Navy’s NJ-1), but soon the planes were equipped with a fully retractable main undercarriage. (Four Swedish NA-16-4M derivatives were fitted with tricycle gear as part of the development of the Saab J 21A fighter; other Swedish aircraft had skis in place of the landing gear.)
During the aircraft’s production run of almost ten years, the design underwent several upgrades. The AT-6C and the SNJ-4 used low-alloy steel and plywood to save an estimated 1,246 pounds of aluminum alloy per aircraft. When the expected aluminum shortages did not occur, the original materials were used in subsequent production.
Although no longer used as a military trainer, many Texans survive in the private sector. Periodically, these civilian T-6s and SNJs are seen on television and in the movies standing in for Japanese A6M Zero fighters—aircraft that thousands of pilots trained in to fight in World War II.
The author is in debt to Dan Hagedorn of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum for his assistance with this column.