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The new Soviet bomber was really just a knockoff of a famous American bomber—no Bull. By Walter J. Boyne Photo from Aleksey Mikheyev collection

n the 1940s, the three B-29s that had made emergency The Soviets made remarkable prog- produced a bomber with capabili- landings in the near the ress in producing nuclear weapons, ties so advanced that it required end of World II. But there was also but without the amazingly rapid pro- Ia national revolution in engineering, a Tu-70 passenger version of the B-29 duction of the Tu-4, the USSR could aerodynamics, manufacturing, electron- in the flyby that day, which forced the not have delivered those weapons for ics, material, and operation. And so did observers to accept a troubling fact. many years. the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union had done the The US B-29 effort was an immense The US spent more on its new bomber impossible: It had reverse engineered undertaking. Program cost estimates than it had on any previous aviation proj- and produced flyable B-29 replicas in vary, but it is generally stated that ect. The Soviet Union did the same. two short years. The Tu-4 was a virtual the entire B-29 effort cost about $3 The US aircraft—the B-29 Superfor- carbon copy of the Superfortress. billion—more than the Manhattan tress—made history on Aug. 6, 1945, Project that developed the world’s first when it dropped an atomic weapon on Rise into the Modern Age nuclear weapons. Huge new plants . The Soviet aircraft went on The Tu-4s gave the Soviet were built for the three companies display on Aug. 3, 1947 at the annual a strategic air arm that posed a genuine that manufactured airframes—Boeing, Tushino air show. Visitors in Moscow threat to the Free World. By 1950, more in Renton, Wash., and Wichita, Kan.; that day witnessed a stunning flyover: than 270 Tu-4s were deployed in Soviet Bell in Marietta, Ga.; and Martin in the debut of the Tu-4 bomber. Long-Range Aviation regiments. NATO Omaha, Neb. Here’s the odd thing. The monumen- gave the bomber the code name Bull, The B-29 was at the time the heavi- tal US and USSR bomber programs had and by the Korean War, there were est bomber ever built, dwarfing the produced what was, for all intents and enough available for the Soviets to B-17, , and Heinkel purposes, the same aircraft. put them in the service of the People’s He 177. The three Tu-4s flown at the air Republic of . Manufacturing contributed to the B- show were indistinguishable from US The Tu-4 took part in no 29 program’s size. There were four main B-29s, the state-of-the-art aircraft that decisive battles, but its effect on Soviet factories, three modification centers, had revolutionized long-range strategic aviation was incredibly important. The and the largest subcontracting program bombing. Bull brought the entire Soviet aircraft in Boeing history for equipment and Western observers initially be- industry, from its design bureaus to its subassemblies. lieved—hoped—that the aircraft seen most insignificant parts supplier, into Equally important was the B-29’s at the Moscow air show were actually the modern airpower age. complexity, with its new structure, 52 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2009 Left: Russian-built Tu-4s line up at a base in the Soviet Union. Here, a B-29, virtually indistinguishable from the Soviet copy, skims over the clouds. pressurized crew compartments, central A later request for 120 Lend-Lease US pressure to move the men from the fire-control system, and powerful new B-29s was ignored, but on July 29, 1944, harsh Siberian camps in which they were Wright R-3350 engines equipped with the Soviets received a gift, seemingly held. It was agreed first to transfer the two superchargers and trouble-prone out of the heavens. An intact B-29 crewmen to gulags in Central Asia where propellers. —Ramp Tramp—was damaged in a the weather was not so extreme. To obtain the required performance, raid on Manchuria and forced to land Treatment in the camps was primi- Boeing reduced drag by specifying that in Vladivostok. tive by American standards, but normal the B-29 be built with smooth skin joints Three more Superforts soon fell into to the resident Russians and probably and flush riveting. Soviet hands. exotically luxurious to the regular gulag Also a cost factor was the pell-mell Two of the —General H. H. inmates. speed of the program—which saw Arnold Special and Ding Hao!—landed There were plenty of gulags across the first aircraft flown before many at Vladivostok’s Tsentral’naya uglo- the Soviet Union, and this network key systems were designed, much vaya, a Pacific Fleet air base; one—Cait ultimately became the escape route for less tested. Paomat II—crashed nearby. the American crews. The B-29 entered combat on June The aircrews were moved from camp 5, 1944 with a raid on Bangkok. In the The Camps to camp across Uzbekistan and Turk- next 13 months, it would help win the As allies, the US and USSR kept menistan until the men were in a posi- war with —and simultaneously up good relations during the war, but tion to be smuggled across the border, plant the seeds for the USSR’s first the United States had to exert strong into Persia—modern-day Iran—with great postwar bomber. diplomatic pressure on the Soviets to the USSR’s cooperation. The Soviet Union had led the world in obtain the release of almost 300 airmen At least four different “escapes” the construction and operation of large who wound up in Soviet custody. The (called such to avoid criticism if the bombers in the 1930s. In the 1940s, interned B-29 crews were among these Japanese learned of them) took place however, the USSR turned its attention guests of the Soviet Union. with Soviet complicity. These escapes to smaller aircraft to stem the tide of As the USSR and Japan were not at into British territory were orchestrated World War II’s German invasion. war in 1944, the Soviets sought to avoid by the Soviet secret police and were The Russians first became aware of antagonizing Japan by publicly return- done with such a degree of security the B-29 program when a talkative Eddie ing the Americans who had diverted that few knew the full story. Rickenbacker made a controversial June after bombing Japanese targets. At their release, the American crew 1943 trip to the Soviet Union. The Soviets ultimately succumbed to members were asked not to publicize AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2009 53 Photo from Aleksey Mikheyev collection

their stories so that the escape routes whose own strategic bomber, Samolet The first Tu-4 to come off the assem- would not be compromised for future 64, was not only behind schedule but bly line, shown shortly after rollout in prisoners. also lacked essential bombing and 1947. The Soviets would not give up the B- navigation equipment. its subcontractors had assembled it. All 29s the airmen flew in on, however, and Golovanov is reputed to have sug- parts were to be reverse engineered, and began a systematic test program which gested to Stalin that the interned B-29s individual elements were to be assigned ran from January to July 1945. be copied and placed into production. to the appropriate enterprises for manu- The three flyable aircraft were taken In June 1945, Stalin’s orders were facturing. Many elements of the aircraft to the Izmailovo airfield outside of promulgated, tasking the Tupolev de- had never been dreamed of, much less Moscow and transferred to the 65th sign bureau to copy the B-29 and put it built, in the Soviet Union, yet firms Special Mission Air Regiment. They into production. An extremely detailed were ordered to fulfill the task. then came under the purview of Air instruction placed the weight of respon- Stalin decreed that they be copied Marshal Alexander Golovanov. sibility on Tupolev’s shoulders—but exactly, down to the smallest detail. Stalin was distressed that the Soviet also placed the whole of Russian gov- Any deviation in one part would inevi- Union did not possess a strategic bomber ernment and industry behind him. His tably lead to deviations in others, and like the B-29, and was very unhappy with bureau was to break down a B-29 in production chaos would ensue. (Small aircraft designer Andrei N. Tupolev, the reverse order in which Boeing and changes were later permitted, as with Photo from Aleksey Mikheyev collection

Crew members of a late- production Soviet Tu-4 are briefed before a training mission. The Soviet Union jump-started its airpower capability reverse-engi- neering four US B-29s that fell into Soviet hands.

54 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2009 Boeing B-29s Interned in the Soviet Union Final control was in Tupolev’s hands. Against all odds, given the arcane inter- Serial # Name Commander Unit Interned at Date actions of the Soviet bureaucracy, what emerged was a model of managerial 42-6256 Ramp Tramp Capt. H. R. Jarrell 770th BS, Vladivostok July 29, 1944 efficiency, one that was subsequently 462nd BG adapted by the Soviet Union’s successful space program. 42-93829 Cait Paomat II Maj. R. McGlinn 395th BS, Crashed Aug. 20, 1944 Given Army Air Forces Chief Gen. Photo from Aleksey Mikheyev collection 40th BG H. H. “Hap” Arnold’s patronage of the B-29, the General H. H. Arnold 42-6365 General H. H. Capt. W. H. Price 794th BS, Vladivostok Nov. 11, 1944 Special was chosen to be disassembled Arnold Special 468th BG and copied. Ding Hao! was grounded for use as 42-6358 Ding Hao! 1st Lt. W. Micklish 794th BS, Vladivostok Nov. 21, 1944 a back-up reference. 468th BG Ramp Tramp continued to fly for almost a decade, doing test work that included air-launching the near-su- The Soviet Union scrupulously upheld agreements with Japan by interning US air- craft and crews making emergency landings in Soviet territory. Crews were treated personic rocket-powered Samolet 346 roughly and secretly released, through Iran, in January 1945. test aircraft. Parts were scavenged from Cait Paomat II, the one Superfort that had the installation of Russian engines and In some areas—plastics, electron- crashed. cannon.) ics, navigation and equipment, General H. H. Arnold Special was This assignment seemed impossible and most particularly, the fire-control carefully broken down into separate for many reasons, not the least of which system—the complexity and sophistica- assemblies. These were further disas- was the fact that the Soviets used the tion of the B-29 seemed beyond Soviet sembled, with each of the thousands of metric system. attainment. pieces—metal, instruments, radios, wir- There were subtle differences be- Yet Stalin decreed an ironclad two- ing, motors, ducts, vents, Dzus fasteners, tween the national aerospace indus- year deadline for the program. With everything—measured, photographed, tries as well. The Soviet aluminum Stalin, the term “deadline” had a double weighed, and given a detailed written industry could not be converted to mill meaning, and he used Lavrenti Beria, description. All parts were analyzed to aluminum sheet to American dimen- the notorious chief of the Commissariat determine the material from which they sions. Each aluminum part had to be for Internal Affairs (NKVD), to back up were made. The products of modern analyzed for its strength requirements his orders with the customary Soviet American chemistry—plastic, synthetic to determine whether a slightly larger brutality. fabrics, lubricants—were especially (i.e., heavier) or smaller (i.e., lighter) challenging. piece of Soviet aluminum could be Scavenging the B-29s Draftsmen working around the clock used. Weight control was essential, and No one knew this better than Tu- created thousands of engineering draw- it is to the credit of Soviet engineers polev, who had been arrested in 1937 ings, each one including the key tran- that the Tu-4 was kept within one on absurd charges that he had sold sition from American measurement percent of its designed weight goal. the Messerschmitt Me 110 design to standards to the metric system. Dimensions were not the only prob- the Germans. He began working in a While Tupolev, a master politician, lem; materials also had to be reverse gulag-like aircraft bureau in Moscow dealt with the key government, party, engineered to determine their composi- in 1939 and was not released from tion, with suitable alterations then be- prisoner status until 1941 nor fully Artist’s rendering of the Tupolev Tu-4 ing made in what had previously been pardoned until 1955, two years after Bull No. 220504, as it appeared in the standard Russian techniques. Stalin’s death. late 1950s at Bagerovo AB, Ukraine. Photo from Aleksey Mikheyev collection Artwork copyright Zaur Eylanbekov

AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2009 55 Photo from Aleksey Mikheyev collection

and service officials, his team at the to aim and fire weapons remotely. The The Bull eventually served in a variety design bureau managed the “routine” CFCS was vital because the B-29 was of roles, including that of a tanker. Here, two MiG-15s approach a pair of of cloning a weapon system. Special pressurized, and large apertures for the Tu-4s, ready to take on fuel. teams were assigned responsibility for guns were out of the question. It was an each and every element removed from extremely complex system that called the B-29. for a host of intricate parts and switches The first Tu-4 rolled out on Feb. 28, Tupolev mustered his industry, calling unknown to Soviet industry. 1947, to the delight of the factory work- on scores of design bureaus, dozens of ers and to Tupelov’s profound relief. As research institutes, and hundreds of fac- Rolling Off the Line aircraft came off the production line, tories. Their task was to create duplicates Yet the Tupolev team pulled it off, they were entered into a 20- of the parts being removed from the B-29 and went on to substitute 23 mm cannon test program for the state acceptance and establish the manufacturing facilities for the American .50 caliber machine program. to produce them in quantity. guns. First flight for the Bull bomber took The Tupolev design bureau carefully By late summer 1946, a full-scale place on May 19. The effort must have monitored the quality of the products. mock-up of the Tu-4 was ready, and seemed worthwhile when the first three Some suppliers lobbied for their own Ramp Tramp was being used to gather Tu-4s flew at the August Moscow air products or manufacturing techniques, data and check out the flight crews who show, with Golovanov in one aircraft, but Tupolev demanded conformance would test the Tu-4. creating an international furor. to the Boeing sample. In addition to The first production facility at Plant The Soviets continued a testing role the risk of cascading effects from a No. 22 in Kazan was hurriedly outfitted for the Tu-4s, most notably using the change, Tupolev realized that Beria with the necessary templates, machine Bull for the first airdrop of a Soviet might perceive some change, however tools, jigs, and other equipment neces- atomic bomb on Oct. 18, 1951. innocuous, as being treason. sary for mass manufacture. Thousands The Tu-4 eventually served in many It was Tupolev’s good fortune that of workers had to be taught new skills, roles—anti-shipping, tanker, reconnais- there was a suitable substitute for the and everyone worked 12 to 14 hours a sance, launcher, drone carrier, B-29’s Wright R-3350 engine avail- day, seven days a week. Later, additional and engine test bed—before retirement. able, the Shvetsov ASh-73TK. The production came from Plant 18 in Kuiby- But its most important contribution Soviet aircraft engine industry had shev and Plant 23 in Moscow. by far was spring-boarding the Soviet licensed Wright products for years, Not content with duplicating the Union to a leading role in developing building many adaptations of them. The B-29, Tupolev also began the design air and space power. ASh-73TK offered 2,300 horsepower and construction of a passenger ver- The crews of the four B-29s that made and, while ultimately reliable, suffered sion, the Tu-70, which flew on Nov. their way to Vladivostok had no idea some of the same teething problems 27, 1946—six months before the Bull how much of an effect their distressed encountered by the R-3350—including bomber itself. aircraft would ultimately have. n induction system fires. In many ways, the biggest challenge Walter J. Boyne, former director of the National Air and Space Museum in Wash- of the B-29-to-Bull process was in its ington, D.C., is a retired Air Force colonel and author. He has written more than electronic systems, particularly the 600 articles about aviation topics and 40 books, the most recent of which is Hyper- central fire-control system (CFCS) that sonic Thunder. His most recent articles for Air Force Magazine, “Ring of Remem- used General Electric analog computers brance” and “They Wanted Wings,” appeared in the February issue. 56 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2009