The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was never just a heavy bomber. It was an American air power symbol during World War II, and its legacy today reaches far beyond the history of aviation. With its massive size, advanced technology, and war-ending capability, the plane made a permanent mark on the history of flight like no other. In addition to the familiar headlines, the B-29 also brought with it a sequence of strange facts, surprising applications, and intriguing firsts that demonstrate just how remarkable it actually was.
When its World War II service came to an end, the B-29 didn’t just disappear into the sunset; it retired. It continued to be an integral part of early Cold War science, participating in nuclear testing sites such as Bikini Atoll, where it dropped test atomic bombs. Others were actually converted to flying laboratories, flying into storms to collect weather information or harnessing the energy of nuclear explosions. Its versatility demonstrated that the Superfortress was more than a bomber—it was an airplane capable of staying current.
Life on such a long-range plane also included strange innovations. There was the exotic indulgence of a pressurized toilet, foreign to the bomber crews of the 1940s. Engineers even included a small periscope so the crew can peer out when it is in use. It is a small thing, perhaps, but to people spending hours upon hours on the Pacific, comfort was almost as precious as firepower.
Naturally, the B-29’s most notorious missions were over Japanese skies. While everyone remembers it for the atomic bombs, the plane also spearheaded the blazing destruction campaign. On March 9, 1945, hundreds of B-29s dropped incendiaries on Tokyo and created a firestorm that devastated large portions of the city and killed tens of thousands. It was a spectacular demonstration of the bomber’s destructive power and the tactic of overpowering force using massed air bombing.
The advanced technology of the plane was so impressive that it was not lost on other powers. During 1944, several dozen B-29s were flown into the Soviet Union to land after missions over Japan. Rather than dismantling them, Soviet designers gradually reverse-engineered the planes, creating the Tupolev Tu-4, a near duplicate of the American bomber. That production tipped the balance of power at the beginning of the Cold War, illustrating just how coveted and valuable the B-29 design actually was. Operationally, aircrew soon learned that height was one of its strongest suits.
Capable of flying almost 10 kilometers to the ground as it did, the bomber operated far beyond the range of most Japanese planes early in the war. But strategy changed as the war wore on. High-altitude runs ultimately gave way to low-level night-time incendiary raids as commanders traded altitude advantage for blunt force of destruction. This reversal attests as much to the adaptability of the B-29 as to the changing nature of air warfare itself. The most unblackening fact concerning the Superfortress is that it is the only airplane ever to have used nuclear weapons in combat.
The Enola Gay had dropped the bomb that leveled Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and three days later, Bockscar dropped another on Nagasaki. Both operations were conducted by specially modified B-29s that had some defenses stripped in order to be able to deliver the mammoth bombs. Not only did those events bring the war to an end, but they also paved the way to the nuclear age, changing history forever with the B-29 as the means.
The significance of the bomber was echoed in its mammoth price tag. The development of the B-29 program was the costliest military project of World War II, even more so than the Manhattan Project, at about $3 billion. New plants were built, with tens of thousands of workers to maintain production. With its price came radical innovations like automatic weapons and pressurized cockpits, standards for what an aircraft could accomplish that had never been seen before.
With all its might, the Superfortress was not perfect. Its gigantic Wright R-3350 engines produced stunning range and lift, but were also hellishly finicky. Heat buildup was standard operating procedure, and occasionally engines even blew in mid-air, more often than not at takeoff. Crew and maintenance crews became used to living with the risk, but it was a war-long issue, a reminder that there were expensive prices paid for progress. What was technologically distinct about the B-29 was the way it utilized one of the first analog computer systems to be employed in aviation.
Its remotely controlled turrets were operated by electromechanical equipment that automatically accounted for range and ballistics. Gunners no longer relied solely on instinct; the system gave them a significant edge over enemy combatants. It was, to a large extent, a precursor to what lay ahead, whereby automation was rapidly becoming ascendant in displacing human reflex.
Lastly, the B-29 transformed crew existence with its pressurized cabins. Aircrew personnel were able to fly for the first time without risk at altitudes that previously had demanded oxygen masks and cumbersome equipment. The problem was with the bomb bay, which could not be sealed. This was repaired by inserting a short crawl tube hanging over the bay, through which crewmen crawled to get from front to rear if necessary.
It was a humble but wonderful solution, one that encapsulated the utilitarian ingenuity that characterized the entire plane. The B-29 Superfortress was never merely another airplane. It was an advance in design, a weapon of unimagined killing power, and a launching pad from which all future bombers and scientific planes were to fly. Its tale is one of promise, creativity, and enduring impact—one that demonstrates that some machines do indeed make history.