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The Boeing B-29 Superfort

Birth of the B-29 (1945) Design, production and testing of World War II bomber. Internet Archive

Greatest Airplane Of The War

The Boeing B-29 has been called the weapon that won the war in the Pacific. Designed to carry large bomb loads over long distances, it made possible the strategic bombardment that brought Japan to near collapse. This plane carried the atomic bomb and made invasion of Japan unnecessary. The mighty bomber was available when it was needed because of the efforts of Air Corps leaders who were convinced that World War II, when it came, would be an air war, and of Boeing designers who had faith in the future of the airplane.

After years of trying unsuccessfully to convince the War Department that it needed bigger bombers, the Air Corps in 1934 was able to give the Boeing Airplane Company a contract for the big bomber that became the XB-15. This led to the development of the B-17, and finally, in 1940, to the designing of the plane that became the B-29 Superfortress. By then the need for a truly long-range bomber had become so apparent and so urgent that the B-29 went into mass production at once without the extensive testing that usually accompanied the introduction of a new airplane.

Millions of people in factories all over the United States had a part in turning out the B-29, one of the biggest production efforts of World War II. The plane itself was a dynamic demonstration of the change that had taken place in the science of warfare.

The first of the XB-29's took off on its maiden flight, September 21, 1942. While three XB-29's (the X stands for experimental) were being built, work was already starting on B-29's for combat. The B-29 was the first bomber to be pressurized for high-altitude operation.

Electronic Guns For The B-29

One of the many innovations worked out for the mightiest bomber of World War II, the B-29, was an electronically controlled gun-firing system. Late models of the B-17 had been equipped with power-operated gun turrets, but that wouldn't work with the pressurized B-29. And the designers wanted to keep protruding turrets as small as possible on the B-29.

The solution to the problem of guns for the Superfortress was provided by the General Electric central fire-control system, which made it possible for a gunner to aim a sight inside the plane and fire guns on the outside. It also allowed him to control more than one gun position at the same time.

Building Airfields For The B-29

China was the best available base for attacks on Japan when the B-29 was ready for combat early in 1944. Because of the problem of moving supplies over the Himalayas to China, it was decided to station the B-29's in India and use bases in China as advance staging areas for actual raids.

This plan required the construction of several air fields near Chengtu in central China to accommodate the big bombers on their way to and from targets in Japan. The work was done with the help of thousands of Chinese workers using hoes, hammers and ancient stone rollers.

When America's mightiest bomber, the B-29, went into action against the Japanese from India and China in May, 1944, an area closer to Japan had already been chosen as the main base for the Superfort. This was the Marianas, a group of islands still held by the Japanese.

Invasion of the Mariana Islands began in June, 1944. Saipan fell in July and Guam and Tinian in August, and construction of bases for the B-29 began at once. Five huge airfields were eventually built, two each on Guam and Tinian and one on Saipan. The first B-29 landed in the Marianas on October 12, 1944. The United States was about to begin the strategic bombardment of Japan.

Iwo Jima - A Forward Base

The B-29's that bombed Japan from the Mariana Islands faced a round trip of 3,000 miles over Japanese-controlled ocean with no safe place to land until they returned to their home base. Damaged Superforts often could not make it all the way back. In spite of an efficient air-sea rescue service, the vast Pacific claimed its share of crippled bombers.

Halfway between the Marianas and Japan was Iwo Jima, a volcanic island used by the Japanese as a base from which to bomb the Marianas and attack Superfort formations en route to Japan. In Allied hands it would make an ideally located stopover for B-29's in trouble, and fighters based there could protect the Superforts on missions to Japan.

The Fire Bomb Raids

Japan's industrial cities, with their concentration of wood and plaster buildings, were exceptionally vulnerable to incendiary attack. After several months of high-altitude, daylight precision raids with high explosives, the type of attack for which the B-29 had been designed, Major General Curtis LeMay, commander of the 21st Bomber Command, in a dramatic change of tactics, sent his B-29's to Japan in low-level night attacks with incendiaries. The results were catastrophic for Japan.

In the first attack, on Tokyo on March 9, 1945, fires left by 334 B-29's burned out 15.8 square miles in the heart of the city. Fire-bomb raids against other urban areasfollowed in rapid succession until 105 square miles of Japan's six most important cities had been destroyed and unmeasured damage done to smaller cities. Japan's ability to make war collapsed amid the ashes of the burned-out cities. The B-29 had brought Japan to her knees even before it carried the atomic bomb to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Tokyo in Flames

That fire raid was the most destructive single military action in the history of the world. In fact, that raid caused more casualties than the atom-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you had sat up there as I did and watched the fire develop, you would understand that.

I don't remember the exact number of bombs we dropped, but it must have been tens of thousands because these fire bombs break up, and a B-29 can carry close to 20,000 pounds of bombs.

The best way to describe what it looks like when these fire bombs come out of the bomb bay of an airplane is to compare it to a giant pouring a big shovelful of white-hot coals all over the ground, covering an area about 2,500 feet in length and some 500 feet wide - that's what each single B-29 was doing! There must have been well over three hundred airplanes, all of them spewing these white-hot incendiaries. They started fires everywhere. Of course, Tokyo was a highly inflammable city, and as the fire swathes widened and came together, they built up into one vast fire.

From a military point of view it was a tremendously successful raid. Over fifteen square miles were burned out. We took a pretty good licking in our outfit. As a matter of fact, we lost seven airplanes on that one mission. But, surprisingly enough, we did not lose a man on the next .four missions. Of course, when the target is heavily defended, the first unit to come in is exposed to most of the defensive firepower. But once the fire gets going and everything starts going to hell, the defenses just fall apart completely.

On the night of March 9, 1945, American B-29 bombers, flying from the Mariana Islands and coming in
over Tokyo at 5,000-feet altitude, devastated the Japanese capital with fire bombs. General Thomas
Power, who led the raid under the direction of General Curtis LeMay, describes the mission.

Hiroshima And Nagasaki

The atom bomb was the result of long years of research into the nature of the atom and the energy that could be obtained by splitting it. By 1939 it appeared possible that an extremely powerful bomb could be created through the splitting of uranium or plutonium nuclei. The physicist Albert Einstein informed President Roosevelt of this, and urged that the United States develop such a bomb before the Axis powers did.

Research went forward in the United States, slowly at first, then more rapidly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As the awesome nature of the atom bomb became more apparent, doubts were raised about using it as a weapon. Germany surrendered before the first bomb was ready, and it became a question of whether or not to use the bomb against the Japanese. The alternative was an invasion of Japan at the cost of millions of lives. The decision was made to use the bomb as soon as it was ready, and in the B-29 the United States Army Air Forces had a plane capable of delivering such a bomb to the target.

The Hiroshima Bomb

As far as I was concerned it was a perfect operation. We got out of there without any trouble. We heard the blast and felt it; it rocked us exactly as they said it would. In other words, we made our turn, and as we leveled out of our turn the flash occurred. The man in the tail gunner's position said, "I can see it coming," meaning the shock wave. He had been told to watch for this. Well, by the time he said that, the first one hit us. It was a real wallop - a real bang. It made a lot of noise and it really shook the airplane. The second hit us with less force, and the third one was very negligible.

When we got hit by the shock wave, I rolled right into another bank, a little bit easier this time and came right on around, because with all this going on, I wanted to get a look at it. There was the mushroom growing up, and we watched it blossom. And down below it the thing reminded me more of a boiling pot of tar than any other description I can give it. It was black and boiling underneath with a steam haze on top of it. And, of course, we had seen the city when we went in, and there was nothing to see when we came back. It was covered by this boiling, black-looking mess. We made some photographs real quickly and as we did that we approached this big cloud. Well, of course, I knew I didn't want to fly into that cloud; I knew it was hot with radiation. So we turned off. We were at 33,000 feet. I told the boys, "O.K. now, let's get all the air speed we can and get offshore." I knew that if they shot us down over the water there would be Navy vessels or submarines to pick us up. We did see one fighter, but he didn't come anywhere near us, and it was an easy flight home.

The mood was very quiet. Everybody was tired. It was all over. Here we were out over the water and everybody knew that it was just a ride home now, so we took turns sleeping. I had lain down and slept for about an hour, I guess. The reaction didn't set in for another day. The guys who were working on the airplanes weren't impressed until the information was public; then they came in with their eyes wide open and asked, "Gee, is a true?" Then, of course, everybody got to feeling real proud of the part he got to play in it. I imagine some pretty wild tales flew around; the stories got pretty big.

I felt nothing about it. I was told - as a military person - to do something. I recognized, as somebody said a long time ago, war is hell. I don't know how many people were killed; I didn't want anybody to get killed. But let's face it, if you're going to fight a war, you fight it to win and use any method you can. It wasn't my decision to make morally, one way or the other. I did what I was told. I can assure you that I can sleep just as peacefully at night as anybody.

Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the Enola Gay (named for his mother), the B-29 that
dropped the world's first atomic bomb, tells of the destruction of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.

Consolidated B-24 Liberator Consolidated's B-24 Liberator was one of the most costly and complicated aircraft produced by the US during WWII. It was produced in greater numbers than any other US bomber. 19,000 were built and served all over the globe as a bomber, transport, and long-range anti-submarine aircraft. This is a detailed examination of the design, development and use of the B-24 - the backbone of the USAAF bombing offensive during WWII. Extensively illustrated with over 200 archive photographs. Exceptional!

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