Posted on 08/08/2025 5:39:57 AM PDT by whyilovetexas111
Somehow I never knew Kokura was the primary target of Fat Man.
Took M’boy up for a flight in the B-29 “Doc” a month or two ago. It was his first ever flight in anything. I think that’s a pretty cool talking point for future him when the subject comes up. I don’t know how much longer Doc and FIFI will be flying in the years ahead.
They landed on fumes (literally-they had only SEVEN GALLONS of gasoline left!) on Okinawa, there were communication SNAFUs, nearly everything.
Check out this account here:
LINK: Near Failure at Nagasaki-The first atomic mission was executed perfectly. On the second one, almost everything went wrong.
Paul Tibbets NEVER regretted the dropping of the bomb. He requested an unmarked grave because he didn’t want to draw unwanted attention when he died.
Due to the still-developing situation with regard to COVID-19, our country is being forced into completely new territory. To do our part to help prevent the spread, we will be delaying the start of the 2020 tour season. The planned kickoff event, the Arsenal of Democracy Flyover in Washington DC, has been rescheduled for September. All other tour stops through June have been indefinitely postponed. Your pre-sold ride flight is therefore cancelled and will be fully refunded. Please allow 3-5 business days for the refund to be processed. We appreciate your support and understanding during this time. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Another reason I am furious at this entire COVID scam.
The B-29 program was a huge CF. The US government wanted a long range bomber so badly they approved the contract before the prototype had been built, much less flown, and ordered a couple hundred of them. All of the bugs that are normally worked out in development fell to the Army Air Force crews. There were completed bombers parked all over the US that then had to be modified, and teams of mechanics sent out to do the work, often in the wintertime, things like that. The Wright engines were nicknamed “Wrong” engines, because they had a habit of catching on fire. Magnesium engine components would be ignited due to overheating exhaust valves. They spent about $3 billion in 1940 dollars on the entire program.
The third one was gonna be named “Hot Mama”.
Tibbetts was cremated and his ashes interred over the English channel iirc. He spent a lot of time flying B-17s on combat missions to Europe.
The saga of Bockscar on its mission to drop the bomb is a very fascinating read.
Wow that was a pricey seat if I recall. Did you get another shot afterwards?
A SNAFU that happened after we boarded but was actually quite enjoyable was that one of the Fighters that was taking part in the air show at Republic that day had some kind of engine malfunction on landing and had to use an arresting wire to get down. This resulted in a very pleasant and informative extra half hour aboard talking with the crew while the airport cleaned up the runway.
The crew of Doc mentioned that magnesium problem as one of the differences between 1945 29’s and today. Pretty scary problem, burning magnesium.
No...never rescheduled. They weren’t returning to my part of the country. Maybe someday...
Interesting that you got to watch the arrested landing...it is good to have the gear on a plane to do that if needed.
On the aircraft carrier, we used to practice “rigging the barricade” to catch a plane with a malfunctioning (or missing) tail hook...
I’ve seen Boxcar at the Dayton, OH AF museum and saw Fifi in Colorado.
I’d love to take a flight in Fifi or Doc someday.
Dropping the bomb was the correct decision at that time.
Anyone who says otherwise wasn’t on those ships headed to Japan for an invasion, which would have meant a massive loss of American lives, most of them young men.
After the bomb was dropped, those ships were turned around at sea and headed home - the war was over! I can’t even imagine the relief those men and their families felt.
Our family lost one of those young men, a pilot of a B-27 Marauder that was shot down, he was killed at age 23. My grandmother never recovered.
I finally learned not to ask.
It was a real problem, the top test pilot of the day and a bunch of Boeing engineers were killed on an early flight, engine caught fire and they crashed into a meat packing plant in Seattle. Killed about 20 on the ground, too. There was panic in the government, because they had placed all their eggs in the B-29 basket, it simply had to work.
Were the magnesium engine parts replaced with something safer on “Doc”?
The US was dragged into WWII by the arrogant racialists running Japan.
US participation as a combatant lasted about 3 years 8 months. During that rather short interval, Boeing designed and built the B-29, debugged it, and went into large scale production, building over 3000 of them.
As many as 1000 would be involved in single raids on Japan, flying from bases in Saipan and Tinian. One rationale for taking over Iwo Jima was as a place to land distressed B-29s returning from Japan, and the capability was used more than a thousand times in 1945; the first such landing was during the 35 or so days of the Battle of Iwo Jima. Before that time more than 100 planes had been lost due to battle damage sustained during raids, most had to be ditched in the ocean.
IOW, the crews, planes and their engines, and the US in general did a pretty nice job kicking the living crap out of the Empire of Japan. Incinerating 45 Japanese cities using incendiary bombings from B-29s proved to be a major contribution, but it still took not one, but two nukes to convince them to give up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_R-3350_Duplex-Cyclone
[snip] The Wright R-3350 Duplex-Cyclone is an American twin-row, supercharged, air-cooled, radial aircraft engine with 18 cylinders displacing nearly 3,350 cubic inches (54.9 L). Power ranged from 2,200 to 3,700 hp (1,640 to 2,760 kW), depending on model. Developed before World War II, the R-3350’s design required a long time to mature, and was still experiencing problems with reliability when used to power the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. [/snip]
Tomorrow is “Nagasaki Day”!
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