How the Superfortress Paced the Attack Against Japan
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a The B-29 Story . Twenty years ago this fall the first B-29s, operating from the newly captured Marianas, struck the Japanese home islands. It was the first blow in an aerial campaign that, in the next nine months, was to reduce Japan's war industry to rubble and so lower the morale of the Japanese people that, many say, the war in the Pacific could shortly have been ended without either atomic bombs or the scheduled land invasion. The aircraft that brought this about was the Boeing B-29, whose numbers increased from a relative handful to an aerial fleet of 1,000 Superforts and whose achieve- ments included the devastating fire storms of the spring of 1945 . How the Superfortress Paced the Attack Against Japan By Maj. James M. Boyle, USAF ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, U. S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY VVENTY years ago last month 111 B-29s of Brig. Gen. been engaging Japanese forces in battle, but, until the Emmett "Rosy" O'Donnell's 73d Bomb Wing left Isely arrival in the Marianas of the XXI Bomber Command, the T Field, on Saipan, and set course for Tokyo, some homeland, the sustainer of the war effort, had been un- 1,500 miles away. This mission, code-named San Antonio touched, save for the Doolittle raid and a comparatively 1, was the first B-29 attack against Japan from the recently minor effort by the XX Bomber Command from China. captured Marianas and the first attack upon Tokyo since The tentacles of Japanese expansion were being crushed, Jimmy Doolittle's carrier-based raid of April 18, 1942. but the heart was untouched until the X.XI Bomber Com- Weather was bad to and over the target, and only mand—the combat arm of the Twentieth Air Force— eighty-eight B-29s were able to drop their bombs at all. began a systematic and cataclysmic series of attacks, short Of these, only twenty-four bombed the primary target, in duration but terrible in their intensity. but the appearance of the Superfortresses over their capital The defeat of the Japanese Empire is unique in modern on November 24, 1944, brought home to the Japanese military history. For the first time, a major nation sur- people the stark reality of the situation. American air- rendered, totally and unconditionally, without a single power was now within reach of the home islands. Worse, invader having set foot within its borders. Germany sur- the Japanese Air Force couldn't do a thing about it. rendered in 1918 before actual invasion, but invading Within nine months this aerial armada grew from a troops in large numbers had penetrated the homeland single bomb wing with 119 aircraft to five wings and during the course of the war. Japan accepted defeat while a thousand B-29s. The course of the Pacific war was soon possessing more than two and one-half million combat- to change abruptly as the weight of American airpower equipped troops and 9,000 kamikaze planes in the home was felt. islands. The B-29 forces which operated from the Marianas United States strategy contemplated an invasion of the were a part of the Twentieth Air Force, activated in Wash- home islands, with landings on the southern island of ington on April 4, 1944, with Gen. H. H. Arnold, Chief Kyushu scheduled for November 1945. Honshu was to of the Army Air Forces, as Commander. The Twentieth be invaded the following March, even though many Amer- operated directly under the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was ican commanders, mostly air officers, stated as early as unique in that the headquarters resided in Washington May 1945 that air attacks would make an invasion un- while the combat element was in the Marianas, more than necessary. 8,000 miles away. Evidence supports the conclusion that the B-29 of- Since Guadalcanal in 1942, United States forces had (Continued on following page) AIR FORCE Magazine • December 1964 63 THE B-29 STORY The Pacific Pioneer, which landed on Saipan October 12, 1944, with General Hansell at the controls. Brig. Gen. Haywood S. "Possum" Hansen, Jr., had assumed com- mand of the XXI on August 28. He had been Chief of Staff of the Twentieth Air Force in Washington and was given the task of leading the Bomber Command overseas and directing its initial missions against Japan. Soon to follow were elements of General O'Donnell's 73d Wing, which would fly fourteen combat missions before the second wing entered the fray. Total B-29 hours per crew averaged only 108. Six shakedown missions were flown by the 73d soon after its arrival at Isely Field, Saipan, against submarine pens on Truk and Iwo Jima. These missions furnished the crews needed experience in navigation, bombing, radar approach, formation flying at altitude, and night landings. The bombing results were unsatisfactory. The 73d needed more training, but General Arnold ordered the first strike Brig. Gen. "Rosy" O'Donnell, 73d Wing CO, briefs B-29 against Japan itself. crews. At right are Brig. Gen. H. S. Hansell, XXI Bomber Command CO; Col. Walter C. Sweeney, Jr., 73d Wing A Period of Trial C/S; and Col. J. B. Montgomery, Hansell's DCS/Ops. From this first mission on November 24, 1944, until the revolutionary change in tactics on March 9, 1945, was a fensive, more than any other factor, forced the issue. By August 1945, the XXI Bomber Command had destroyed time of trial and error, of frustration and dejection. Main- a high percentage of Japanese industry, wrecked her tenance equipment and supplies were lacking. Flight per- sonnel and maintenance technicians were green. Informa- economy, and shattered the morale of her people. In 1945, tion on Japanese targets was scanty. Bomb loads were the XXI Bomber Command comprised the sole force often limited to three tons because of excessive fuel con- capable of a sustained and continuous attack upon the Japanese homeland. sumption. Missions were flown every fourth to sixth day, The XXI Bomber Command was activated at Smoky Hill depending on weather, and during December, January, Army Air Field, Kan., on March 8, 1944. Soon afterward, and February missions were flown on only eighteen days. the Command Headquarters moved to Colorado Springs All of these factors meant an exceedingly high noneffective to bring together the headquarters of the Command, its rate of aircraft airborne and a low rate of combat effort. three wing headquarters, and Second Air Force. The latter For the three-month period, the monthly average was was supplying the cadre of personnel, fillers, and replace- fifty-eight hours per aircraft and forty-four hours per crew. ments. The effectiveness of Bomber Command operations could By June the Bomber Command was comprised of three be measured in two ways—first, by the bomb tonnage wings. The 73d Bomb Wing (VH) consisted of four Bomb carried to Japan, and secondly, by how much of this Groups: the 497th, 498th, 499th, and 500th. In the 313th tonnage hit primary targets. In both critical areas, the Wing were the 6th, 9th, 504th, and 505th Groups. The Command fell short of all expectations. 314th Wing was made up of the 19th, 29th, 39th, and A target system issued in November listed the following 330th Groups. Two additional wings joined the Command priorities: (1) Japanese aircraft industry, (2) Japanese in the Marianas. The 58th—first wing to use the B-29 urban industrial areas, (3) Japanese shipping. Seven of in combat from bases in India and China—arrived on the ten primary targets were aircraft and engine factories. Tinian in April 1945. In this wing were the 40th, 444th, Lower on the priority list were coke, steel, and oil. When 462d, and 468th Bomb Groups. The 315th Wing, the fifth weather or other conditions made it impossible to bomb to join the Command, flew its first combat mission on any priority targets, the Command was directed to radar June 26, 1945. It consisted of the 16th, 331st, 501st, and bomb specific port and urban areas. 502d Groups. Throughout this early period the Command adhered The summer months of 1944 were arduous. Washington to the time-honored Air Force doctrine of high-altitude, was pressing for combat readiness in a minimum of time. The B-29, however, was the largest and most complicated aircraft produced to that date, and there were problems. "Possum" From October 1943 to September 1944, the in-commission Hansell, who flew rate never exceeded forty percent at any time. During first Superfort to July 1944, the Command in-commission rate for the B-29 Saipan in October was twenty-seven percent, and in August only thirty-six 1944, had been percent, while the average monthly hours flown per air- named XXI craft assigned in July was 2.8, and in August 3.6 hours. Bomber Com- By October 1944, XXI Bomber Command units were mand chief while spread from Colorado Springs to the Marianas, though units were still most of the combat aircraft still were in Kansas and training in US. Nebraska. The movement of thousands of men, hundreds Here he indicates of aircraft, and tons of materiel was an exacting, corn-, target zone for plicated, and difficult task. Total strength had now reached first mission 43,000, with 8,000 in the headquarters and related units, from Marianas. and 11,500 men in each of the three wings. The first B-29 to reach the Marianas was Joltin' Josie, 64 AIR FORCE Magazine • December 1964 _ CONTINUED to adopt this drastic change to unproven combat tactics. After brilliant From high-altitude, daylight, precision bombing in forma- combat leadership in tion, the switch was made to low-level, area bombing Europe, and a short during hours of darkness.