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Untold War Stories@UntoldWarFacts22 seconds.That is how long it took for a 23 year old staff sergeant from Alabama to save the lives of his entire B-29 crew on a mission to Japan in 1945.He had to carry a burning phosphorus bomb 25 feet through the aircraft.He held it against his body while it burned through to the bone.This is the story of Red Erwin...🧵1/5Untold War Stories@UntoldWarFacts·Sep 26Replying to @UntoldWarFacts🧵 2/5Henry Eugene Erwin was born on May 8 1921 in Adamsville, Alabama. A small coal mining town outside Birmingham. His father was a coal miner who died when Henry was 10...

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Eighty years ago this week, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, forcing the end of World War II. On August 6, 1945, the B-29 Enola Gay dropped the “Little Boy” uranium bomb on Hiroshima, killing up to 166,000 people. Three days later, on August 9, the B-29 Bockscar was diverted from its primary target of Kokura due to bad weather and instead dropped the more powerful “Fat Man” plutonium bomb on the secondary target of Nagasaki, killing up to 80,000 and compelling Japan’s surrender.

On the night of March 9, 1945, U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history. Early on March 9, Air Force crews met on the Mariana Islands of Tinian and Saipan for a military briefing. They were planning a low-level bombing attack on Tokyo that would begin that evening, but with a twist: Their...

Brig. Gen. Paul Tibbets, better known as the man who piloted the Enola Gay during the bombing of Hiroshima, became a well-known figure in the United States at the end of the Second World War. Despite his fame, Tibbets asked that upon his death he receive no funeral or gravestone. Paul Tibbets started his career as an abdominal surgeon before enlisting in the US Army Air Corps. He initially served for three years, qualifying as a pilot in 1938, and opted to stay on active duty when the US entered the Second World War. While he is best known for...

I saw this interview of Paul Tibbets who piloted the plane that did it. Interesting (to me at least) what led up to August 6 for him with the B-29's development and his preparation for the bomb drop. These are about 20 minutes each. Part 1 of 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qG2n3EmNtqY&t=159s Part 2 of 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UelE357z58M

Just wondering if that would have put a halt to the Japanese aggression and given them a sense of what they were up against and what we were willing to do. Could it have saved thousands of American lives in the South Pacific? As an alternative history buff I’m curious about the opinions here.

Nice short video of a restored B29

Awesome cinematography of this shiny newly restored B-29 with only a few hours flight time under its belt. The imagery is great, the sound is kinda rough.

I know we're all wired into the 'best election ever' but here's a little slice of cool news and views regarding the B-29, Doc. Video at link.

The B-29 bomber known as Doc may be flying again before the summer is over. On May 20th, the nonprofit group Doc’s Friends announced that they had accepted an airworthiness certificate from the Federal Aviation Administration. Several dozen members of the group, along with other supporters, attended a ceremony at Doc’s hangar at Air Capital Flight Line, the former Boeing Wichita factory complex. “The biggest thing is how important this airplane is to history,” said Jeff Turner, board chairman for Doc’s Friends. “The light of freedom was growing dimmer (during World War II), and the men and women of our...

Did you know that the Millennium Falcon's cockpit was inspired by the WWII B-29 Superfortress bomber? Did you know that the Star Wars saga most famous spacecraft featured a cockpit clearly inspired to a World War II heavy bomber? Well, the iconic greenhouse-style window of the Millennium Falcon was designed with the style of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, a strategic bomber flying 30 years before Han Solo and Chewbacca first appeared driving the iconic spacecraft into the hyperspace, in mind.

On the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, shortly after 8:00 a.m. local time, a lone American B-29 was conducting what seemed to be a reconnaissance flight at high altitude over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. At about 16 minutes after 8:00, the aircraft released an object over the centre of town. Attached to parachutes, the object floated down slowly enough to give the four-engine Boeing Superfortress time to turn and lumber out of the airspace. The atom bomb exploded at about 1,900 feet above the centre of Hiroshima. The devastation was cataclysmic. Immediate casualties, dead and injured, numbered approximately 115,000....

I'm going to comment on the ethics of nuking Japan. This is one of those perennial issues that America-bashers constantly raise. There are two extremes we need to avoid: "my country right or wrong," and "blame America first." For me the war has a personal dimension. My late father was a WWII vet who served in the Pacific theater. He was radio operator in the Air Force. His squadron conducted reconnaissance over Japan. He had some interesting stories to tell: i) He trained on B-17s in Alaska, then flew on B-29s in Florida. ii) Our pilots discovered the jet stream....

Juror B29, also known as “Maddy,” made her first major television appearance with Al Sharpton Tuesday afternoon since she first revealed her face and spoke to ABC News’ Robin Roberts about her conflicted feelings on the George Zimmerman verdict. Maddy offered her reactions to Zimmerman’s recent detainment in connection with a domestic dispute involving his estranged wife and father-in-law. After viewing dashcam video of Zimmerman being put in handcuffs by officers, Maddy told Sharpton, “it hurts a lot,” because she keeps going back and thinking “what could I have done” to change the outcome of the trial. At the same...

A number of people have been asking for our response to Juror B-29’s remarks during ABC’s Robin Roberts' interview about the Zimmerman verdict. The big headline from the story is “George Zimmerman got away with murder,” but that is an inaccurate distillation of Juror B-29's statements. Rather, the substance of the juror’s other comments are more complicated and nuanced. Here’s a key exchange that got my attention: Juror B-29 says, “For myself, he’s guilty, because the evidence shows he’s guilty.” Robin Roberts asks for a clarification, “He’s guilty of?” Juror B-29 responds, “Killing Trayvon Martin. But as the law was...

Two weeks after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, the only person on the jury who is a member of an ethnic minority said in an ABC News interview that Zimmerman “got away with murder.’ Juror B29, identified only by her first name Maddy, sat down with ABC’s Robin Roberts, to discuss the trial for “Good Morning America.” As the first juror to show her face on camera, Maddy expressed both conviction and regret. “You can’t put the man in jail even though in our hearts we felt he was guilty,” Maddy said of...

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On Sept. 12, 2001, it is highly doubtful that any member of Congress was worried that our government would be too harsh in its treatment of terrorists. When countries are threatened, basic survival trumps civil liberties not just for enemy combatants but for citizens as well. Our priorities change. We saw that with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Days before Japanese warplanes destroyed the U.S. Pacific fleet on Dec. 7, 1941, 80% of Americans did not want to go to war against either Germany or Japan. The day after the attacks, those numbers reversed themselves. Over the next four years,...

On the 40th, 50th and 60th anniversaries of D-Day, Presidents Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush traveled to Normandy to lead us in tribute to the bravery of the Greatest Generation of Americans, who had liberated Europe. Always a deeply moving occasion. The 40th, 50th and 60th anniversaries of the dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however, were not times of celebration or warm remembrance. Angry arguments for and against the dropping of the bombs roil the airwaves and fill the press. And the reason is obvious. While World War II was a just war against enemies...