BOEING B-29 SUPER FORTRESS

The Boeing B-29 Super Fortress was one of the most important planes in the Second World War. It was born out of the Army Air Corps' demand for a bomber capable of flying 400 miles per hour, carrying a ton of bombs, and flying missions up to 5,000 mile. The USAAF did not wait to start production. They did not even test a prototype. By 1942 there were well over 1,500 on the assembly line. There were 3,965 B-29's produced throughout the World War II.

The B-29 had a length of 99 feet, and a height of 27 feet, 9 inches. It had a wingspan of 141 feet, 3 inches. It weighed 69,610 pounds when unarmed, and 140,000 pounds, when fully armed. The B-29 was capable of holding 20,000 bombs, and always had 10 .50 caliber machine guns, and 1 20 mm canon on it. It had 4 Wright Cyclone 18 cylinder engines, which were 2,200-horse power each. It could fly at 365 miles per hour at 31,850 feet, and had a range of 5,830 miles. The B-29 was the first plane to have a pressurized cockpit.

In 1944, the B-29 went into operation against Japanese targets in Indochina. The B-29 was flown out of bases in India and China. In November of 1944 The Japanese attacked the Mariana Islands with little success thanks to the B-29. By 1945 the B-29 was heavily engaged over Japan itself. In March of 1944 334 B-29's made a low level night attack on Tokyo with fire bombs. 80,000 Japanese died. There were more people killed by that attack then by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima five months later. There were many successful attacks made on major cities of Japan during the next three months. Some of the Superfortresses were turned into reconnaissance planes to take pictures of the enemy bases before the attacks. These were called F-13 Superfortresses.

At 9:15 A.M., August 6, 1945 the first nuclear bomb called the "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Colonel Paul Tibbets was piloting the B-29 that dropped this bomb. It was called the Enola Gay. The bomb weighed 9,000 pounds and had the explosive power of 20,000 tons of TNT. It destroyed 80 percent of the buildings, killed 70,000 to 80,000 people, and absolutely erased 60 percent of the city's area. Three days later the Enola Gay dropped another atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki. This bomb was nicknamed the "Fat Boy". Again thousands of people were killed and badly burned, but the damage was not as extensive. These two bombings caused the Emperor of Japan to surrender, ending the war on the 14th of August 1945.

That is why the B-29 Super Fortress was the most important aircraft in the war. It won many battles, succeeded on almost every attack, and ended the war. Production of the B-29 ended in 1946. Some were turned into flight refueling tankers; surviving bombers were later used in the Korean War. The B-29 was used until 1958, when it was finally retired.