The Superfortress Takes to the Skies

Wartime planners recognized that bombing Japan required a very heavy bomber that could fly extremely long distances—a technological leap beyond the standard B–17 and B–24 heavy bomber designs. The aircraft developed for this purpose was the B–29 Superfortress. Designed between 1940 and 1942 by some of the top U.S. aeronautical engineers— Wellwood E. Beall, Edward C. Wells, George S. Schairer, and Col. Leonard “Jake” Harmon—the B–29 doubled the range and bomb load of its predecessors. Ninety-nine feet long, the Superfortress had a wing span of 141 feet and a tail 27 feet high. Four 18-cylinder, 2,200-horsepower engines and huge fuel tanks allowed it to carry ten tons of bombs and fly 3,000-mile missions. It could also exceed 350 miles per hour and cruise at over 33,000 feet. New pressurized cabins and two turbochargers for each engine increased the bomber’s high-altitude capabilities. For defense, the Superfortress boasted twelve .50-cal machine guns and a 20-mm cannon in the tail, with central gunfire control and remote turrets. A fully loaded B–29 weighed well over sixty tons, a “very heavy” bomber compared with the B–17 and B–24.

Building the Superfortress was a “three-billion-dollar gamble.” Officials rushed the new bomber into production before the prototype was even built, much less flown. Assembly lines started rolling at B–29 factories and modification facilities at Wichita, Kansas; Marietta, Georgia; Omaha, Nebraska; Cleveland, Ohio; and Renton and Seattle, Washington. By September 1942, when the XB–29 prototype first flew, the AAF had already ordered 1,664 bombers. 

Converting paper into metal challenged the B–29’s engineers. The extremely complex weapon system faced a host of development problems, including engine malfunctions, jammed gears, dead power plants, and nacelle fires. Its front and rear rows of engine cylinders were too close for efficient cooling—a serious design flaw. These difficulties struck home on February 18, 1943, when an XB–29 caught fire and crashed on a test flight. Despite all the obstacles, the engineers and aircraft builders pressed forward. 

Even before the Superfortress had proven worthy for combat, President Roosevelt considered its future basing. At the end of 1943, the Joint Chiefs of Staff decided not to send the B–29 to Europe, where B–17s and B–24s were already flying strategic bombing missions against Germany. Introducing the bomber to combat in the Far East suited the AAF commander, Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, who told Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Marshall that using it elsewhere would deprive the United States of the element of surprise against Japan. At this point, even with the B–29’s phenomenal 1,600-mile combat radius, few Allied territories lay within range of the Japanese heartland. Western Pacific islands such as the Marianas were close enough, but they were still occupied by Japanese troops. Strategists considered basing Superfortresses in Siberia for attacks from the north, but the Soviet Union was not yet at war with Japan. Only one Allied territory—China—could provide bases within the B–29’s striking distance of the home islands. 

The idea of basing the Superfortresses in China first surfaced at the Casablanca Conference in January 1943. While planners assessed this option, the Anglo-American Combined Chiefs of Staff, meeting in Quebec in August, authorized a central Pacific drive that included the seizure of the Marianas. Not only were the Marianas closer to Tokyo, but once in Allied hands they could be supplied and defended more easily than other sites. In September, Combined Chiefs of Staff planners concluded that B–29s in China would be plagued by logistical problems. However, President Roosevelt decided in favor of the China bases because he was impatient to bomb Japan and wished to bolster the Chinese war effort. At the Sextant Conference in Cairo at the end of the year, he promised Chiang Kai-shek that the very heavy bombers would be coming to his country. General Arnold supported that decision as a temporary expedient, but still preferred strategic missions against Japan from the Marianas, once bases there were available. 

Advance AAF echelons arrived in India in December 1943 to organize the building of airfields in India and China. Thousands of Indians labored to construct four permanent bases in eastern India around Kharagpur. Meanwhile, 1,000 miles to the northeast, across the Himalayan mountains, about 350,000 Chinese workers toiled to build four staging bases in western China near Chengtu. By April 1944, eight B–29 airfields were available in Asia. 

As these bases took shape, American officials fretted that the B–29s would not be ready to occupy them. The Superfortresses were rolling off the Boeing assembly lines on schedule, but the planes required extensive modifications, especially to the gun turrets, before they would be ready for combat. Arnold was determined to get the B–29s operational as quickly as possible. Modification facilities around the country seemed unable to complete the work on time, so the government ordered B–29 modification contractors to rush personnel and equipment to four Kansas bases—Salina, Pratt, Great Bend, and Walker —for an all-out effort that came to be known as the “Battle of Kansas.” For forty-four days in March and April 1944, military and civilian engineers and mechanics fought wind and snow to ready the B–29s for overseas combat. Under the leadership of Maj. Gen. Bennett E. Meyers of the Air Technical Service Command, they rushed to prepare the first contingent of Superfortresses for deployment to India. 

With production and basing under way, the AAF began to build the organizations that would employ the new strategic bomber. Training in the United States would be managed by the XX Bomber Command, established in November 1943 and assigned to the Second Air Force. But a second unique organization would be responsible for employing the Super-fortress in combat. Arnold perceived that the theater commanders in Asia and the Pacific viewed aircraft merely as support for tactical surface operations and lacked a clear appreciation of the value of strategic bombing. He feared that the B–29s might be wasted on the battlefields when they would be much more useful against the Japanese home islands. To avoid this “misuse,” Brig. Gen. Haywood S. Hansell, one of Arnold’s planners, proposed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that strategic air forces in the Pacific be consolidated under one command. The Joint Chiefs agreed and in April 1944 established the Twentieth Air Force to manage the B–29s. Acting as executive agent for the Joint Chiefs, Arnold became the Twentieth’s commander, and Hansell himself served as chief of staff. Centralized control of the Superfortresses from Washington marked the recognition of the B–29 as a strategic weapon that transcended theaters and services. 

That same month, the first Superfortresses arrived in India, having flown across the Atlantic Ocean, North Africa, Arabia, and Iran. Accompanying them was Maj. Gen. Kenneth B. Wolfe, the new commander of the XX Bomber Command, which had been reassigned as the operational component of the Twentieth Air Force. General Wolfe had supported the B–29 project at Wright Field and had been the first commander of the 58th Bombardment Wing, one of the first wings to receive the new bomber. Wing headquarters also arrived in India during the spring of 1944. Ultimately, the 58th was the only wing to serve on the Asian mainland under the XX Bomber Command. The other original B–29 wing, the 73d, did not deploy overseas until after a base was available in the Marianas.