X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Boeing B-29 Superfortress


Edward A. Gisburne

The older son, Edward Jr., fought in the Pacific theater with the 40th Bombardment Group and earned the Air Medal for his actions in aerial combat with the Japanese; he was killed in action at age 29 on May 26, 1945, when his B-29 Superfortress went down.

Sandia Base

The aircraft used for these practice missions were Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers similar to the ones that flew the first atomic missions over Japan in 1945.


1503d Air Transport Group

At the time the runway was unusable due to heavy bombardment during 1944 and 1945 by the USAAF XXI Bomber Command B-29 Superfortress bombers which heavily damaged the Tachikawa Aircraft manufacturing facilities, of which the airfield was a part of prior to the occupation.

305th Air Mobility Wing

McNamara further proposed that a SAC variant of the new F-111, to be designated FB-111A, along with improvements in the Air Force Minuteman and Navy Polaris missile systems and modernization of the subsonic Boeing B-52, would enhance strategic deterrence and make the B-58 superfluous to the needs of the USAF.

312th Aeronautical Systems Group

The 312th trained in the reserve from, 1947, being redesignated as the 312th Bombardment Group (Very Heavy), and equipped with B-29 Superfortresses.

318th Fighter Group

At the completion of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign the 72nd FS was transferred to the newly activated 21st Fighter Group to prepare for the job of escorting the Boeing B-29 Superfortresses over Japan.

427th Air Refueling Squadron

The unit re-equipped with Boeing KB-50 Superfortresses in 1959, which provided greater speed to refuel jet aircraft.

429th Air Refueling Squadron

The 429th was re-equipped with Boeing KB-50 Superfortresses in 1958.

44th Bombardment Squadron

There the unit transitioned onto Boeing B-17E Flying Fortresses and, following familiarization with the much larger and complex aircraft, were almost immediately tasked with antisubmarine patrols duties between Guatemala City and the Galapagos Islands, the third-longest patrol route ever assigned any unit of the Air Corps to that time.

49th Air Division

Beginning in 1947, the 49th served in the Reserve for two years as a B-29 Superfortress organization, during which time it was redesignated as an Air Division and controlled the 100th Bomb Group (later Wing) at Miami AAF and the 380th Bomb Group (later Wing) at MacDill AFB in Florida

Boeing B-50 Superfortress

The B-50 was nicknamed "Andy Gump" because the redesigned engine nacelles reminded aircrew of the chinless newspaper comic character popular at the time.

Boeing C-108 Flying Fortress

The XC-108A was used to fly material and personnel over the Himalayas to the B-29 base in Chengdu, China.

Boeing KB-29 Superfortress

The refuelling systems were developed and installed by Flight Refuelling Ltd, at Tarrant Rushton in the United Kingdom.

The KB-29P was operated by 420 Air Refueling Squadron based at RAF Sculthorpe Norfolk during the mid-1950s.

Bolo Airfield

It was allocated to Eighth Air Force in July 1945 to station B-29 Superfortress bombers to fly strategic bombing missions in the planned Invasion of Japan.

Bombing of Yokkaichi in World War II

A total of 89 B-29 Superfortress bombers of the United States Army Air Force’s 313rd Bombardment Wing targeted the center of the city with a major firebombing attack rather than its military and industrial zones on the outskirts.

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

The time in which this adaption is set is somewhere between the late 1940s and the early 1950s, but unclear and slightly inconsistent: a US B-17 (which left the UK soon after the war and was out of US service by 1949) overflies the village, yet US airmen wear the blue USAF uniform introduced in 1949, and there is also a 1951 Festival of Britain poster in the village shop.

CFB Shearwater

Beginning in the 1970s, CFB Shearwater began hosting an Armed Forces Day every fall, typically on the weekend following Labour Day, and included an air show where the long and wide runways at Shearwater hosted some of the largest aircraft in the world, including the U.S. Air Force's C-5 Galaxy transport planes and B-52 Stratofortress bombers.

Charles Donald Albury

On August 9, 1945, just three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, Sweeney's crew, with Albury as co-pilot, took off in the B-29 Superfortress, nicknamed the Bockscar, which would drop the atomic bomb known as the "Fat Man" on the city of Nagasaki.

Ekkehard Tichy

Ekkehard Tichy was killed on 16 August 1944 after ramming a B-17 with his Fw 190 over Hannoversch Münden, Germany.

Homer Bigart

On one such mission to Wilhelmshaven in March 1943, the B-17 bomber formation in which he and reporters Walter Cronkite and Gladwyn Hill were flying suffered heavy losses to enemy fighters.

Hurel-Dubois HD.31

None were actually built for Air France or Aigle Azer but the IGN continued to be interested in an aerial photography variant to replace the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress the company was then using.

John Everingham

During the Vietnam War he received acclaim from the mainstream media, and disdain from the American military, for his reporting on the effects of B-52 dumping runs on their way back to bases in Udon Thani, Thailand — when bombers didn't drop all their payload over Hanoi, they dumped their bombs in Laos to cut the risk of accidents on landing, which led to innocent rural Lao and Hmong being killed.

Laos Site 85

The central then automatically transmitted guidance commands to the aircraft (lead aircraft for multi-ship formations, e.g., 3 Boeing B-52 Stratofortresses) to adjust the bomb run toward an eventual release point for the actual bomb(s).

Lavochkin La-200

The major driver for the three competing aircraft, was the development of the "Toriy" - Thorium centimetre waveband NII-17 RADAR at NIIP - Naoochno-Issledovatel'skiy Institut Priborostroyeniya (Research Institute of Instrument Engineering), which was capable of detecting a B-29 Superfortress bomber at a range of 12 miles.

Niigata, Niigata

Poor weather conditions and its distance from B-29 bases in the Mariana Islands meant that it was removed from the list of targets during deliberations; Nagasaki was bombed instead.

Philip J. Crowley

His father, William C. Crowley, was a vice president for public relations with the Boston Red Sox, and a former U.S. Army Air Forces B-17 pilot, who spent two years as a POW in a German POW camp.

RAF Cluntoe

No. 4 Combat Crew Replacement Center was opened during November 1943 which trained Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress crews with additional Consolidated B-24 Liberators being added during February 1944.

Robert M. Polich, Sr.

Lt. Polich and his crew flew many missions in their B-17 Flying Fortress based at the RAF Chelveston being assigned to the 8th Air Force, 365th Bombardment Squadron, 305th Air Mobility Wing - then called the 305th Bomb Group (Heavy).

Schilling Air Force Base

The 58th Bombardment Wing was moved to Smoky Hill AAF on 15 September 1943 from Marietta, Georgia and the mission at the airfield changed from heavy bomber training, to organizing and getting into combat the new B-29 Superfortress.

Stillwater Regional Airport

One of the aircraft processed through Stillwater - and eventually purchased by Mantz - was B-17 41-24577 "Hells Angels," which was the first B-17 to complete 25 missions (even before the Memphis Belle).

Thomas Patrick Gerrity

In November 1942 Gerrity was assigned to the Army Air Forces Materiel Command at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, as project officer on B-25, B-26, B-29, B-32, YB-35 and B-36 bombardment aircraft.

United States aerial reconnaissance of the Soviet Union

In 1952 a modified B-47B bomber made the first deep-penetration U.S. overflight of Soviet territory to photograph Soviet bombers in Siberia.

Yielden

Later in 1942, following the entry of the United States into the war, it eventually became the home of the United States Army Air Forces 305th Bombardment Group (Heavy), which had four squadrons of Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses pioneering the daylight formation and bombing procedures of the time.


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