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Change of Command

On August 29, 1944, Curtis LeMay, the youngest major general in the U.S. Army Air Forces, arrived in India to take over XX Bomber Command. LeMay was not part of Hap Arnold’s inner circle as Wolfe had been, but had distinguished himself as a group commander, then as an air division commander with the Eighth Air Force in Europe, where he established the theater-wide pattern for heavy bombardment operations. After touring his new command, LeMay decided it needed to be reorganized: tactics, combat procedures, training, internal organization -- everything. One of the first changes he made was to establish a school to train lead crews, who would find and mark the targets on missions. He discovered that many of the maintenance problems associated with combat operations stemmed from the way the groups were organized.

Major General General Curtis LeMay

While XX Bomber Command was struggling in the CBI, a new development was unfolding in the Central Pacific. The island of Saipan, captured by U.S. Marines in July 1944, was within 1,600 miles of Honshu. More important, it could be resupplied by sea. The decision was made to send in the B-29s of the newly organized XXI Bomber Command as soon as the base could be readied. The 73rd Bomb Wing (Very Heavy), which had been training in the States since March, was slated to leave for Saipan in October.

The B-29s of the 58th Bomb Wing resumed combat operations in September, flying another raid against Anshan, in Manchuria. The results were mediocre. In mid-October, LeMay was ordered to attack various targets in Formosa in support of the planned invasion of the Philippines. On October 25, the B-29s attacked the Omura aircraft factory on Kyushu with the best results so far -- due in part to the decision to use a 2-to-1 mix of incendiary and high-explosive bombs. Because of supply problems, however, particularly fuel shortages, further efforts to fly more missions against Japan were severely hampered. That caused LeMay to reduce the number of missions flown from the forward bases in China in favor of missions against Singapore, Borneo, Malaya and Sumatra, which could be staged out of India.

End of the Road

LeMay was fast discovering that to get anything approved he had to battle not only the complex logistical problems and command issues within the CBI, but also the headquarters staff in Washington. The Japanese were pressing the Chinese armies farther westward, threatening the China bases, and the relationship between Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek was unraveling. On top of that, the 58th’s B-29s, the earliest production models, were beginning to wear out, in part because they had done double duty as transports. LeMay began to empathize more with Wolfe, realizing that many of the difficulties had not been under the former commander’s control.

By early November 1944, LeMay had gotten the unit to a much higher level of combat efficiency -- the crews were better trained and the aircraft were better maintained -- but it didn’t solve the overall problem. While B-29 missions continued against targets in Southeast Asia, Formosa and Kyushu, it was becoming apparent to LeMay, Arnold and the Joint Chiefs that sustained B-29 operations out of the CBI were of limited strategic value. The raids, averaging 50 to 60 B-29s, were delivering about 125 to 150 tons of bombs to the target, and not all the targets could be classified as strategic (i.e., war industries). During the same time period, the Eighth and Fifteenth air forces in Europe were putting 3,500 tons of bombs on a strategic target in a single day.

In December 1944, the Joint Chiefs decided that Matterhorn would be phased out and the aircraft and personnel of the 58th would be transferred to Tinian, one of the islands in the Marianas group near Saipan. Certain personnel and B-29s would be left behind in India under the command of Lord Mountbatten and would not join the others until March 1945. On January 6, 1945, Arnold announced that he was naming LeMay as new commander of XXI Bomber Command in the Marianas, replacing Brig. Gen. Haywood "Possum" Hansell.

In all fairness, the attempt to operate the B-29s out of the CBI should be classified as an experiment. Even in a different combat theater with better logistical support, early B-29 operations would likely have proved difficult, given the teething problems associated with a complicated new aircraft. In fact, the XXI Bomber Command produced only marginal results during its first months of combat operations, resulting in General Hansell’s suffering the same fate as Kenneth Wolfe. It would not be until March 1945, with LeMay at the helm, that the B-29s started to inflict serious strategic damage on the Japanese Home Islands. By mid-1945, large segments of Japan’s major industrial cities had been reduced to rubble as a result of the Allied bombing effort. The Imperial Navy had been destroyed, and the Japanese army and air forces had been forced to move underground. Some military historians believe the Japanese would have surrendered by the end of 1945 even if the United States had not elected to use the atomic bomb.

In any case, Hap Arnold was on target in his prediction -- a war can be fought and won through the right use of strategic air power.

Additional Sources:

www.nasm.si.edu
www.afwing.com
www.nutleysons.com
www1.ocn.ne.jp
www.wpafb.af.mil
farrellpublishing.com
www.fas.org
www.history.noaa.gov

Boeing B-29
Superfortress

Boeing's B-29 Superfortress was the most sophisticated, propeller-driven, bomber to fly during World War II, and the first bomber to house its crew in pressurized compartments. Boeing installed very advanced armament, propulsion, and avionics systems into the Superfortress. During the war in the Pacific Theater, the B-29 delivered the first nuclear weapons used in combat. On August 6, 1945, Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., in command of the Superfortress "Enola Gay," dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later, Major Charles W. Sweeney piloted another B-29 named "Bockscar" and dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. On August 14, 1945, the Japanese accepted Allied terms for unconditional surrender.

As war clouds darkened Europe in the late 1930s, some U. S. Army Air Corps leaders recognized the need for very long-range bombers that exceeded the performance of the B-17 Flying Fortress . Several years of preliminary studies paralleled a continuous fight against those who saw no good reasons to develop such an aircraft but the Air Corps issued a requirement for the new bomber in February 1940. It described an airplane that could carry a maximum bomb load of 909 kg (2,000 lb) at a speed of 644 kph (400 mph) a distance of at least 8,050 km (5,000 miles).

Boeing, Consolidated, Douglas, and Lockheed responded with design proposals. The Army was impressed with the Boeing design and issued a contract for two flyable prototypes in September 1940. In April 1941, the Army issued another contract for 250 aircraft plus spare parts equivalent to another 25 bombers, eight months before Pearl Harbor and nearly a year-and-a-half before the first Superfortress would fly.

Among the design's innovations was a long, narrow, high-aspect ratio wing equipped with large Fowler-type flaps. This wing design allowed the B-29 to fly very fast at high altitudes without also having unmanageable flight characteristics during the slower speeds required for landing and takeoff. More revolutionary was the size and sophistication of the pressurized sections of the fuselage: the flight deck forward of the wing, the gunner's compartment aft of the wing, and the tail gunner's station. For the crew, flying at extreme altitudes was almost comfortable.

To protect the Superfortress, Boeing designed the most sophisticated remote-controlled, defensive weapons system yet fitted to a military airplane. Engineers placed five gun turrets on the fuselage: a turret above and behind the cockpit that housed two .50 caliber machine guns (four guns in later versions), and another turret aft near the vertical tail equipped with two machine guns; plus two more turrets beneath the fuselage, each equipped with two .50 caliber guns. One of these turrets fired from behind the nose gear and the other hung further back near the tail. Another two .50 caliber machine guns and a 20-mm cannon (in early versions of the B-29) were fitted in the tail beneath the rudder. The really novel innovation was in the sighting system. Gunners operated these turrets by remote control. They aimed the guns using computerized sights, and each gunner could take control of two or more turrets to concentrate firepower on a single target, making the system flexible and effective.

Boeing also equipped the B-29 with advanced radar equipment and avionics. Depending on the type of mission, a B-29 carried the AN/APQ-13 or AN/APQ-7 Eagle radar system to aid bombing and navigation. These systems were accurate enough to permit blind bombing through cloud layers that completely obscured the target. The B-29B was equipped with the AN/APG-15B airborne radar gun sighting system mounted in the tail, insuring accurate defense against enemy fighters attacking at night. The B-29s also routinely carried as many as twenty different types of radios and navigation devices.

The first XB-29 took off at Boeing Field in Seattle on September 21, 1942. By the end of the year the second aircraft was ready for flight. Fourteen service-test YB-29s followed as production began to accelerate. Building this advanced bomber required massive logistics. Boeing built new B-29 plants at Renton, Washington, and Wichita, Kansas, while Bell built a new plant at Marietta, Georgia, and Martin built one in Omaha, Nebraska. Both Curtiss-Wright and the Dodge automobile company vastly expanded their manufacturing capacity to build the bomber's powerful and complex Curtiss-Wright R-3350 turbo supercharged engines. The program required thousands of sub-contractors but with extraordinary effort, it all came together, despite major teething problems. By April 1944, the first operational B-29s of the newly formed 20th Air Force began to touch down on dusty airfields in India.

By May 8, 130 B-29s were operational. On June 5, 1944, less than two years after the initial flight of the XB-29, the U. S. Army Air Forces (AAF) flew its first B-29 combat mission against targets in Bangkok, Thailand. This mission (longest of the war to date) called for 100 B-29s but only 80 reached the target area. The AAF lost no aircraft to enemy action but bombing results were mediocre. The first bombing mission against the Japanese main islands, since Doolittle's Raid in April 1942, occurred on June 15, again with poor results. This was also the first mission launched from airbases in China.

With the fall of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam in the Mariana Islands chain in August 1944, the AAF acquired airbases that lay several hundred miles closer to Japan's home islands. Late in 1944, the AAF moved the XXI Bomber Command, flying B-29s, to the Marianas and the unit began bombing Japan in December. However, they employed high-altitude, precision, bombing tactics that yielded poor results. In March 1945, Major General Curtis E. LeMay ordered the group to abandon these tactics and strike instead at night, from low altitude, using incendiary bombs. These attacks, carried out by hundreds of B-29s, soon devastated much of Japan's industrial and economic infrastructure and contributed in no small way to the Japanese surrender.

Late in 1944, AAF leaders selected the Martin assembly line to produce a batch of Superfortress atomic bombers codenamed "Silverplate" aircraft. Martin modified these special B-29s by deleting all gun turrets except for the tail position, removing armor plate, installing Curtiss electric propellers, and configuring the bomb bay to accommodate either the "Fat Man" or "Little Boy" versions of the atomic bomb. The AAF assigned 15 Silverplate ships to the 509th Composite Group commanded by Colonel Paul Tibbets and he named his personal B-29 "Enola Gay" after his mother.

The B-29 Enola Gay, reassembled after 43 years, is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Northern Virginia. This image was taken prior to the faciliy opening to the public on Dec. 15, 2003

"Enola Gay" is a model B-29-45-MO, serial number 44-86292. The AAF accepted this aircraft on June 15, 1945, from the Martin plant at Omaha, Nebraska. After the war, air force crews flew the airplane during the Operation Crossroads atomic test program in the Pacific and then delivered it to Davis-Monthan Army Airfield, Arizona, for storage. Later, the U. S. Air Force flew the famous bomber to Park Ridge, Illinois, then transferred it to the Smithsonian Institution on July 4, 1949. Although in Smithsonian custody, the aircraft remained stored at Pyote Air Force Base, Texas, between January 1952 and December 1953. The airplane's last flight ended on December 2 when the "Enola Gay" touched down at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. The bomber remained at Andrews in outdoor storage until July 1961. By then quite concerned about the bomber deteriorating outdoors, the Smithsonian sent collections staff to disassemble the Superfortress and move it indoors, out of the elements, to the Paul E. Garber Facility in Suitland, Maryland.

The staff at Garber began working to preserve and restore "Enola Gay" in December 1984. This was the largest restoration project ever undertaken at the National Air and Space Museum and the restoration specialists anticipated the work would require from seven to nine years to complete. The project actually lasted more than ten years. The restored forward fuselage and other parts of the airplane were exhibited publicly downtown on the Washington, D. C., Mall in May 1995. The "Enola Gay," fully restored and completely assembled, is on display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.