[bearoutwest]

Hello Michael,
Not surprised by the stats about reasonably high bomb % for the PBJ. Marine bombing aircraft were PBJ/B-25s (2000-lb load), SBDs (1000-lb), Vindicators (500-lb, usual), F4F (200-lb), F4U (500, 1000, 2000-lb ???). The PBJs did a lot of long-range missions, shipping searches, shipping strikes, night-intruders on airfields, and late in the war, rocket attacks.
I was a little surprised that there were zero claims for air-to-air. Would have expected the occasional encounter based on the airfield intruder attacks and shipping raids.

I'm not sure about the USAAF way of processing claims, my own research is in RAF/RAAF and Commonwealth areas; but I would be surprised if it was any different for the USAAF between fighter groups and bomber groups. It should all revolve around the post-mission report, and the calibration of intel data regarding claims, witnesses, etc.
I would expect the fighters to have more gun-camera film. The Mitchells had fixed forward cameras which didn't work very well (not for the USMC PBJs anyway, a lot of shipping claims couldn't be verified).

'Avagoodweekend,
...geoff