If the truth be told, I was never a B-29 guy.
As a World War II history buff, my heavy bomber of choice was always the iconic Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. I think a lot of my affection for that plane probably had to do with the media it received, both during the war and afterwards.
I check out the innards of a B-29.* |
For a brief span, I came to admire the Consolidated B-24 Liberator, which had a greater range and could deliver a larger payload than the B-17. But the Liberator never really captured the public's imagination in the way the Fortress did. Maybe because the B-24 looked something like a pregnant whale while the Fortress had the sleek art deco silhouette of a ballet dancer.
The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was a late-war entry that didn't see any combat in the European campaign, even though it was originally designed to fly above the German anti-aircraft fire.
But the B-29 was devastating in the war against Japan. It had a range upwards of 3,200 miles and a service ceiling of nearly 32,000 feet. It could carry 20,000 pounds of bombs at low altitude or 5,000 pounds of bombs at high altitude. And it appeared in the war in early 1945, about the same time that napalm was secretly being developed at Harvard.
The cockpit of a B-29. |
B-29s also dropped two atomic bombs, one on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki, that did less damage than the firebombing raids did, but irrevocably altered the course of world history and world politics.
So when I found out that Doc, one of only two airworthy B-29s left in the world (the other being Fifi) was going to be in Statesville last week, I had to go see this piece of American history. I called two of my friends, Mark Loper and Jay Egelnick, and we made the journey to Statesville Regional Airport.
Doc was never in combat, coming too late off the Wichita assembly line to see action. But it did serve in radar calibration after the war with a squadron of other B-29s, known as the Seven Dwarfs. That's how Doc got its name.
It also worked towing targets for practice shooting and ultimately ended up in the Mojave Desert as a target itself for bomb training. It was rescued in 1987 and restoration began in 2013 with hundreds of volunteers working to make the plane airworthy again.
The B-29 Doc in Statesville. |
Anyway, the B-29 is a technological marvel for its time. While it looks something like a silver cigar, it features pressurized cabins for the crew (which meant climate control) and analog computers to operate 10 defensive machine guns in turrets.
I was always fascinated with this idea of computerized gun turrets in World War II. The computer could calculate airspeed, lead time, gravity and weather conditions to make it one of the most efficient systems of the war. While computerless B-17's and B-24's shot down approximately two fighters for every B-17 lost (an atrocious rate), the B-29 had an amazing 11-to-1 kill ratio, virtually making it a fighter/bomber. And as then-test pilot Paul Tibbetts (who dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima) discovered, if you took the armor and guns out of the B-29, you markedly improved its flight performance. Consequently, the B-29 then had a smaller turning radius than a P-47 Thunderbolt fighter in mock combat situations.
Sitting in the cockpit of the B-17 Liberty Belle years ago.** |
This probably concludes my visit of three of the most iconic American bombers of World War II. I actually flew in the B-24 Witchcraft when it came to Lexington a number of years ago, and got to taxi down the runway in the B-17 Liberty Belle. We were supposed to go airborne in the B-17, but a tail wheel issue prevented us from taking off. No matter. I got to sit in the pilot's seat when it was stationary.
Standing with the B-24 Witchcraft.*** |
*Really great photos by my friend Jay Egelnick.
** Great photo by my friend Donnie Roberts.
*** Great photo by my wife Kim Wehrle.
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