AIR UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Endgame in the Pacific

Complexity, Strategy, and the B-29

G. SCOTT GORMAN

Major, USAF

Fairchild Paper

Air University Press

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112–6615

February 2000
Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the

author, and do not necessarily represent the views of Air University, the United States Air Force,

the Department of Defense, or any other US government agency. Cleared for public release:

distribution unlimited.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gorman, G. Scott, 1963–

Endgame in the Pacific / G. Scott Gorman.

 p. cm.

“Fairchild paper.”

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-58566-075-2

 1. World War, 1939–1945—Technology. 2. World War,

1939–1945—Campaigns—Pacific Area. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Campaigns—Japan. 4. World War, 1939-1945—Aerial operations, American. 5. B-29

bomber. I. Title

D810.S2 G57 1999

940.54’26—dc21 99-058172

ii
Contents

Chapter Page

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

 1 COMPLEXITY AND TECHNOLOGY IN WAR . . . 1

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

 2 ENDGAME AGAINST JAPAN:

THE STRATEGIC PROBLEM . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

 3 DOCTRINAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL

DEVELOPMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

 4 APPLYING A TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTION . . . . 21

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

 5 UNCERTAINTY AND UNINTENDED

CONSEQUENCES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

 6 TECHNOLOGICAL AND OPERATIONAL

ADAPTATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

APPENDIX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

iii
Photographs

A Hurricane-Hunting Superfortress . . . . . . . . . . . 5

A High-Flying Superfortress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

A Superfortress Over Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

iv
Foreword

Endgame in the Pacific: Complexity, Strategy, and the B-29,

by Maj G. Scott Gorman, inaugurates an Air University Press

series of substantive essays considered too short for publication

as monographs but too lengthy to be journal articles.

The series is named for Gen Muir S. Fairchild, first commander of Air University and widely regarded as its concep -

tual father. Although he held no college degree, General

Fairchild was a respected leader who was part visionary, part

keen taskmaster, and “Air Force to the core.” By the time the

first classes were meeting at Maxwell Air Force Base, he had

succeeded in defining the role of the professional Air Force

officer and in blending that role into the curriculum of the

first Air University schools.

General Fairchild’s legacy is one of optimistic confidence

about the future of the Air Force and the central role Air

University would play in its development. This series is only

one component of that legacy and its prophetic quality.

Endgame in the Pacific examines the challenges encountered

by XX and XXI Bomber Commands in employing the B-29

against Japan, first from India and China, later from the Marianas. In turn, it examines the adaptations required to meet

those challenges. Air University Press is pleased to present

Major Gorman’s essay as the first of the Fairchild Papers.

ROBERT B. LANE

Director

Air University Press

v
Maj G. Scott Gorman, born on 19 November 1963, is a

native of Wadsworth, Ohio. Following graduation from the

United States Air Force Academy in 1986, he earned the Master of Arts degree in Russian history from Indiana University.

Major Gorman is a senior pilot with instructor time in the T-3,

the T-37, and the C-5. He has also taught Russian history,

world history, and military history at the United States Air

Force Academy. Major Gorman is a graduate of US Air Force

Squadron Officer School (outstanding graduate), US Army

Command and General Staff College (1998), and US Army

School of Advanced Military Studies (1999), where this paper

was originally developed. He was recently selected as a candidate for a senior service school. Major Gorman is currently

stationed at the American Embassy in Moscow, Russia, where

he is chief of the US Security Assistance Office. He is married

to the former Sarah E. Cummings and is the proud father of

three children.

About the

Author

G. Scott Gorman

vii
Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the entire faculty and staff of the

Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Special thanks to Dr. Jake Kipp for his wit,

wisdom, and constant encouragement.

ix
Abstract

In war, competing systems introduce new technological

means to gain advantage. Greater technological complexity,

however, creates greater uncertainty—due not only to technical problems but also to unintended consequences when new

technology is applied within the chaotic environment of war.

In the last years of the war against Japan in the Pacific,

Boeing’s B-29 was the technological solution to attacking Japan across long distances. Application, however, was not as

simple as planners had hoped. Uncertainties and unintended

consequences accompanied the B-29’s employment.

xi
Introduction

War is an outward expression of competition between complex but adaptive political and military systems. These

systems are complex not only because they contain a great

number of parts but also because the parts are intricately

related to the system and to the external environment. War, as

a result of this inherent complexity, is uncertain and chaotic.

This uncertainty arises from the characteristic of nonlinearity

in war. Like the proverbial flapping of a butterfly’s wings that

results in a thunderstorm, small changes to initial conditions

in war can have disproportionate effects. The living and adaptive nature of opponents is another source of uncertainty in

war. War, in sum, is not clockwork; it is an organic interaction

between competing complex and adaptive systems.

Strategy is a plan of action for negotiating complexity and

uncertainty to achieve a specific goal. Strategy provides unifying

direction—a common purpose for actions within the system.

Strategy maps out the employment of means to achieve desired objectives. Unlike mathematical or mechanical solutions,

military strategy is aimed at a moving target—an intelligent

and adapting opponent. Strategy, given the uncertain and

changing nature of war, must similarly be flexible and adaptive to achieve desired end-states.

Theater military strategy employs various tools and methods to achieve those desired ends. Technology, which fashions

the implements of war through the scientific method, is one

tool available to the military strategist. In war, competing systems introduce new technology in an attempt to gain

comparative advantage over other systems and the environment. Just as with other inputs within a system, the impacts

of technological change are difficult to predict, often resulting

in nonlinear effects and unintended consequences. Thanks to

the profoundly interactive nature of war, technological tools

that were intended to simplify and solve complex problems

may in fact foster additional complexity.

In its competition with the Japanese system in the Pacific

theater in 1944, the American military system faced the complex strategic problem of ending the war unconditionally while

xiii
minimizing American casualties. The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was the US Army Air Force’s technological solution to

this complex strategic problem. The B-29’s pressurized cock -

pit, longer range, more accurate bombing systems, and

mechanically controlled defensive systems represented a vast

improvement over earlier strategic bombardment technology.

Rather than simplifying the problem, however, the B-29 with

its uncertainties and unintended consequences (and the intricacies of the relationships surrounding the new technology)

further “complexified” it. Employment of the B-29 spawned

technological difficulties, awareness of doctrinal failings, personal and interservice rivalries, and Japanese responses—and

these consequences created the need for further systems adapta tion. The B-29 was not the quick and easy solution

promulgated by the Army Air Forces. Only after numerous

adaptations at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels—

and the marriage of the B-29 with another technological tool,

the atom bomb—did the United States achieve its desired

strategic end-state.

Future military strategy and the application of technological

tools within that strategy should be organic and adaptive, not

mechanistic. Strategy should consider both the adaptive nature of the enemy system and the uncertainty of strategic

inputs in the chaotic environment of war. Future American

military strategists pondering the effects of emerging technology would do well to recall the experience of the B-29 in the

Pacific theater during World War II.

This paper first discusses the theoretical aspects of technology in warfare viewed through the lens of complexity theory. It

then details the complexity of the strategic problem facing the

United States in the war against Japan. Focusing on the role

of airpower, the paper presents the strategic bombardment of

Japan using B-29s based on the Mariana Islands as a case

study in the application of technology to achieve strategic

ends. It examines both unforeseen difficulties and the adaptations that were necessary to “make it work.” The conclusion

offers advice—and caution—for future strategists looking to

simplify the complexities of war with linear and mechanical

solutions.

xiv
Chapter 1

Complexity and Technology in War

Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is

difficult.

—Carl von Clausewitz

Uncertainty is an unavoidable aspect of warfare. War, due

to its complex and nonlinear nature, is an inherently unpredictable venture. German military theorist Carl von Clausewitz

aptly noted the inherent uncertainty of war.1 For Clausewitz,

war was a “true chameleon,” ever changing due to the elements of chance, friction, and the dynamic relationship between politics and military operations. 2

 Only in Clausewitz’s

“absolute war,” a theoretical war devoid of context and in

essence absent the nonlinear relationships of the real world,

could the outcome of war be predicted with any certainty. 3

Real war is not so simple. Dynamic interactions within the

complex process of war do not lend themselves to this unrealistic theoretical abstraction. “[An] attribute of military action

is that it must expect positive reactions, and the process of

interaction that results [from the action taken]. . . . The very

nature of interaction is bound to make [war] unpredictable.”4

Greater technological complexity creates greater uncertainty. Innovations in military technology produce quicker,

deadlier, and more destructive ways of interacting within the

military environment. As a military tool, technology cannot be

mechanistically applied within military strategy. The certainty

of a machine in an insulated experimental environment does

not guarantee certainty in the chaotic environment of war.5

Although a technological instrument may theoretically represent a closed system intended to perform like clockwork, the

environment of war in which it is utilized is an open system

subject to imponderable unforeseen inputs having nonlinear

effects. This “Machiavellian” desire to rationalize warfare is in

part a reflection of the faulty mechanistic view inherited from

Newton and passed down through modern military theorists. 6

1
Airpower planners, given the technical nature of aircraft

and munitions, are particularly susceptible to mechanistic approaches to warfare. Entranced by the technical nature of

their tools, airpower strategists tend to view airpower planning

as an engineering science, a mere mechanical analysis of

weapons and targets.7 Despite the technical nature of the air

instrument, uncertainty is just as important in applying airpower as in applying other military instruments. Gen Haywood S. Hansell Jr. noted the role of uncertainty in the conception of Air War Plans Division-1 (AWPD-1): “In any

measurement system involving probabilities, one never

reaches certainty. The more bombs you drop, the greater becomes the likelihood of getting a hit, but you never reach

absolute certainty.”8 Misled by scientific paradigms and their

doctrinal heritage, airmen frequently overlook the inevitable

uncertainties entailed in the complexities of war. 9

Increased uncertainty demands technological and operational

adaptation to achieve desired military objectives. Systems adaptation is the constant revising and rearranging of the building

blocks of a system to provide advantage over its environment.1 0 Adaptation may involve either a change in the technology itself or a change in the way the technology is applied.

Adaptation is more than just passive defense and survival of

the system; it is a proactive measure to meet change head-on.

Adaptation requires both learning and anticipation. Learning is the gaining of knowledge from the past; anticipation is

presumed knowledge of the future. To adapt effectively, a system must recognize both past failures and present opportunities. It must then forecast future conditions to anticipate the

adaptations that will be most effective within this new environment. Successful system adaptation requires knowledge of

the past and present combined with cognitive anticipation of

the future. Military adaptation requires learning about the

operational environment, anticipating future changes in that

environment, and acting to effect the necessary adaptation.

What is important to note is that human interaction is required. Although machines of the future may change themselves to account for environmental conditions, machines of

the past and present do not. Human innovation and ingenuity

FAIRCHILD PAPER

2
are the wellsprings of adaptation. Success in war requires not

only the mechanical application of technological “rules” but

also the creative ability to come up with alternative solutions

in the face of uncertainty and environmental change. Innova -

tion is the key to success. In war, and especially in the application of technology to war, thinking is required.

Military systems improve their chances of success by in -

creasing their ability to adapt in a dynamically complex environment. Those that adapt in the face of dynamic complexity

survive and prosper; those that fail to adapt do not thrive,

often suffering the catastrophic consequences of systemic breakdown. Military failure is essentially the failure to cope with

complexity. 1 1 Eliot Cohen and John Gooch , in Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of Failure in War, stress that military

failures are not individual failures, but systemic failures. Misfortune in war is not usually the failure of individuals to act;

rather, it is the failure of the system to adequately function

within its environment. 1 2

Anticipation is particularly difficult because actions within

war are aimed at a similarly thinking and adapting enemy.

Like other living systems, the military system must contend

with an opposing system that is also adaptive and is, in the

creative dance of coevolution, seeking to gain an advantage

over its opponent.1 3 Successful adaptation requires not only

efficacy but also speed. A military system has to functionally

adapt to its dynamic surroundings, and do it quicker than its

adversary. Military operations are not aimed at static, unchanging adversaries; they are aimed at dynamic, thinking, similarly

adapting systems that have hostile intentions. 1 4 Competition

motivates adaptation as systems seek to gain advantage over

other systems in their environment in what pre-World War II

planners identified as the “inevitable interplay of challenge

and response.”1 5

This systemic coevolution is clearly evident in the application of technology to warfare. The introduction of new technology often instigates a counterresponse from the enemy that

negates the intended effects of the new technology. The technical devices of war will be opposed whenever possible by

other devices specifically designed against them. Often, the

GORMAN

3
very success of new technology spawns those factors that

result in its eventual downfall. In a cycle of “action – reaction,”

enemy forces focus efforts on countermeasures to neutralize

whatever devices are most threatening to their existence.

Thus, to be continually successful, technology must continu -

ally adapt to changing circumstances.1 6 Failures of technology

in war are frequently due to failures in adapting to dynamic

and complex environments.

Military strategists must recognize the complex and dynamic

nature of war. Having identified the desired end-states, military strategists should then allow for uncertainty and adaptation in applying the means to achieve these desired ends.

End- states are inextricably linked to the means used to pursue them; one cannot be isolated from the other. Clausewitz

a ffirmed the coevolutionary relationship between ends and

means:

But in war, as in life generally, all parts of the whole are

interconnected and thus the effects produced, however small their

cause, must influence all subsequent military operations and modify

their final outcome to some degree, however slight. In the same way,

every means must influence even the ultimate purpose. 1 7

In prescribing the employment of technological means, strategists should recognize not only the complex and uncertain

nature of warfare; they should also consider the potential im -

pacts of those means upon planned outcomes. 1 8 Strategists

should plan for adaptation to meet the inevitable uncertainties

of war.

Having laid a theoretical foundation, we will now present

the experience of the B-29 in the Pacific against Japan. The

B-29 story will serve as a case study in the application of new

military technology. It details the complexity of the strategic

problem facing the United States in the war against Japan

from late 1944 until the summer of 1945, and it examines the

role of the B-29 in solving this problem. In analyzing the B-29

story, this essay asks the following questions:

Did uncertainties and unanticipated consequences accompany the introduction of this emerging technology?

Did these uncertainties further “complexify” the strategic

problem?

FAIRCHILD PAPER

4
What manner of adaptations (technological, operational,

strategic) were required by the introduction of this increased

complexity?

To achieve desired ends, adaptive action must outpace the

complex of problems generated by the introduction of new

military means. In the war against Japan, US adaptations

outpaced the added complexities generated by the introduction of the B-29 in the Pacific.

Notes

1. Alan Beyerchen, “Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Unpredictability of

War,” International Security 17, No. 3 (Winter 1992/93): 59–90. Beyerchen

writes that Carl von Clausewitz understood that “seeking exact analytical

solutions does not fit the nonlinear reality of the problems posed by war,

and hence our ability to predict the course and outcome of any given

conflict is severely limited.”

(US Air Force photo)

A Hurricane-Hunting Superfortress. This B-29, serving as a “Hurricane

Hunter,” is taking off on the first leg of a 14-hour mission.

GORMAN

5
2. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds.

(Princeton: Princeton University Press), 1984, 158. Clausewitz clearly

identified the nonlinear nature of war and the complex nature of

interactions in war. “But in war, as in life generally, all parts of the whole

are interconnected and thus the effects produced, however small their

cause, must influence all subsequent military operations and modify their

final outcome to some degree, however slight. In the same way, every means

must influence even the ultimate purpose.”

3. Beyerchen, 172.

4. Clausewitz, 139.

5. Ibid., 167. “In war . . . all action is aimed at probable rather than at

certain success.”

6. John F. Schmitt, “Command and (Out of) Control: The Military

Implications of Complexity Theory,” Marine Corps Gazette (September

1998), 55–56. Since the enlightenment of the eighteenth century, Western

theory has centered on scientific interpretations of the world. Specifically,

Newtonian physics has shaped Western understanding of cause and effect.

Taken from the world of physical mechanics and applied across the

academic and social disciplines from psychology to government, Newtonian

models speak mechanistically of “the clockwork universe,” describing

efficient social systems as “well-oiled machines.” Military theory is not

exempt. Thanks in large part to the nineteenth century fathers of modern

military thought, Carl von Clausewitz and Antoine de Jomini, modern

military theory also rests upon physical concepts borrowed from the

Newtonian paradigm: friction, centers of gravity, geometric points and lines,

and mechanical synchronization of military operations. The Newtonian

paradigm dominates modern military theory.

7. Barry D. Watts, The Foundation of U.S. Air Doctrine: The Problem of

Friction in War (Maxwell Air Force Base [AFB], Ala.: Air University Press,

1984), 22–23.

8. Haywood S. Hansell Jr., The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler (Atlanta,

Ga.: Longino & Porter, Inc., 1972), 10.

9. Watts, 43–58. Watts points out the tendency of American airmen to

ignore “the complex amalgam that Clausewitz called ‘friction in war’.”

10. Mitchell M. Waldrop, Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge

of Order and Chaos (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 146.

11. Watts, 47. “The sine qua non of a successful military organization is

the capacity to adapt to changing conditions better than the enemy, the

implication being that sound theory can do much to facilitate such

adaptation.”

12. Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch, Military Misfortunes: The Anatomy of

Failure in War (New York: Free Press, 1990), 94. Cohen and Gooch identify

three reasons for military failure: failure to learn, failure to anticipate, and

failure to adapt. Of these three elements, they identify adaptation as the

most important capability for a military organization. “Indeed, the ability to

adapt is probably most useful to any military organization and most

FAIRCHILD PAPER

6
characteristic of successful ones, for with it, it is possible to overcome both

learning and predictive failures.”

13. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Ralph D. Sawyer (Boulder: Westview

Press, 1994), 193. The ancient Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu recognized

the significance of coevolution in military systems when he wrote of the

importance of shaping oneself in accordance with the enemy. “Water

configures its flow in accord with the terrain; the army controls its victory in

accord with the enemy. One who is able to change and transform in accord

with the enemy and wrest victory is termed spiritual.”

14. Clausewitz, 77, 149. “War is always the collision of two living forces.”

In declaring war as neither science nor art, Clausewitz writes, “The

essential difference is that war is not an exercise of the will directed at

inanimate matter, as is the case with the mechanical arts, or at matter

which is animate but passive and yielding, as is the case with the human

mind and emotions in the fine arts. In war, the will is directed at an

animate object that reacts.”

15. Hansell, 49. “A highly resourceful enemy such as the Germans

found it possible to design effective countermoves. Key areas, for example,

could be skillfully defended, dummy factories could be built, camouflage

and smoke screens used, air to air defenses strengthened, repair methods

improved and refined, and very vital points hardened by putting them

underground. During the planning phase, we sensed this inevitable

interplay of challenge and response and, as later events proved, we

somewhat overestimated our challenge and underestimated their response.”

16. Edward N. Luttwak, Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), 27–28.

17. Clausewitz, 158.

18. Ibid., 92. “The original political objectives can greatly alter during

the course of the war and may finally change entirely since they are

influenced by events and their probable consequences.”

GORMAN

7
Chapter 2

Endgame against Japan:

The Strategic Problem

AWPD-1, the first plan for the use of American airpower in

World War II, was drawn up in 1941 at the behest of President

Franklin D. Roosevelt and Gen George C. Marshall. Focused

primarily on the air campaign against Germany, AWPD-1 provided little detail concerning any future offensive air war

against Japan. 1 The United States would contemplate a strategic offensive against Japan only after victory in Europe was

assured. Until then, the burden of defending the western

hemisphere against Japanese aggression fell almost entirely

on the US Navy. Gen Haywood S. Hansell noted that, prior to

the attack on Pearl Harbor, “The American people simply

could not believe that Japan would challenge the United

States in open warfare.”2 With the attack on Pearl Harbor, the

Japanese invalidated Army and Navy prewar planning a ssumptions in one swift blow.

As an island nation, wartime Japan depended upon main -

taining her newly won “Co-Prosperity Sphere” in the Pacific

region for economic support. Hoping to knock out the American threat to her interests in the Pacific by a preemptive strike

in 1941, Japan soon found herself fighting a total war to

ensure her survival rather than a limited war to maintain

economic resources. By 1943, Japan was on the defensive

throughout the Pacific theater; only in China did Japan tenu -

ously maintain an upper hand over her adversary. The “characteristically American” war aim of unconditional surrender

declared at Casablanca in January 1943 left little room for

military or diplomatic maneuver. Only by forceful occupation

of the home island or defeat of Japanese decision makers’ will

could the war be ended. Adding to the strategic dilemma, US

war planners felt that Americans were not patient enough to

withstand a long war against Japan. Therefore, despite the

“Europe first” global strategy, theater strategy in the Pacific

9
required continuous pressure against the Japanese to main -

tain the initiative and win an early surrender.3

Theater geography added to the difficulties facing the strategic planners. The territories occupied by Japan fanned across

an enormous geographical area, with landmass accounting for

only a small percentage of that area. Ocean dominated the 64

million square miles between Hawaii, Australia, the Philip -

pines, and Japan. Unconditional defeat of the Japanese would

require crossing that ocean, either by hopping across the

chain of islands in the southwest Pacific toward the Philip -

pines and China or by directly crossing the vast expanse of

central Pacific ocean toward Japan proper. Initial defense of

the Pacific, and the eventual counteroffensive, required the

coordinated effort of all three instruments of military power:

Navy, Army, and Army Air Corps (renamed Army Air Forces on

19 January 1942). Victory in the Pacific would necessarily be

a joint effort. Despite organizational parochialism, which advocated plans focused upon a single service, each instrument

faced limitations in the Pacific that could only be overcome by

cooperating with the other services.

The US Army in the Pacific under Douglas MacArthur preferred the island route originating from the southwest Pacific.

The US Navy under Chester Nimitz saw the Pacific war as a

blue-water naval war that demanded direct action across the

broad expanse of the central Pacific. In a somewhat ironic

twist, the Army Air Force , which coveted bases within striking

distance of Japan, supported the Navy’s plan for a more direct

approach toward Japan.4 The actual plan, arrived at in the

summer of 1943 by the Combined Chiefs, was a somewhat

diluted compromise between the services. It embraced a “twin

axis” strategy that would allow the Army and the Navy to

pursue their own separate plans in contributing to the overall

defeat of Japan. The power of personalities and the persistence of service rivalries led the United States to spend tremendous resources in fighting this two-pronged strategy in the

Pacific. 5

Strategic airpower proponents saw differences of opinion

between the Army and the Navy as an opportunity to prove

the validity of their argument for autonomy of the air arm. The

FAIRCHILD PAPER

10
distances involved suggested that the air component might

hold a unique advantage over both the Army and the Navy in

prosecuting the war. Yet, given the limitations of aircraft range

and endurance, even zealots for independence of the air forces

were forced to admit the necessity of cooperating with the

other services to provide and protect bases for aircraft operating against Japan. Unlike air operations in Europe, where

Allied bombers were already within striking distance of Germany, strategic bombing in the Pacific would not be tenable

until Allied forces advanced to occupy territory within range of

mainland Japan.

In the minds of Army Air Force planners, the Army and the

Navy would conquer the geography required to enable independent air operations—and the emerging technology of the

Boeing B-29 Superfortress would provide the range and coercion to bring an unconditional end to the war against Japan.

As early as October 1940, Gen Henry “Hap” Arnold foresaw

the B-29 as the one weapon that could “exert pressure against

Japan without long and costly preliminary operations.”6

A High-Flying Superfortress. Flying above the clouds, this B-29’s mission and

destination remain unknown. 

(US Air Force photo)

GORMAN

11
Notes

1. Haywood S. Hansell Jr., The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler (Atlanta,

Ga.: Longino & Porter, 1972), 42–46; Barry D. Watts, The Foundations of

U.S. Air Doctrine: The Problem of Friction in War (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air

University Press, 1984), 17–22. The strategic priority of the plan was the

war against Germany. The Army Air Force would support a strategic

defense in the Pacific and only after the defeat of Germany would there be

emphasis on an offensive strategic air war in the Pacific. Watts critiques the

mechanistic nature of AWPD-1.

2. Hansell, 34.

3. Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United

States Military Strategy and Policy (New York: MacMillan, 1973), 281.

4. Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with

Japan (New York: Free Press, 1985), 279.

5. J. C. Wylie Jr., “Reflections on the War in the Pacific,” United States

Naval Institute Proceedings 78, no. 4 (April 1952): 357–61.

6. Richard P. Hallion, “Prelude to Armageddon,” Air Power History 42,

no. 3 (Fall 1995): 42.

FAIRCHILD PAPER

12
Chapter 3

Doctrinal and Technological Development

Prewar United States Army Air Corps doctrine stressed the

ability of the air arm to independently provide decisive force

through strategic air bombardment. Doctrine for strategic

bombardment derived and professed by the Air Corps Tactical

School (ACTS) at Maxwell Field in Alabama was built around

four assumptions.1 The first of these assumptions, initially

espoused by Italian air theorist Giulio Douhet, was that the

bomber would always get through. Given the speed, range,

and altitude limitations of pursuit aircraft, this assumption

was well founded in the 1920s and early 1930s; however,

theorists failed to anticipate improved aircraft design and the

adaptive development of defensive measures, including radar,

that would make the bomber extremely vulnerable without

fighter escort. 2 Early British and German experience had dem -

onstrated the vulnerability of the bomber, but Americans ascribed those results not to bombing doctrine but to a lack of

sufficient defensive armament on the bombers. Well-armed

American “fortresses” and “superfortresses” could do better,

they thought. 3 In their second assumption, American planners

concluded that high-altitude bombardment held the best

chance for success in keeping the bombers clear of groundbased air defense systems and low-altitude fighters. The third

American doctrinal assumption was that bombers could accu -

rately deliver precision attacks against individually selected

targets. Air planners pointed to the existence of “critical

nodes” in enemy infrastructure that could be precisely targeted and destroyed, the result of which would be the collapse

of enemy systems. The will of the enemy population was not a

suitable direct target but would be secondarily affected by

destruction of the nation’s infrastructure. Finally, American

air planners determined that strategic bombardment during

daylight hours would be the most effective tactic in achieving

the required precision. Since enemy fighters were assumed to

pose no threat, daylight offered the best chance to find and

13
precisely strike discrete targets. From these four basic assumptions, the Air Corps Tactical School developed the doctrine of high-altitude daylight precision bombardment that

would guide the strategic use of American airpower until

1945. The independent nature of strategic bombardment doctrine would fuel the Army Air Corps’ informal drive for autonomy throughout the war.4

To effect the doctrine of daylight high-altitude precision

bombardment, American airmen needed bombers that could

“fit the bill.” In the 1920s and early 1930s, however, technological limitations had impeded bomber development. Only

with the improved features of closed cockpits, retractable

landing gear, and fully cowled engines, along with develop -

ments in metallurgy that allowed the construction of a light,

all-metal monoplane, did the possibilities of long-range bombardment become reality. 5

Using the rubric of coastal defense to justify their position,

bomber advocates from ACTS pushed for the development of

long-range bombers at the expense of pursuit aircraft. 6 The

Army Air Corps fielded the Martin B-10 in the summer of

1932. A significant improvement over previous bombers, the

B-10 featured an enclosed cockpit, a monoplane design, larger

wings, a power nose turret, and a remarkable speed of 207

miles per hour. 7

The real leap in bomber development, however, came with

the introduction of the Boeing B-17 in 1935, dubbed by its

manufacturer “an aerial battle cruiser, a veritable flying fortress.” With its unique silhouette, four big engines, impressive

defensive armaments, a range of over 2,000 miles, and an

average speed of 233 miles per hour, the B-17 Flying Fortress

became perhaps the most famous airplane in the history of

the Air Corps. 8 But even the improved performance characteristics of the B-17 (and other bombers, like the Consolidated

B-24 Liberator) were inadequate for the operational demands

of the Pacific theater. What was needed was a very long-range

(VLR) bomber —one that could exceed 3,000 miles in range

with a significantly larger payload than either the B-17 or the

B-24. By the end of 1941, the need for VLR bombers had

become especially important. The Soviet Union was nearing

FAIRCHILD PAPER

14
collapse, Britain’s demise was not out of the realm of possibility, and a broad expanse of ocean stood between US operating

bases and the Japanese mainland. 9

Meanwhile, in January 1940, the Army Air Corps had issued a design requirement to American aircraft manufacturers for a VLR bomber.1 0 Boeing responded with the B-29 Su -

perfortress; Convair’s entry, the B-32 Dominator, was cut

short almost at birth by technical difficulties and production

delays. 1 1

The B-29 was on the cutting edge of aircraft technology

when first flown in 1942.1 2 Twice as heavy as the B-17, the

B-29 could carry a crew of 11 men and a 20,000-pound bomb

load a distance of more than 3,000 miles—and it was 30

percent faster than the B-17. 1 3 But the advanced features of

the B-29, progenitor of both American and Soviet modern

bomber technology, taxed the limits of American aircraft in -

dustry. It was, in fact, so advanced that Boeing designers

themselves, fearing they were going too far into the technological unknown, were uncomfortable with the aircraft.1 4 The Air

Force’s program director, Gen Kenneth B. Wolfe , called the

bomber a “three-billion-dollar gamble.”1 5 Nevertheless, given

the demands of the strategic environment of World War II,

American planners and designers were willing to take the

gamble.

The most technologically advanced aspects of the Boeing

B-29 were its engines that provided the necessary range and

carrying power, the pressurization system that allowed it to

operate at high altitudes, the bombing systems that facilitated

precision bombardment, and the automated defensive system

that justified the name Superfortress. The 18-cylinder Wright

R-3350 engine, the largest engine available at the time, used

two superturbochargers to drive propellers 16.5 feet in diameter at 2,200 horsepower. 1 6 In the 1,200-mile flight from Saipan

to Tokyo, the giant engines would consume 6,000 gallons of

gas. 1 7 The engines facilitated the climb to the operational altitude of 30,000 feet and, combined with the huge Boeing “117”

wing, gave the B-29 a maximum range of nearly 6,000 miles.

One of the technological demands of high-altitude bombing

was the need for aircraft pressurization. Pressurization in the

GORMAN

15
B-29 provided a cabin altitude of 8,000 feet for the crew while

flying at an altitude of 30,000 feet. The B-29 had two pressurized sections fore and aft connected by a 40-foot tunnel large

enough for men to climb through. This tunnel was a solution

to the problem of maintaining pressurization while opening

the bomb bay doors. Although not the first combat aircraft to

incorporate pressurization (German and British air forces had

experimented with pressurized cockpits in combat aircraft),

the B-29 was more sophisticated and could pressurize larger

crew areas than any of the others.1 8

American strategic bombardment doctrine also required

precision delivery of munitions. To meet this requirement,

Boeing equipped the B-29 with the Norden bombsight and the

AN/ APQ-13 radar. Although primarily intended to aid in navigation, the B-29’s radar system could also be used for identification of ground targets (as radar systems on B-17s and B24s had demonstrated in Europe). This technique was

especially useful during periods of bad weather, when clouds

obscured the target and the sight-dependent Norden bombsight was ineffective. Later B-29s were fitted with the more

efficient AN/ APQ-7 Eagle targeting radar and the AN/APN-4/9

Loran navigation systems.

1 9

The remotely controlled defensive gunnery system put the

B-29 in a class all its own.2 0 This defensive system, designed

by General Electric, included ten .50-caliber machine guns

and one 20-millimeter (mm) cannon, which was mounted in

the tail. The four computer-controlled machine gun turrets

afforded control to more than one gunner; each gunner had a

primary turret but could operate two turrets at the same time

if necessary. The central gunner’s section had a master gunnery panel that enabled the central fire control gunner to

assign turrets to those gunners who had the best view of the

target. Each gun had a sophisticated sighting mechanism that

used incandescent light to sight targets. Gyroscopes and the

fire control computer allowed the system to lead the target

and provide the correct gun elevation to compensate for range.

The combined technological advances of the B-29 made it

the weapon of choice for demonstrating the validity of high-altitude daylight precision bombardment. Army Air Force planFAIRCHILD PAPER

16
ners calculated that the mechanical combination of the doctrinal script with the B-29’s advanced technology would

equate to desired results. In the strategic environment of the

Pacific theater, however, reality proved somewhat more complex and infinitely less predictable.

Notes

1. For the evolution of airpower doctrine in the United States before

World War II and the controversy between bomber and fighter advocates,

see Thomas H. Greer, The Development of Air Doctrine in the Army Air Arm,

1917-1941, USAF Historical Study 89 (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: USAF Historical

Division, Research Studies Institute, Air University, 1955). For a succinct

(US Air Force photo)

A Superfortress Over Japan. This B-29, flying from its base in the Marianas, is

crossing Japan’s Tama River near Tokyo.

GORMAN

17
account, see James Lea Cate, “Development of Air Doctrine, 1917–1941,”

Air University Quarterly Review 1, no. 3 (Winter 1947). For a more

comprehensive study, see Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine:

Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907–1984 , 2 vols. (Maxwell

AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1989). On the development of air doctrine

within the context of the interservice debate, see James P. Tate, The Army

and Its Air Corps: Army Policy toward Aviation, 1919–1941 (Maxwell AFB,

Ala.: Air University Press, 1988). Barry D. Watts, in The Foundation of U.S.

Air Doctrine: The Problem of Friction in War (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air

University Press, 1984), gives a short but critical analysis of the

development of American airpower doctrine.

2. Robert F. Gass, Theory, Doctrine, and Ball Bearings: Adapting Future

Technology to Warfare (Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: School of Advanced

Military Studies, 1996), 12–15.

3. “The American observers (in England), in full knowledge of the British

and German experience in the Battle of Britain, continued to place their

faith in the heavily armed Flying Fortress and the Liberator, flying in great

masses and in close defensive formations. Such force, in adequate mass

and properly employed, they reasoned, would permit the precision daylight

attacks so essential to American strategic air doctrine.” Haywood S. Hansell

Jr., The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler (Atlanta, Ga.: Longino & Porter, 1972),

33.

4. Gass, 4.

5. Tate, 158.

6. Ibid., 161–62. One notable exception was Capt Claire Chennault, later

commander of the Flying Tigers in China, who disagreed with the bomber

invincibility theory.

7. Ibid., 159.

8. Ibid., 164.

9. Hansell, 57.

10. Richard P. Hallion, “Prelude to Armageddon,” Air Power History 42,

no. 3 (Fall 1995): 42.

11. For the fateful story of the Consolidated B-32, see William T.

Y’Blood, “Unwanted and Unloved: The Consolidated B-32,” Air Power

History 42, no. 3 (Fall 1995): 58–71.

12. For a bibliographic essay covering both primary and secondary

sources on the development of the B-29 and B-29 operations in the Pacific,

see Kenneth P. Werrell, Blankets of Fire: U.S. Bombers Over Japan in World

War II (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), 335–41.

There is no centrally located holding of B-29 records and sources. Primary

materials are maintained at various locations, including the National

Archives in Washington, D.C., the Air Force Historical Research Agency at

Maxwell AFB, Alabama, and the Boeing Company in Seattle. Most of the key

players have written their own interesting, although often biased, accounts.

These memoirs include Henry Harley “Hap” Arnold’s, Global Mission,

1886–1950 (New York: Harper, 1949); Curtis LeMay’s Mission with LeMay:

FAIRCHILD PAPER

18
My Story (Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday, 1965) and Superfortress: The B-29

and American Air Power (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), and Haywood S.

Hansell’s The Strategic Air War Against Japan (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air

University, 1980). Of the three authors, Hansell’s account is the most

detailed and thoroughly analytic. Although not as extensively covered as the

strategic air war over Europe, there are numerous secondary accounts

available of B-29 operations against Japan. One of the most useful works is

the official history by Wesley Frank Craven and James Cate, The Army Air

Forces in World War II (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1948–58), though it

is at times convoluted and poorly organized. For B-29 operations, see

especially volume 5. Other worthwhile secondary works include Kevin

Herbert’s Maximum Effort: The B-29s Against Japan (Manhattan, Kans.:

Sunflower University Press, 1983); E. Bartlett Kerr’s Flames Over Tokyo:

The U.S. Army Air Forces’ Incendiary Campaign Against Japan, 1944–1945

(New York: D.I. Fine, 1991); and Conrad C. Crane’s Bombs, Cities, and

Civilians: American Airpower Strategy in World War II (Lawrence, Kans.:

University Press of Kansas, 1993).

13. Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with

Japan (New York: Vintage Books, 1985), 488 ff.

14. Werrell, 57.

15. Hallion, 44.

16. For the story of the marriage of the Wright R-3350 engine to the

B-29 Superfortress, see Robert E. Johnson, “Why the Boeing B-29 Bomber

and Why the Wright R-3350 Engine,” American Aviation Society Historical

Journal 33, no. 3 (1988): 174–89. See also Werrell, 68–72, and Walter J.

Boyne, Clash of Wings: World War II in the Air (New York: Simon and

Schuster, 1994), 360.

17. Lee B. Kennett, A History of Strategic Bombing (New York: Scribner,

1982), 166.

18. Chester Marshall, B-29 Superfortress (Osceola, Wis.: Motorbooks

International, 1993), 299.

19. Ibid., 301–3; Werrell, 195–201.

20. Marshall, 299–301; David A. Anderton, B-29 Superfortress at War

(New York: Scribner, 1978), 24–31.

GORMAN

19
Chapter 4

Applying a Technological Solution

With the emergence of very long-range bombers, airmen had

renewed confidence in the abilities of technology to fulfill the

theoretical ends of bombing doctrine that had been developed

“between the wars.” Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold would later

proclaim, “The combination of technical advances and the state

of international relations . . . gave ‘air power’ a chance for mushroom growth.”1

 The lack of VLR bomber availability, however,

was still a limiting factor. Production schedules in 1941 suggested to planners that the B-29, the B-32, and the B-36 would

not be available for several years; the weight of any early air

offensive would rest primarily with the B-17 and the B-24. Only

when the B-29 and the B-36 became available in greater quantities would they be given greater emphasis.2

 Originally, B-29

priority was scheduled for the European theater; AWPD-1 called

for 12 groups of B-29s to operate from the Mediterranean basin,

most likely to be stationed near Cairo, and another 12 groups to

operate out of Northern Ireland.3 Conditions changed, however,

and the B-29s were deployed first to the Pacific theater.

After losing the backbone of the surface fleet at Pearl Harbor,

the US Navy was no longer capable of performing the defensive

duties initially envisioned for it by wartime planners.4 European

air planners now rightfully feared that “the bombers consigned

to the strategic air war in Europe [to include the B-29] might be

reassigned—or diluted in number—to meet emergency demands

from the Pacific.”5 The first call for strategic bombing operations

in the Pacific came as a result of the Casablanca Conference of

January 1943. A remedy was needed for the desperate position

of the Chinese government, and the Allies were unable to administer help in any other way. AWPD-42 was the first air plan

to provide detailed planning for a strategic bombing campaign

against Japan. 6 The Air War Plans Division prepared a plan in

August 1943 for B-29s to operate from rear bases in India and

forward bases in China against Japanese lines of communica -

tion and against Japan proper.

21
To conduct this campaign, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)

created an entirely new organization: Twentieth Air Force . It

would operate under the command of General Arnold, commanding general, Army Air Forces (AAF). At Cairo in late November 1943, the Combined Chiefs of Staff adopted a “grand

strategy ”statement that included a significant change of

wording as recommended by General Hansell, the AAF’s chief

planner. The change read, “Our studies have taken account of

the possibility that invasion of the principal Japanese islands

may not be necessary and the defeat of Japan may be accomplished by sea and air blockade and intensive air bombard -

ment from progressively advanced bases.”7 Airpower was no

longer a supporting arm in the Pacific.

The limitations of strategic airpower doctrine were further

exposed in operations like the disastrous Schweinfurt raids in

late 1943, 8 but perhaps nowhere more clearly than in AAF

operations from India and China known as Operation Matterhorn . The first attacks against Japanese targets by the newly

formed XX Bomber Command in China under Twentieth Air

Force did not occur until June 1944, nearly a year after the

Operation Matterhorn concept was born.

An AAF Committee on Operational Analysis initially identified six Japanese targets on 11 November 1943:

1. Merchant shipping, both in Japanese harbors and at sea.

2. Steel production facilities, particularly coke oven plants.

3. Urban industrial areas.

4. Aircraft plants.

5. Ball bearing plants.

6. Japan’s electronics industry. 9

Due to friction generated by distance, weather, mechanical

bugs, and the underappreciated difficulties of logistically supporting the operation, the impacts of Matterhorn upon this

target set did not live up to the airpower theorists’ predictions. 1 0 Logistical difficulties limited the results and made

them extremely costly. To get one B-29 over a Japanese target,

seven other B-29s carried bombs and gasoline from India to

allow the mission to occur.1 1 At its peak, XX Bomber Command could manage only two sorties per month per air -

FAIRCHILD PAPER

22
craft—and only one-half of those sorties were directed against

the main islands of Japan.1 2 Initiated in part to meet political

exigencies in China, Operation Matterhorn was nevertheless

limited by military realities—realities that proved beyond the

adaptive capabilities of both operators and planners.13 The last

of the Matterhorn missions occurred in March 1945 as bases

for the B-29 were shifting to the central Pacific.

The Mariana Islands in the central Pacific offered airpower

advocates a viable alternative to Operation Matterhorn. On 12

March 1944, the JCS issued a strategic directive instructing

Adm Chester Nimitz to conduct the invasion of the Marianas

in Operation Forager, thus enabling a new range of airpower

possibilities. 1 4 Operating from Saipan, just 1,200 miles from

Tokyo, the B-29s could attack the home islands of Japan

more effectively than from Chinese bases.1 5 Saipan was one of

three islands large enough to support air and naval bases; the

other two were Tinian, a few miles south of Saipan, and

Guam , the southernmost island. Guam had been an American

possession before it was lost to the Japanese in 1941. With

the brutally costly capture of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam in the

summer of 1944, at precisely the same time B-29s were just

beginning to launch ill-fated raids from bases in China, a

window of opportunity opened for the AAF. Engineers followed

closely behind the invasion forces to expand and improve the

islands’ airfields in preparation for B-29 operations.1 6 By 24

June, even before the fighting had ended on Saipan, the first

B-29 airfield was under construction.1 7 Generals Hansell and

Wolfe flew the first B-29 to arrive at Saipan. It arrived on 12

October 1944.

Control of the B-29s in the Marianas fell under the newly

created XXI Bomber Command of Twentieth Air Force. Haywood Hansell was the XXI’s first commander. The new command ’s crews flew their first combat mission on 28 October

1944. The XXI’s first missions from the Marianas were train -

ing missions against the island of Truk and relatively low-risk

missions against Japanese positions on the island of Iwo

Jima. These missions were designed to build the crews’ experience and allow them to learn about the operational environment. Their first mission against the home islands, flown for

GORMAN

23
both psychological and military reasons against the Nakajima

aircraft plants in Tokyo, took place on 24 November 1944. In

that initial attack on Japan’s home islands, 111 B-29s were

airborne for more than 13 hours.1 8

Like those in Operation Matterhorn, B-29 raids from the

Marianas were not without difficulties. The attack against the

Nakajima aircraft plants in November 1944 was typical of the

first attempts at precision bombardment against Japanese in -

dustry from the Marianas. The raid was cancelled five times

over a two-week period due to poor weather over the target. Of

the 111 B-29s that participated in the attack, 17 aborted

before reaching Japan and six were unable to bomb because

of mechanical difficulties. The attacking bombers encountered

120-knot winds at altitude while overcast cloud layers almost

completely obscured the target area. Of the 88 airplanes that

bombed the area surrounding the plant, 35 had to do so by

radar. In the end, only 48 bombs fell in the factory area,

damaging one percent of the building and 2.4 percent of the

machinery while injuring or killing 132 people in the factory

complex. Two B-29s were lost over the target.1 9

When XXI Bomber Command failed to deliver “the destructive potential inherent in the B-29,”2 0 General Arnold removed

General Hansell on 20 January 1945 and replaced him with

Gen Curtis E. LeMay.

21 With a burly physique and a hardnosed reputation, LeMay was arguably well suited for the

job.2 2 LeMay had established a distinguished record as a bomber

commander in Europe and the 37-year-old general had become a favorite B-29 troubleshooter for Arnold; earlier, Arnold

had named LeMay to replace Gen Kenneth Wolfe as commander

of XX Bomber Command for B-29 operations from China. Now

hoping to reverse the poor performance of operations from the

Marianas, he turned to LeMay once again. As commander of

XXI Bomber Command, LeMay was a principal player in shaping the operational, strategic, and tactical adaptations required

to overcome the uncertainties that emerged as the B-29s were

deployed against Japan.

FAIRCHILD PAPER

24
Notes

1. Henry Harley Arnold, Global Mission (New York: Harper, 1949), 158.

2. Haywood S. Hansell Jr., The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler (Atlanta,

Ga.: Longino & Porter, 1972), 48.

3. Ibid., 54.

4. William Green, Famous Bombers of the Second World War (Garden

City, N.Y.: Hanover House, 1969).

5. Kenneth P. Werrell, Blankets of Fire: U. S. Bombers Over Japan During

World War II (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996),

49–50.

6. Richard P. Hallion, “Prelude to Armageddon,” Air Power History 42,

no. 3 (Fall 1995): 38–54.

7. Martin W. Bowman, USAAF Handbook 1939–1945 (Mechanicsburg,

Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1997), 256.

8. Richard G. Alexander, “Experiment in Total War,” in United States

Naval Institute Proceedings 2, no. 8 (August 1956): 844.

9. Wesley Frank Craven and James Cate, The Army Air Forces in World

War II. 7 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948–1958), 13–31.

10. Ibid., 13–31; Werrell, 101–2.

11. Winton Close, “B-29s in the CBI – A Pilot’s Perspective,” Aerospace

Historian 30, no. 1 (1983): 13.

12. Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with

Japan (New York: Free Press, 1985), 491.

13. Hallion, 44–48.

14. Ibid., 45.

15. Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United

States Military Strategy and Policy (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co.,

Inc., 1973), 290.

16. Lee B. Kennett, A History of Strategic Bombing (New York: Scribner,

1982), 166.

17. Hallion, 45.

18. Ibid., 50.

19. Alexander, 844.

20. Hansell, 211.

21. Victor Davis Hanson, “The Right Man,” in Military History Quarterly

8, no. 3 (Spring 1996): 56–65.

22. Close, 8.

GORMAN

25
Chapter 5

Uncertainty and Unintended Consequences

A veil of uncertainty is the one unvarying factor in war.

—Erich von Manstein

The B-29 was best known for its technological advances in

engines, pressurization, and remotely controlled defensive armament. It was these technological advances that gave the

B-29 the capabilities to accomplish the doctrinally designated

role of unescorted strategic bombardment at high altitude. It

was, however, precisely these advances that gave both engineers and crew members the greatest difficulty. The hasty

development of the B-29 (it went from conceptual designs to

operational missions in five years) resulted in numerous

“bugs”; extensive technological adaptations were required to

overcome them.

The Wright R-3350 was renowned not only for its power,

but also for the high incidence of engine fires.

1

 In fact, an

in-flight fire that originated in the engines had caused the loss

of one of the two XB-29 prototypes and its entire crew.2 Onefifth of all B-29 accidents between February 1943 and July

1945 were caused by engine fires. Once a fire started in an

engine, it was very difficult to put out; the carbon dioxide fire

extinguisher system was inefficient, and several engine components were made of highly flammable magnesium. Engine

fires were the biggest fear of B-29 crews. 3

The need for pressurization to perform high-altitude missions competed with doctrinal demands for robust, remotely

controlled defensive armaments—and both were technologically challenging requirements. Arnold noted that pressuriza -

tion was “one of the biggest early headaches.”4 Early problems

with pressurization forced practice bombing to be carried out

from 15,000 feet instead of the prescribed altitude of 30,000

feet.5 Problems included rapid depressurization if there was a

rupture of the pressurized compartments (a gunner’s worst

27
fear: he might be swept from the aircraft should his sighting

blister fail) and window frosting at high altitudes. Despite

several modifications, which included such items as cockpit

fans, gas heaters, and flexible ducts, these problems would

persist throughout the war. 6

The remotely controlled defensive systems, which were extremely heavy, used nonretracting gun turrets that increased

drag while decreasing the speed, range, and endurance of the

aircraft. One adaptation required by the nonretractable turrets

was the addition of a “tailskid” to keep pilots from grinding off

the aft lower turret when making high-angle takeoffs. 7 Airmen

at Eglin Air Proving Ground complained that maintaining the

remotely controlled system was a difficult process. They also

said the system was vulnerable and inherently inaccurate.

The final report of the Eglin staff concluded, “the defensive

armament of the B-29 airplane is not suitable for a series of

unescorted combat operations in theaters where the airplane

will be subjected to more than brief, desultory fighter attacks.”8

Despite the vulnerability and inaccuracy of the system, and

despite aircrew preference for locally controlled gun turrets,

the General Electric remotely controlled defensive system was

selected for the B-29 because it made the problem of pressurization easier for Boeing designers to resolve.9

 Concerns about

the inadequacies of the defensive system eventually drove decision makers toward night missions instead of daylight raids.

Bombing was less accurate, but few Japanese fighters could

effectively operate at night; precision bombing could be more

effective during daylight hours, but the B-29s were then vulnerable to Japanese fighters.1 0

These robust defensive systems had another important unin -

tended consequence. Flying in relatively tight formations, the

B-29s were highly susceptible to incidents of friendly fire. This

vulnerability encouraged the removal (at least for a time) of

defensive armaments and the change in tactics from formation

bombing to single aircraft flying sequentially over the target. 1 1

Although frequently intended to be labor-saving measures,

new systems often demand more training time and manpower

to physically and intellectually process the added technologiFAIRCHILD PAPER

28
cal complexity. The B-29 experience serves as a case in point.

It was the first operationally employed aircraft to require a

flight engineer among the crew positions. Facing rearward behind the pilot, the B-29’s flight engineer was responsible for

monitoring and regulating the aircraft’s systems. Pilots were

initially reluctant to accept this situation, since it meant that

many of the controls would be out of their sight and reach.

The flight engineer position was also difficult to fill, since

only previously trained officer mechanics were accepted into

the flight engineer school. Later, as demand grew, the AAF

accepted enlisted mechanics. In fact, about one-half of the

flight engineers in this essential crew position during combat

operations were noncommissioned officers. In an act of desperation to cover unfilled manning requirements, AAF even

recruited pilots for the position of flight engineer. The requirement for a flight engineer to serve aboard the B-29, vital for

successfully completing long-range missions in the technologically complex aircraft, created additional manpower and train -

ing requirements.1 2

The technological complexity of the B-29 led to increased

manning requirements as well as additional training requirements for other crew positions. Its design was so radically new

that it required exclusively designed courses for each of its

components. Radar operators, for example, had no experience

with advanced radar systems. Even after July 1944 when

radar equipment was plentiful enough to begin training, there

were not enough qualified instructors to carry it out. Furthermore, few of the operators trusted the radar—and the Kansas

plains were ill suited to demonstrate its value.1 3 Pilot training

was complicated early in the program by the lack of airframes.

Aircrews were initially forced to use other aircraft for training;

for example, the crews that would be the first to man the

B-29s actually trained in the twin-engine Martin B-26 .

1 4 Despite valiant efforts by all involved, the B-29 crews initially

operating out of the Marianas averaged fewer than 100 hours

of B-29 flying time and fewer than 12 hours flying in highaltitude formations. 1 5

Unknown factors and unanticipated phenomena in the op -

erating environment were also sources of “Clausewitzean fricGORMAN

29
tion” in B-29 operations. Hansell described the weather over

Japan as “our most implacable and inscrutable enemy.”1 6

Weather was so poor, especially during the winter, that there

were sometimes only three or four good bombing days a

month. Obtaining accurate weather forecasts for the Japanese

mainland presented a major challenge. For various reasons,

weather analysis and prediction were not as reliable in the

Pacific as in Europe—and weather forecasting was most critical during the first months of B-29 operations. With only one

runway in operation on Saipan, a weather divert or a crashed

B-29 on Isley Field might spell disaster for those still airborne.

Even more important operationally, B-29 planners and

strategists, who advocated high-altitude precision bombing,

failed to account for the effects of the jet stream. Aircrews

soon learned that bombing accuracy and aircraft performance

were significantly affected by it. 1 7 Crews operating at 25,000

feet and above often found the river of air flowing from west to

east at speeds above 200 miles per hour. Flying downwind

caused ground speeds exceeding 450 knots, far greater than

optimum for accurate precision bombing either visually or by

radar. Flying against the jet stream reduced the range of the

bombers and left them vulnerable to enemy air defense for

longer periods of time. On one mission flown upwind to in -

crease bombing accuracy, aircrews reported flying backward

along the ground as wind speed exceeded their true airspeed.1 8

In the absence of accurate forecasts, the only recourse was to

fly at lower altitudes where the jet stream was not as strong.

Beyond the uncertainties of employing the B-29, its presence introduced unintended consequences for both friendly

and enemy systems. One unintended consequence for the

friendly military system was further strain on the already convoluted command relationships in the Pacific. The B-29s were

placed under the direct control of General Arnold , AAF commander in chief in Washington.1 9

In China, both Gen Claire Chennault and Gen Joseph Stilwell demanded operational control of resources dedicated to

the B-29 for Operation Matterhorn—especially after the renewed Japanese Ishigo offensive in China in 1944. Gen Douglas

MacArthur, through his air commander Gen George Kenney,

FAIRCHILD PAPER

30
advocated using the B-29s in the southwest Pacific. Kenney

argued that the B-29s should operate from bases in northern

Australia in support of his island-hopping thrust toward the

Philippines.

2 0

The Navy, perhaps rightly so, feared that its central Pacific

thrust toward Formosa would be subordinated to the strategic

bombardment of Japan.2 1 One member of Adm Ernest King’s

staff noted, “The interests of the AAF and the Navy clash

seriously in the Central Pacific campaign. The danger is obvious of our amphibious campaign being turned into one that is

auxiliary support to permit the AAF to get into position to end

the war.”2 2 Dual-hatted as commanding general of Army Air

Forces and commander of Twentieth Air Force, General Arnold

did not answer to Pacific theater or area commanders; he was

coequal with the other joint chiefs, responsible in essence only

to General Marshall and President Roosevelt .

2 3 Had the Navy

followed Army’s lead and placed the Tenth Fleet directly under

Admiral King, effective unified action in the Pacific might have

been well nigh impossible.

In effect, command arrangements ranked the B-29 strategic

campaign against Japan over all other efforts in the Pacific

theater. In the last month of the war, after the artificial area

boundaries between MacArthur and Nimitz had become obsolete, Pacific command was equally divided between the Army

under MacArthur, the Navy under Nimitz, and the Strategic

Air Force under Gen Carl Spaatz. Although still technically

owned by the Army, the strategic bombardment force was in a

position of near equality with the Army and Navy. 2 4 The introduction of the B-29 enlivened tension between the services

and added complexity to the command structure in the Pa -

cific .

The employment of B-29s from the Marianas, in a dance of

coevolution, also affected Japanese military developments.

The Japanese understood the dangers posed by American B29s operating from these islands. Lt Gen Yoshitsugu Saito,

the Japanese defender of Saipan, wrote, “the fate of the Empire will be decided in this one action.”2 5 Stiff Japanese resistance in the Marianas, and later on Iwo Jima, was due in part

to this realization. The construction of Isley Airfield on Saipan

GORMAN

31
triggered increased Japanese reconnaissance sorties and aircraft attacks staged through Iwo Jima. Although kept generally under control by the combination of antiaircraft artillery

and Northrup P-61 Black Widow fighters, these Japanese attacks did cause some damage. On 27 November 1944, for

example, four B-29s were destroyed and 28 others damaged

by a Japanese attack. Altogether, Japanese raiders destroyed

eleven B-29s, heavily damaged eight, and less seriously damaged 35 others. The raids also killed 45 Americans and

wounded 200 others at a cost to Japan of 37 aircraft lost.2 6 In

its turn, the Japanese response to the employment of B-29s

from the Marianas would shape the evolution of American

actions.

Notes

1. Richard P. Hallion, “Prelude to Armageddon,” Air Power History 42,

no. 3 (Fall 1995): 44; Haywood S. Hansell Jr., The Air Plan That Defeated

Hitler (Atlanta, Ga.: Longino & Porter, 1972), 203–4.

2. Kenneth P. Werrell, Blankets of Fire: U. S. Bombers Over Japan During

World War II (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996), 71.

3. Ibid., 64.

4. Ibid., 124.

5. Ibid., 64.

6. Ibid., 66.

7. “Tests Relative to the Defense and Tactical Use of the B-29.”

Memorandum from the Operational Analysis Division, Department of

Physics, University of New Mexico, 15 November 1944 (Maxwell AFB, Ala.:

Air Force Historical Research Agency, 760.310–3.)

8. Being less technologically complex, locally controlled turrets were

considered more accurate and more easily maintained. Remotely controlled

turrets made pressurization easier because they were smaller and needed

no pressurization if no gunner was physically manning the guns.

9. Werrell, 63–68.

10. Ibid., 155.

11. Ibid., 61–62.

12. Ibid., 123–24.

13. Ibid., 92.

14. Hallion, 50; David A. Anderton, B-29 Superfortress at War (New York:

Scribner and Sons, 1978), 35–36.

15. Haywood S. Hansell Jr., The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler (Atlanta,

Ga.: Longino & Porter, 1972), 203.

16. Hallion, 51.

FAIRCHILD PAPER

32
17. Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with

Japan (New York: Free Press, 1985), 493.

18. Hallion, 44–45.

19. Stanley L. Falk, “General Kenney, the Indirect Approach, and the

B-29s,” Aerospace History, 1981, 147–55.

20. Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United

States Military Strategy and Policy (New York: MacMillan Publishing Co.,

Inc., 1973), 285.

21. Spector, 492.

22. Ibid., 489–90, 225; Henry Harley Arnold, Global Mission (New York:

Harper, 1949), 548–49; Jeffrey S. Underwood, The Wings of Democracy: The

Influence of Air Power on the Roosevelt Administration, 1933–1941 (College

Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press, 1991).

23. Louis Morton, Pacific Command: A Study in Interservice Relations,

Harmon Memorial Lecture in Military History, United States Air Force

Academy, 1961, 150.

24. Hallion, 45.

25. Ibid., 49.

26. Hansell, 30.

GORMAN

33
Chapter 6

Technological and Operational Adaptation

Improvisation is the natural order of warfare.

The perfect formulas will continue to be found only on charts.

—S. L. A. Marshall

Effective and timely adaptation requires learning about the

operating environment. Learning about the operating environment for the employment of airpower was the mission of the

Air Intelligence Services. First formed in 1940 by Haywood

Hansell and Tom White at the request of General Arnold, the

Strategic Air Intelligence Section (SAIS) consisted of a system

of assistant military attachés for air at US embassies around

the world and an analysis branch at the Pentagon. Its focus

included the composition of foreign air forces, the infrastructure (airports and air bases) to support those forces, and the

economic-social-industrial analysis of major foreign powers.1

Although relatively successful at collecting information about

Germany and Italy, the SAIS was not able to gather much

detailed information on Japan. That island nation was surrounded by a “curtain of secrecy” as well as by the Pacific

Ocean. Hansell claimed there were not even any recent maps

available to air planners.2 The Army Air Force in the Pacific

would learn through its own experience under the inevitable

stress of war.3

Surprisingly, the AAF did not take advantage of one of its

best sources of operational learning: wartime experience

gained from the European bombing campaign. Although the

AAF in the Pacific would employ methods that came to closely

resemble the night fire raids of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in

Europe, there is no evidence of any shared learning between

the two. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, which

was intended for use in the Pacific war, arrived too late to

influence its conduct.4 Stumbling through to a suitable solu -

tion, the AAF in the Pacific neglected sources of learning that

35
might have identified many uncertainties and aided successful

adaptation. On its own, the strategic air war in the Pacific

evolved toward the British concept of bombing used in

Europe.

Thus, the AAF adapted operationally to the uncertainties

initially posed by employment of the B-29 in the Pacific by

switching from high-altitude daylight precision bombardment

raids against critical industrial nodes to low-altitude night

incendiary attacks against Japanese cities.

The turning point came in March 1945, when the commander of XXI Bomber Command, General LeMay, switched

exclusively to low-altitude attacks intended to “burn out” major Japanese cities. 5

 The change to incendiary attacks resulted

in part from poor performance during conventional high-explosive missions against precision targets. Despite the promises of accuracy from the new technology, the results of radar

bombing with the B-29’s new AN/APQ-13 radar bombsights

were disappointing.

The new tactic was not an act of desperation, but a wellconsidered adaptation first suggested by air strategists before

the war. In his 1937 study, “Japan as an Objective for Air

Attack,” Capt Thomas D. White of the Air Corps Tactical

School noted, “Large sections of Japanese cities are built of

flimsy and highly inflammable materials. The earthquake disaster of 1924 bears witness to the fearful destruction that may

be inflicted by incendiary bombs.”6 Even Adm Isoruku

Yamamoto had pointed out this vulnerability as early as 1939:

“Cities made of wood and paper would burn easily. The army

talks big, but if war comes and there were large-scale air

raids, there is no telling what would happen.”7 Japanese firefighting equipment was primitive and inadequate for the disaster that was about to befall Japanese cities. The nature of

targets in Japan was different from those in Germany; Japanese industry, more widely dispersed within Japanese cities,

was less vulnerable to precision attack. The cities themselves,

however, were extremely vulnerable to fire bombing.

8

Prior to 1945, strategists in Washington, including Arnold,

had pressed for incendiary attacks, but both Hansell and LeMay opposed them. They favored doctrinally conventional preFAIRCHILD PAPER

36
cision bombardment.9

 Hansell’s preference for precision bombardment would, at least in part, cost him his job in the end.1 0

Motivations to move away from precision attacks included the

cost of unescorted daylight missions due to Japanese fighters

and antiaircraft fire, the vulnerability of Japanese cities, and

the failures of pinpoint bombing raids against Japanese in -

dustry. 1 1 Still, it was not until December 1944 that LeMay,

then commanding XX Bomber Command in China, launched

the first incendiary raid —against the Chinese city of

Hankow.1 2 However, since incendiaries had proven relatively

difficult to deliver from 30,000 feet during testing and evalu -

ation, B-29 crews continued to use high-altitude conventional

attacks after the Hankow raid. These difficulties in accurately

dropping incendiaries from high altitudes led to attacks at

lower altitudes. Flying at lower altitudes also avoided the unpredictable navigation and bombing effects of the jet

stream—and it reduced engine wear from the high-power climb

to altitude, thereby improving engine reliability.

The M69, a more explosive incendiary introduced by the

Army’s Chemical Warfare Service, made incendiary attacks

potentially even more lethal. 1 3 An encouraging test incendiary

raid against Tokyo on 25 February 1945 resulted in the complete burning of about one square mile of the city. 1 4 One massive raid in March burned some 16 square miles of Tokyo—

about 18 percent of the city’s industrial area and 63 percent of

its commercial area. 1 5 The only major limiting factor in incendiary operations was the supply of napalm bombs; these weapons were in such demand toward the end of the war that supply

crews would drive them directly from supply ships to bombers

waiting on the airfields. 1 6 Incendiary raids at low altitudes

essentially overwhelmed Japan’s ability to adapt defensively.

To facilitate larger bomb loads, LeMay stripped the B-29s of

guns and ammunition. Since the B-29 normally carried 11⁄2

tons of armament, this adjustment represented a significant

increase in bomb load capacity. 1 7 The decision to “strip the

guns and add the bombs” was spurred not only by the desire

for more destructive effects on Japanese targets, but also by

the absence of Japanese night fighters. Although removing the

B-29’s defensive systems was efficient tactically, it had unpreGORMAN

37
dictable and unintended negative effects on crew morale. Despite the lack of Japanese fighter opposition, crew members

were unwilling to fly without a defense system and the guns

were once again installed on the B-29s.1 8

One other adaptation to defensive systems that resulted from

combat experience was the removal of the 20-mm tail gun and

the addition of two more .50 caliber machine guns to the forward upper turret. This change was implemented because

Japanese fighters preferred head-on attacks against the fast

bombers.1 9 A simple mechanical cam follower was also in -

cluded on the forward upper turret to prevent gunners from

shooting off parts of their own airplane—a worst-case fratricide.2 0

The taking of Iwo Jima by US forces was a strategic adaptation facilitated by the presence of B-29s. US occupation of the

island provided several benefits to B-29 operations.

1. Japanese radar outposts on the island were eliminated.

2. The threat of Japanese fighters operating from Iwo Jima

against B-29 bases in the Marianas was removed.

3. The distance to Japanese targets was shortened and

navigation was improved when B-29s could freely fly over Iwo

Jima.

4. Airfields could be provided on the island for emergency

B-29 recovery and for staging deeper strikes against Japan.2 1

Although the Marines did not declare the island secured

until 26 March, a B-29 made the first emergency landing on

Iwo Jima three weeks earlier, on 4 March. The bomber was

returning from a raid against Japan. While the cost of taking

the island was enormously high, the operation potentially

saved as many as 22,000 crew members from the 2,251 crip -

pled B-29s that landed at Iwo Jima. Without use of the island

as an emergency recovery area, those crew members might

have had to ditch and been lost at sea. 2 2

Iwo Jima also could serve as a base for escort fighters to

accompany the B-29s on their raids into Japan, an adaptation

dictated in part by deficiencies in the B-29’s defensive systems. Ironically, by the time sufficient numbers of long-range

escorts were available and a base at Iwo Jima was ready to

FAIRCHILD PAPER

38
accept them, the escorts were no longer needed . The Japanese

air force no longer posed any real threat, given its virtual

absence from the scene. Instead, these long-range US fighters

proved more useful to the strategic air war by serving in the

ground attack role against various Japanese targets. 2 3 Although changes in the tactical situation lessened the importance of Iwo Jima toward the end of the war, its value to the

strategic air campaign must not be underestimated.2 4

Another strategic and operational adaptation of the B-29

was its use as a mine-laying instrument to blockade Japanese

sea lines of communication.2 5 The first of the B-29 mining

operations occurred as early as August 1944 against Japa -

nese lines of communication in the southwest Pacific, but the

B-29s of Twentieth Air Force did not launch a sustained min -

ing campaign until January 1945. Although the initial Army

Air Force response to the Navy-sponsored mining plan was

negative, aerial delivery of mines proved to be an effective use

of the B-29 when weather prohibited bombing operations. LeMay eventually favored mine-laying missions for the B-29s. In

Operation Starvation , Twentieth Air Force B-29s sowed some

12,000 naval mines.2 6 US submarine attacks, which were

aided by the aerial dropping of mines, were devastating to the

Japanese economy—perhaps decisively so. By 1945 Japan

had lost nine million of its ten million tons of merchant ship -

ping. 2 7 According to Japanese records, the aerial mining campaign accounted for 63 percent of all Japanese merchant

shipping losses during the final six months of the war.2 8

In the closing days of the war, XXI Bomber Command came

up with yet another operational use for the B-29: dropping

leaflets on Japanese cities to warn the civilian populace that

further attacks were forthcoming. By dropping these leaflets,

the B-29s disrupted Japanese production, lowered morale,

and encouraged civilians to replace the current Japanese

leadership. Beginning on 27 July, the leaflet drops were followed by shortwave broadcasts.2 9 By the end of the war, the

B-29s had scattered some 4,500,000 leaflets over Japanese

cities. 3 0

To overcome the uncertainties of weather, American crews

relied almost exclusively upon nightly B-29 reconnaissance

GORMAN

39
flights toward Japan. Aircrews in Europe had depended a

great deal on Ultra intelligence reports for weather information, but Hansell and LeMay had assumed that this type of

information was unavailable for the Pacific theater. Unfortu -

nately, as Hansell and others would learn 30 years after the

war, Allied intelligence agents in Australia had been receiving

Japanese weather reports throughout the war but had not

passed this information along. 3 1 Put in the context of complexity theory, lack of shared learning about the operational environment prohibited effective adaptation.

In addition to strategic and operational adaptations, technical, mechanical, and procedural adaptations were necessitated by simultaneous problems in production, training, and

employment. To improve mechanical reliability and overcome

the uncertainty associated with the complex technology of the

B-29, LeMay changed from “crew chief” maintenance to “production line” maintenance . Instead of being responsible for

maintenance of the entire aircraft and all of its systems, individual specialists were now responsible for separate components on the B-29. This system eased the problems created by

a shortage of maintenance personnel and the lack of adequate

main tenance training. 32 The result was more aircraft in commission, fewer aborts, and a greater percentage of aircraft bombing their primary targets. A secondary effect, however, had

negative implications: crew stress and flying fatigue increased,

severely affecting flight crew morale —thanks to the improved

aircraft reliability rates.3 3

Avoiding engine fires involved a combination of mechanical

fixes and changes in crew technique. Later models of the B-29

included shortened cowl flaps and improved lubrication to

reduce the chances of engine fire. New cowl flaps, ducted

baffles to better circulate air, and oil crossover tubes to better

circulate oil were installed at the Oklahoma City Air Depot

beginning in September 1944. Later that year, those modifications were packed in kits and sent to combat forces in the

field.3 4 To minimize overheating of the huge engines during

ground takeoff run, crews ignored technical order takeoff

speeds and used the entire length of runway to achieve maximum ground speed. This maneuver increased engine cooling

FAIRCHILD PAPER

40
before the aircraft became airborne by increasing airflow over

the engines.3 5 The result of these adaptations was that engine

temperatures were kept below designated limits and engine life

began to increase. 3 6

Another adaptation required the development of a logistical

structure to support B-29 operations from the Marianas. Lt

Gen Millard F. Harmon was primarily responsible for its development. To centralize logistical and administrative responsibility for all AAF forces in the central Pacific, Harmon was

appointed deputy commander of Twentieth Air Force and commander of the AAF Pacific Operations Area when the Twentieth

was activated on 1 August 1944. 3 7 Harmon’s direct personal

effort was responsible for bringing the runway construction

effort on the Marianas up to speed after it had fallen behind

original planning schedules. Despite the 8,000 miles back to

the air logistics center in Sacramento, California, and direct

competition with the Navy for resources, supply problems never

affected operations as seriously as they had in the ChinaBurma-India theater. 3 8

Successful adaptation required the energetic intervention of

key individuals throughout the process, including not only

Curtis LeMay but also Hap Arnold . When delays pushed the

initial operations date back from the summer of 1943 to the

spring of 1944, Arnold made an inspection trip to the Boeing

production facility in Wichita and the B-29 training base a t

Salina, Kansas.

I was appalled at what I found there. There were shortages in all kinds

and classes of equipment. The engines were not fitted with the latest

gadgets, the planes were not ready to go. It would be impossible for

them to be anywhere near China by the 15 th of April unless some

drastic measures were taken.3 9

Arnold’s “drastic measures” included an intensive six-week

modification and upgrade effort that became known as the

“Battle of Kansas.” It would take a personal visit by Arnold to

the island of Guam in June 1945 to overcome command and

logistical disputes with the Navy. 4 0 One unintended consequence of Arnold’s energetic interventions was a series of

heart attacks in 1944 and 1945 that ruined Arnold’s health .

4 1

Before Haywood Hansell was removed from command, Arnold

GORMAN

41
also took several steps to improve B-29 aircrew training.

These actions included providing additional in-theater training

for combat crews and establishing a school for lead crews.4 2

Adaptation was not the result of fortuitous chance, but of

human vision and the will and energy to follow through.

Notes

1. Haywood S. Hansell Jr., The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler (Atlanta,

Ga.: Longino & Porter, 1972), 31.

2. John F. Kreis, ed., Piercing the Fog: Intelligence and the Army Air

Forces Operations in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and

Museums Program, 1996), 329–47.

3. Kenneth P. Werrell, “The Bombing of Japan: Three New Insights”

(unpublished paper, Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Center for Aerospace Doctrine,

Research and Education), 1999.

4. Ibid.

5. Ronald H. Spector, Eagle Against the Sun: The American War with

Japan (New York: Free Press, 1985), 503–6.

6. Thomas D. White, “Japan as an Objective for Air Attack,” paper for

the Intelligence Section, Air Corps Tactical School, Maxwell Field, Ala.,

1937–38 (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air Force Historical Research Agency

[AFHRA]), 248.501-65B.

7. Ed Whitcomb, On Celestial Wings (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University

Press, 1995), 134.

8. Lee B. Kennett, A History of Strategic Bombing (New York: Scribner,

1982), 164.

9. Werrell, 6.

10. Kennett, 168–69.

11. Richard G. Alexander, “Experiment in Total War,” in United States

Naval Institute Proceedings 2, no. 8 (August 1956): 845.

12. Hansell; Claire S. Chennault, Way of a Fighter (New York: Putnam,

1949), 330.

13. Spector, 491–92; Walter J. Boyne, Clash of Wings: World War II in

the Air (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994), 370–71.

14. Alexander, 845.

15. Ibid.; Whitcomb, 134.

16. Victor Davis Hanson, “The Right Man,” in Military History Quarterly

8, no. 3 (Spring 1996): 60.

17. Kennett, 170.

18. Hanson, 59.

19. David A. Anderton, B-29 Superfortress at War (New York: Scribner

and Sons, 1978), 24–25; Werrell, 145; Edwin Hewitt, memorandum, “Report

for Operations Analysis Division, 20th Air Force, 23 December 1944”

(Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA), 760.310-3.

FAIRCHILD PAPER

42
20. Anderton, 31.

21. Edward R. Lightfoot, memorandum, subject: Operation Workman,

staging VLR strikes through Iwo Jima, 17 January 1945, Maxwell AFB,

Ala., AFHRA, 762.322-2; Lotha A. Smith, memorandum to Chief of Staff,

20th Air Force, subject: Progress Report of Plans for Utilization of

“Workman,” 1 March 1945, Maxwell AFB, Ala., Air Force Historical

Research Agency, 761.322-1.

22. Whitcomb, 136.

23. United States Strategic Bombing Surveys (European War) (Pacific War)

(Reprint, Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1987).

24. Wesley Frank Craven and James Cate, The Army Air Forces in World

War II. 7 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948–1958), 597–98.

25. Ibid., 662–73; Werrell, 170–77.

26. Kennett, 174.

27. J. C. Wylie Jr., “Reflections on the War in the Pacific,” United States

Naval Institute Proceedings 78, no 4 (April 1952): 351–61.

28. Kreis, 345.

29. Werrell, 202–3.

30. Kennett, 174.

31. Richard P. Hallion, “Prelude to Armageddon,” Air Power History 42,

no. 3 (Fall 1995): 51; Hansell, 203–4.

32. Werrell, 146–47.

33. Ibid., 166–67.

34. Ibid., 70.

35. Winton Close, “B-29s in the CBI – A Pilot’s Perspective,” Aerospace

Historian 30, no. 1 (1983): 8.

36. Werrell, 70.

37. Hallion, 48–49.

38. Craven and Cate, xvii.

39. Close, 44.

40. Thomas M. Coffey, Hap: The Story of the United States Air Force and

the Man Who Built It, General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold (New York: Viking,

1982), 367.

41. Ibid., 358.

42. Werrell, 136.

GORMAN

43
Conclusion

The war was lost when the Marianas were taken away

from Japan and when we heard the B-29s were coming out.

We had nothing in Japan that we could use against such a

weapon. From the point of view of the Home Defense

Command, we felt that the war was lost and we said so. If

the B-29s could come over Japan, there was nothing that

could be done.

—Prince Higashikuni

Commander in Chief

Home Defense Headquarters

Given the costs of modern military technology, there is a

duty for military strategists to study its application and use it

wisely. This statement is especially true for airpower strategists. Airpower and technology are integrally and synergistically related. An understanding of airpower and its place in

national strategy requires an understanding of the efficient

application of technology in warfare. As demonstrated by the

American experience with the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, efficient application of military technology requires an apprecia -

tion for the inevitably of uncertainty in war and the need for

adaptation to these inevitable uncertainties. Military planners

should not avoid new technologies because of the increased

complexity that they represent. Instead, they should acknowledge the new demands that increased complexity encompasses, and they should allow for flexibility and adaptation in

the use of military technology. Technology and military strategy should be fully integrated so commanders can conduct the

kinds of campaigns and military operations that offer the best

chance for success in achieving the nation’s political and military objectives.

One finding from the study of B-29 operations in the Pacific

through the lens of complexity theory is that the Japanese

failed to adapt defensively to American offensive adaptations.

Similar to the American neglect of British experience, but to a

greater degree, the Japanese failed to learn from German suc45
cesses against the European air campaign. Unlike the Germans, the Japanese did not disperse their industries until it

was too late—and they did not organize a credible air defense.

The Japanese did not acquire German radar technology, but

instead used British and American radars captured during the

first years of the Pacific war. What little adaptation the Japanese did show (such as concentrating fighters and flak around

probable targets and creating “aerial Kamikazes” by ramming

American bombers) was uncoordinated and not widely

adopted. In response to the threat of aerial and naval Kamikazes

The Japanese theater presented uncertainties and unin -

tended consequences that required adaptations by each of the

services. The Army shaped itself into an image of the Marines,

learning the demands of island warfare. The Navy evolved

from the battleship to the aircraft carrier and from “Mahanian” decisive engagements to submarine warfare aimed at

strangling the enemy into submission. The Air Force and the

B-29 were not alone in the need for adaptations of strategy,

operational methods, and tactical devices in the Pacific theater.

Adaptation is required to solve the problems created by uncertainty—and war is filled with uncertainty. The uncertain -

ties presented by the introduction of the B-29 to the Pacific

theater included mechanical malfunctions, doctrinal shortcomings, and unintended consequences within the military

environment in the Pacific. Overcoming these uncertainties

required extensive technical, operational, and strategic adaptations.

Despite the difficulties it presented, the B-29 proved to be a

successful instrument for achieving strategic and operational

goals against Japan. But the bomber was successful in ways

that planners and aircraft designers had not anticipated. With

LeMay’s operational adaptations, the technology-based doctrine of precision daylight bombardment gave way to the necessity of military expediency. The technological developments

that drove the AAF’s initial employment of the B-29 proved to

be least important in the successful conduct of strategic

bombing against Japan. Touting the technological advances of

FAIRCHILD PAPER

46
pressurization and remotely controlled defensive armaments,

the B-29 succeeded not as a high-altitude precision bomber

but as a low-altitude area bomber using incendiaries against

highly vulnerable Japanese cities. Range, payload, and adaptability became its greatest assets.

Taking into account the costs of both the unforeseen difficulties and the necessary adaptations, the B-29 was a costly

high-maintenance tool for use in achieving wartime objectives.

Given the probable cost of the alternatives, however, the B-29

was almost certainly well worth it. The bomber was awesome

in sheer killing power alone; the strategic bombing survey

determined that the B-29s caused 330,000 fatalities and

806,000 injuries, far exceeding Japan’s 780,000 combat casu -

alties for the entire war. And Japan’s economy was twice destroyed , with B-29s participating in both arms of the economic strangulation of Japan—destroying industries from the

air and laying mines to cut off imports by sea. With or without

the technology of the atom bomb, the technology of the B-29

was a war winner. The experience in the Japanese theater

offers valuable insight into the successful application of

emerging technology in war.

GORMAN

47
Appendix

Timeline of Events

January 1940 Army Air Corps design requirement 

for VLR bomber

21 September 1942 First Boeing XB-29 flown in Seattle

4 April 1944 Twentieth Air Force activated in the

Pacific

5 June 1944 First XX Bomber Command mission

from China; first B-29 mission of 

the war

June – August 1944 Guam, Tinian, and Saipan in the

Marianas secured for B-29 operations

15 June 1944 First B-29 mission against mainland Japan from China

12 October 1944 First B-29 arrives in Saipan

1 November 1944 First B-29 reconnaissance mission

over Japan from Saipan

24 November 1944 First B-29 raid on Tokyo from the

Marianas

20 January 1945 LeMay replaces Hansell as Commander, XXI Bomber Command

25 February 1945 Experimental low-level incendiary

raids against Tokyo

4 March 1945 First B-29 emergency landing on

Iwo Jima

9 – 10 March 1945 Full-scale incendiary attack against

Tokyo

April – May 1945 B-29s operate in support of Okinawa invasion

49
July 1944 Headquarters, Twentieth Air Force,

transferred from the United States 

to Guam

16 July 1945 Gen Carl Spaatz assumes command of the newly created US Army

Strategic Air Force

6 August 1945 First atomic bomb dropped by a

B-29 on Hiroshima

9 August 1945 Second atomic bomb dropped on

Nagasaki

14 August 1945 A record 809 B-29s bomb targets

in Japan; Japanese government

surrenders

50
Bibliography

Theory: Complexity, Strategy, and Technology

Alberts, David S., and Thomas J. Czerwinski, eds. Complexity,

Global Politics, and National Security . Washington, D.C.:

National Defense University (NDU), 1997.

Bertalanffy, Ludwig von. General System Theory: Foundations,

Development, Applications. New York: George Braziller,

1968.

Beyerchen, Alan. “Clausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the

Unpredictability of War.” International Security 17, no. 3

(Winter 1992–93): 59–90.

Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. Michael Howard and Peter

Paret, eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

Cohen, Eliot A., and John Gooch. Military Misfortunes: The

Anatomy of Failure in War. New York: Free Press, 1990.

Etzold, Thomas H. “Clausewitzean Lessons for Modern

Strategists.” Air University Review 31, no. 4 (May–June

1980): 24–28.

Gass, R. F. Theory, Doctrine, and Ball Bearings: Adapting

Future Technology to Warfare . Monograph. Fort

Leavenworth, Kans.: School of Advanced Military Studies,

1996.

Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science . New York:

Viking, 1987.

Griggs, Roy A. “Technology and Strategy.” Airpower Journal

10, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 105–13.

Holley, Irving B. Ideas and Weapons. Washington, D.C.: Office

of Air Force History, 1985.

Jones, Archer. Elements of Military Strategy: An Historical

Approach . Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996.

Luttwak, Edward N. Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987.

51
Margiotta, Franklin, and Ralph Sanders, eds. Technology,

Strategy and National Security . Washington, D.C.: NDU

Press, 1985.

McDonnell, Robert H. “Clausewitz and Strategic Bombing.” Air

University Review 6, no. 1 (Spring 1953): 43–54.

Moore, Thomas E. “Employment of Strategic Airpower.” Air

University Review 1, no. 4 (Spring 1948): 57–65.

Ropp, Theodore. “The Strategic Dimensions of Global War.” Air

University Review 31, no. 5 (July–August 1980): 58–64.

Trimble, William F. “When a Torpedo is Not a Torpedo:

Westinghouse and the Hydrobomb.” Aerospace Historian

35, no. 4 (1988): 244–50.

Waldrop, M. Mitchell. Complexity: The Emerging Science at the

Edge of Order and Chaos . New York: Simon and Schuster,

1992.

Walker, Scott. “A Unified Field Theory of Coercive Airpower.”

Airpower Journal 11, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 70–79.

Watts, Barry D. The Foundations of U.S. Air Doctrine: The

Problem of Friction in War. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air

University Press, 1984.

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress

Air Technical Service Command (ATSC). The Superfortress.

Historical Study No. 192. April 1945.

Alexander, Richard G. “Experiment in Total War.” United

States Naval Institute Proceedings 2, no. 8 (August 1956):

837–47.

Allen, Thomas B., and Norman Polmar. Code-Name Downfall:

The Secret Plan to Invade Japan and Why Truman

Dropped the Bomb. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.

Anderton, David A. B-29 Superfortress at War. New York:

Scribner and Sons, 1978.

Army Air Forces Tactical Center (AAFTAC). Tactical Doctrine for

Very Heavy Aircraft. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air Force

Historical Research Agency (AFHRA), 248.232-11.

Arnold, Henry Harley. Global Mission . New York: Harper,

1949.

Berger, Carl. B-29: The Superfortress. New York: Ballantine,

1970.

52
Bernstein, Barton J. “The Dropping of the A-Bomb: How

Decisions are Made When a Nation is at War.” The Center

Magazine (March–April 1983): 7–15.

———. “The Perils and Politics of Surrender: Ending the War

with Japan and Avoiding the Third Atomic Bomb.” Pacific

Historical Review 46, no. 1 (1977): 1–27.

Bowman, Martin W. USAAF Handbook 1939-1945.

Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1997.

Boyne, Walter J. Clash of Wings: World War II in the Air. New

York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.

Brown, Michael E. Flying Blind: The Politics of the U.S.

Strategic Bomber Program. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University

Press, 1992.

Byrd, Martha. Kenneth N. Walker: Airpower’s Untempered

Crusader. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1997.

Caldwell, Cyril Cassidy. Air Power and Total War. New York:

Coward-McCann, 1943.

Capio, Ralph J. “The Atomic Bombings of Japan: A 50-Year

Retrospective.” Airpower Journal 9, no. 2 (Summer 1995):

65–73.

Carter, Willis G. “Strategic Bombardment and National

Objectives.” Air University Review 4, no. 3 (Spring 1951):

5–14.

Close, Winton. “B-29s in the CBI – A Pilot’s Perspective.”

Aerospace Historian 30, no. 1 (1983): 6–14.

Coakley, Robert W., and Richard M. Leighton. Global Logistics

and Strategy, 1943–1945 in United States Army in World

War II. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military

History, 1968.

Coffey, Thomas M. Hap: The Story of the United States Air

Force and the Man Who Built It, General Henry H. “Hap”

Arnold . New York: Viking, 1982.

Collison, Thomas. The Superfortress is Born: The Story of the

Boeing B-29. New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1945.

Cornelius, Wanda, and Thayne Short. Ding Hao: America’s Air

War in China, 1937–1945 . Gretna, La.: Pelican

Publishing, 1980.

53
Crane, Conrad C. Bombs, Cities, and Civilians: American

Airpower Strategy in World War II. Lawrence, Kans.:

University Press of Kansas, 1993.

Craven, Wesley Frank, and James Cate. The Army Air Forces

in World War II. 7 volumes. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press, 1948–1958.

Craven, Wesley Frank. The Pacific: Matterhorn to Nagasaki,

June 1944 to August 1945 in The Army Air Forces in World

War II. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953.

Daniels, Gordon. A Guide to the Reports of the United States

Strategic Bombing Survey . London: Offices of the Royal

Historical Society, 1981.

Daso, Dik. “Origins of Airpower: Hap Arnold’s Early Career in

Aviation Technology, 1903–1935.” Airpower Journal 10,

no. 4 (Winter 1996): 70–92.

Dower, John W. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the

Pacific War. New York: Pantheon Books, 1986.

Edoin, Hoito. The Night Tokyo Burned . New York: St. Martin’s,

1987.

Ellis, John. Brute Force: Allied Strategy and Tactics in the

Second World War. New York: Viking, 1990.

Falk, Stanley L. “General Kenney, the Indirect Approach, and

the B-29s.” Aerospace History, 1981, 147–55.

Fennessy, M.D. Project Matterhorn: A Lesson in Strategy and

Politics. Student paper. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air War

College, 1993.

Green, William. Famous Bombers of the Second World War.

Garden City, N.Y.: Hanover House, 1969.

Greenfield, Kent Roberts. American Strategy in World War II: A

Reconsideration . Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1979.

Griffith, Thomas E. MacArthur’s Airman: General George C.

Kenney and the War in the Southwest Pacific . Lawrence,

Kans.: University of Kansas Press, 1998.

Hallion, Richard P. “Prelude to Armageddon,” Air Power

History 42, no. 3 (Fall 1995): 38–54.

Hansell, Haywood S., Jr. The Air Plan That Defeated Hitler.

Atlanta, Ga.: Longino & Porter, 1972.

54
———. The Strategic Air War Against Germany and Japan: A

Memoir. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History,

1986.

———. The Strategic Air War Against Japan. Maxwell AFB,

Ala.: Air University, 1980.

Hanson,Victor Davis. “The Right Man.” Military History

Quarterly 8, no. 3 (Spring 1996): 56–65.

Haugland, Vern. The AAF Against Japan. New York: Harper,

1948.

Herbert, Kevin. Maximum Effort: The B-29s Against Japan.

Manhattan, Kans.: Sunflower University Press, 1983.

Hewitt, Edwin. Memorandum. “Report for Operations Analysis

Division, 20th Air Force, 23 December 1944.” Maxwell

AFB, Ala.: Air Force Historical Research Agency,

760.310-3.

———. “Use of the B-29 Fire Control System Against Nose

Attacks.” Report prepared for Operations Analysis

Division, 20th Air Force, 26 February 1945. Maxwell AFB,

Ala.: Air Force Historical Research Agency, 760.310-4.

Huston, John W. “The Impact of Strategic Bombing in the

Pacific.” Journal of American - East Asian Relations 4, no.

2 (1995): 169–79.

“The Wartime Leadership of ‘Hap’ Arnold,” in Alfred F. Hurley

and Robert C. Ehrhart, eds. Air Power and Warfare.

Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1979.

Johnson, Robert E. “Why the Boeing B-29 Bomber and Why

the Wright R-3350 Engine.” American Aviation Society

Historical Journal 33, no. 3 (1988): 174–89.

Kennett, Lee B. A History of Strategic Bombing. New York:

Scribner, 1982.

Kenney, George C. General Kenney Reports: A Personal History

of the Pacific War. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force

History, 1987.

Kerr, E. Bartlett. Flames Over Tokyo: The U.S. Army Air Forces’

Incendiary Campaign Against Japan, 1944–1945. New

York: D.I. Fine, 1991.

Kohn, Richard H., and Joseph P. Harahan, eds. Strategic Air

Warfare . Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History,

1988.

55
Kreis, John F., ed. Piercing the Fog: Intelligence and the Army

Air Forces Operations in World War II. Washington, D.C.:

Air Force History and Museums Program, 1996.

Laws, Bradford. “Directive Carried Out.” Media release for

20th Air Force Headquarters, 1945. Maxwell AFB, Ala.:

AFHRA, 760.01.

Levine, Alan J. The Pacific War: Japan Versus the Allies.

Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1995.

LeMay, Curtis E. Mission With LeMay: My Story . Garden City,

N.Y.: Doubleday, 1965.

———. “The Role of VLR Aircraft in Victory Over Japan.”

Article for publication in Army and Navy Journal,

1943–1944. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA, 761.04-1.

LeMay, Curtis E., and Bill Yenne. Superfortress: The B-29 and

American Air Power. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988.

Lightfoot, Edward R. “Operation Workman.” Memorandum on

staging VLR strikes through Iwo Jima, 17 January 1945.

Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA, 762.322-2.

MacFarland, Stephen Lee. America’s Pursuit of Precision

Bombing. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution

Press, 1995.

MacIsaac, David. Strategic Bombing in World War II: The Story

of the United States Strategic Bombing Survey . New York:

Garland, 1976.

———. “Voices from the Central Blue: The Air Power Theorists,”

in Peter Paret, ed. Makers of Modern Strategy from

Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age . Princeton, N.J.: Princeton

University Press, 1986.

Manzo, Louis A. “Morality in War Fighting and Strategic

Bombing in World War II.” Air Power History 39, no. 3

(Fall 1992): 35–50.

Marshall, Chester. “B-29 Superfortress” in Big Bombers of

WWII. Ann Arbor, Mich.: Lowe & B. Hould Publishers,

1998.

Marshall, Chester, and Warren Thompson. Final Assault on

the Rising Sun: Combat Diaries of B-29 Air Crews over

Japan. North Branch, Minn.: Specialty Press Publishers

and Wholesalers, 1995.

56
Maurer, Maurer, ed. Air Force Combat Units of World War II:

The Concise Official Military Record . Edison, N.J.:

Chartwell Books, 1994.

McClendon, R. Earl. Autonomy of the Air Arm. Washington,

D.C.: GPO, 1996.

Mikesh, Robert C. “B-29: Made in Japan.” American Aviation

Society Historical Journal 41, no. 4 (1996): 296–99.

Miles, Rufus. “Hiroshima: The Strange Myth of Half a Million

American Lives Saved.” International Security (Fall 1985):

121–40.

Mondey, David, and Lewis Nalls. USAAF at War in the Pacific .

New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1980.

Moody, Walton S. Building a Strategic Air Force . Washington,

D.C.: GPO, 1996.

Moon, John Ellis van Courtland. Confines of Concept:

American Strategy in World War II. New York: Garland,

1988.

Morgan, Lt Col Henry G., Jr. Planning the Defeat of Japan: A

Study of Total War Strategy . Washington, D.C.: Office of

the Chief of Military History, [n.d].

Morrison, Wilbur N. Hellbirds: The Story of the B-29s in

Combat. New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1960.

Morton, Louis. Pacific Command: A Study in Interservice

Relations. Harmon Memorial Lecture in Military History.

United States Air Force Academy, 1961.

Myers, G. E. “The Swords of Armageddon: A Discussion of the

Strategic Mystique.” Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University

Press, 1987.

Munday, Eric. USAAF at War in the Pacific. New York:

Scribner’s Sons, 1980.

———. USAAF Bomber Units, Pacific 1941–1945. London:

Osprey Publishing, 1979.

Nalty, Bernard C., John F. Shiner, and George M. Watson.

With Courage: The U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II.

Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1994.

Newman, Robert P. “Ending the War with Japan: Paul Nitze’s

‘Early Surrender’ Counterfactual.” Pacific Historical

Review 64, no. 2 (1995): 167–94.

57
Norstad, Lauris. “Organization and Command in the Pacific.”

Memorandum to Brig Gen R.C. Candee, USA, 9 July

1945. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Consolidated Arms

Research Library, N-10240.

O’Bryan, Carey L., David W. Raudenbush, and Alan D. Clark.

“The Superfortress.” Intelligence report presented October

1944. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combined Arms Research

Library, S-4207.

O’Bryan, Carey L. “Very Heavy Bomber Operations.” Report

prepared for AAF School of Applied Tactics, January

1945. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA, 248.231-1.

———. “Capabilities and Limitations of the B-29 Airplane.”

Report prepared for AAF School of Applied Tactics,

November 1944. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA, 248.231-1.

Office of Statistical Control. “Summary of Twentieth Air Force

Operations, 5 June 1944 – 14 August 1945.” 1 October

1945. Fort Leavenworth, Kans.: Combined Arms Research

Library, R-11628.

Operational Analysis Section, Twentieth Air Force

Headquarters. “A Lightweight Radar Computer

Combination for the B-29 R.C.T. System.” 23 October

1944. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA, 760.310-2.

Overy, Richard J. The Air War, 1939–1945. New York: Stein

and Day, 1981.

Pape, Robert A. “Why Japan Surrendered,” International

Security (Fall 1983): 154–201.

Perret, Geoffrey. Winged Victory . New York: Random House,

1993.

Price, Alfred. Combat Development in World War II: Bomber

Aircraft. London: Arms and Armour Press, 1989.

Quester, George H. Deterrence Before Hiroshima: The Airpower

Background of Modern Strategy . New York: John Wiley,

1966.

Roberts, Dr. Jeffrey J. “Peering through Different Bombsights:

Military Historians, Diplomatic Historians, and the

Decision to Drop the Atomic Bomb.” Airpower Journal 12,

no. 1 (Spring 1998): 66–78.

58
Rodenhauser, Jermain F. “The Doolittle Experience on the

Pacific War.” Air University Review 3, no. 4 (Spring 1950):

25–30.

Salisbury, Rexford H. “Radar Bombing.” Report for

Commanding General, Twentieth Air Force, 27 April

1945. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA, 762.502-1.

Sallager, Frederick M. Lessons From an Aerial Mining

Campaign (Operation “Starvation”). Santa Monica, Calif.:

RAND, 1974.

Schaffer, Ronald. Wings of Judgement: American Bombing in

World War II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Shannon, Donald H. “United States Air Strategy and Doctrine

as Employed in the Strategic Bombing of Japan.” Student

paper. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air War College, 1976.

Shockley, W. B. “A Quantitative Appraisal of Some Phases of

the B-29 Program.” Memorandum from the Office of the

Secretary of War, 1945. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA,

170.1-16.

Sinclair, William Boyd. The Big Brothers: The Story of the B-29.

San Antonio, Tex.: Naylor, 1972.

Smith, Lotha A. “Progress Report of Plans for Utilization of

‘Workman’.” Memorandum for Chief of Staff, Twentieth

Air Force, 1 March 1945. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA,

761.322-1.

Smith, Perry McCoy. The Air Force Plans for Peace,

1943–1945. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,

1984.

Spaatz, Carl. “Strategic Air Power: Fulfillment of a Concept.”

Foreign Affairs 24 (April 1946): 385–96.

Spector, Ronald H. Eagle Against the Sun: The American War

with Japan . New York: Vintage Books, 1985.

Strategic Bombardment Section, AAFSAT. “Very Heavy

Bomber Operations.” Lecture, November 1944 and

January 1945. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA, 248.231-1.

Swann, R.L. Unit History of the 315th Bomb Wing: 1944–1946.

Student paper. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air Command and

Staff College, 1986.

59
Tate, James P. The Army and Its Air Corps: Army Policy

Toward Aviation, 1919–1941. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air

University Press, 1998.

“Tests Relative to the Defense and Tactical Use of the B-29.”

Memorandum from the Operational Analysis Division,

Department of Physics, University of New Mexico, 15

November 1944. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA, 760.310-3.

“The Strategic Bomber.” Air University Review 8, no. 1

(Summer 1955): 89–137.

The Twentieth Air Force. A Brief Summary of B-29 Strategic Air

Operations, 5 June 1944 - 14 August 1945. Maxwell AFB,

Ala.: AFHRA, 760.421A.

Twentieth Air Force Headquarters. Air Estimate and Plans for

20th Air Force Operations, November 1944 to January

1945. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA, 760.317-1.

———. The Twentieth Air Force Over Japan. 1945. Maxwell

AFB, Ala.: AFHRA, 760.01.

Underwood, Jeffrey S. The Wings of Democracy: The Influence

of Air Power on the Roosevelt Administration, 1933–1941.

College Station, Tex.: Texas A&M University Press, 1991.

United States Joint Chiefs of Staff. Records of the Joint Chiefs

of Staff: Part 1, 1942–1945 (The Pacific Theater).

Microfilm. Frederick, Md.: University Publications of

America, 1981.

United States Strategic Bombing Surveys (European War)

(Pacific War). Reprint. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University

Press, 1987.

United States Strategic Bombing Survey. Campaigns of the

Pacific War. New York: Greenwood Press, 1969.

———. Index to the Records of the United States Strategic

Bombing Survey . Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1947.

———. Summary Report: Pacific War. Washington, D.C.: GPO,

1946.

Van Slyck, DeForest. “Superfortress Intelligence.” Special

Intelligence Report, 15 December 1944. Fort

Leavenworth, Kans.: Combined Arms Research Library,

N-5513.

60
Walker, J. Samuel. “The Decision to Use the Bomb: An

Historiographical Update.” Diplomatic History 14, no. 1

(1990): 97–114.

Werrell, Kenneth P. Blankets of Fire: U. S. Bombers Over

Japan During World War II. Washington, D.C.:

Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996.

———. “The Bombing of Japan: Three New Insights.” Unpublished paper. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Center for Aerospace

Doctrine Research and Education, 1999.

Whitcomb, Ed. On Celestial Wings. Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air

University Press, 1995.

White, Thomas D. “Japan as an Objective for Air Attack.”

Paper for the Intelligence Section, Air Corps Tactical

School, Maxwell Field, Ala., 1937–1938. Maxwell AFB,

Ala.: AFHRA, 248.501-65B.

Wylie, J. C., Jr. “Reflections on the War in the Pacific.” United

States Naval Institute Proceedings 78, no 4 (April 1952):

351–61.

XX Bomber Command. “Impact of the B-29 on Japanese

Morale.” Maxwell AFB, Ala.: AFHRA, 761.639-1.

XXI Bomber Command. Tactical Doctrine. Maxwell AFB, Ala.:

AFHRA, 762.054-9.

61
Index

Arnold, Henry “Hap”: 11

AAF adapted operationally: 36

advanced radar systems: 29

aerial mining campaign: 39

Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS): 13, 36

Air Intelligence Services: 35

Air War Plans Division-1: 2

aircraft carrier: 46

Airpower and technology: 45

Allied intelligence agents in Australia:

4 0

AN/APN-4/9 Loran navigation systems:

16

AN/ APQ-13: 36

AN/ APQ-13 radar: 16

AN/ APQ-7 Eagle targeting radar: 16

Army Air Force: 10

Army and Navy prewar planning: 9

Arnold, Gen Henry H. “Hap”: 21, 30, 41

Arnold’s “drastic measures”: 41

Arnold’s health: 41

Australia: 31

AWPD-1: 2, 9, 21

AWPD-42: 21

B-29 aircrew training: 41

B-29 in the Pacific: 4

B-29 mining operations: 39

B-29 Superfortress: 45

B-29 training base: 41

“Battle of Kansas”: 41

battleship: 46

Boeing B-17: 14

Casablanca: 9

Casablanca Conference: 21

Chennault, Claire: 30

Clausewitz, Carl von: 1, 4

Cohen, Eliot: 3

command structure in the Pacific: 31

Consolidated B-24 Liberator: 14

crew technique: 40

cutting edge of aircraft technology: 15

doctrinal shortcomings: 46

Effective and timely adaptation: 35

effects of the jet stream: 30

Eglin Air Proving Ground: 28

engine fires: 27

escort fighters: 38

escorts were no longer needed: 38

Europe first: 9

fire bombing: 36

first emergency landing on Iwo Jima: 38

first incendiary raid: 37

first to man the B-29s: 29

flight crew morale: 40

flight engineer: 29

Flying Fortress: 14

Formosa: 31

friendly fire: 28

Gooch, John: 3

grand strategy: 22

Guam: 23

Hansell, Haywood S. Jr.: 2, 9

Harmon, Millard F.: 41

head-on attacks: 38

high-altitude daylight precision

bombardment: 16

inadequacies of the defensive system: 28

initial attack on Japan’s home islands: 24

Ishigo offensive: 30

island warfare: 46

Isley Field: 30

Iwo Jima: 23, 38

Japan: 4

Japan was on the defensive: 9

Japan’s economy was twice destroyed: 47

Japanese airfields on Kyushu in support

of the: 46

Japanese attacks: 32

Japanese reconnaissance: 31

jet stream: 30

Kenney, George: 30

King, Ernest: 31

larger bomb loads: 37

last of the Matterhorn missions: 23

leaflet drops: 39

LeMay, Gen Curtis E.: 24, 36, 41

63
operational adaptations: 46

Logistical difficulties: 22

M69, a more explosive incendiary: 37

MacArthur, Douglas: 10, 30, 31

manning requirements: 29

Mariana Islands: 23

Marshall, Gen George C.: 9, 31

Martin B-10: 14

Martin B-26: 29

mechanical fixes: 40

mechanical malfunctions: 46

Military adaptation: 2

mine-laying: 39

Misfortune in war: 3

Nakajima aircraft plants in Tokyo: 24

nature of war: 4

need for pressurization: 27

negative effects on crew morale: 37

Nimitz, Chester: 10, 23, 31

Norden bombsight: 16

Oklahoma City Air Depot: 40

Operation Forager: 23

Operation Matterhorn: 22

Operation Starvation: 39

organizational parochialism: 10

overheating of the huge engines: 40

P-61 Black Widow: 32

Pearl Harbor: 9, 21

Philippines: 31

power of personalities: 10

pre-World War II planners: 3

Pressurization in the B-29: 15

Prewar United States Army Air Corps

doctrine: 13

problems with pressurization: 27

“Production line” maintenance: 40

remotely controlled defensive gunnery

system: 16

remotely controlled defensive system: 28

Roosevelt, President Franklin D.: 9, 31

Saipan: 23

Saito, Yoshitsugu: 31

service rivalries: 10

Spaatz, Carl: 31

Stilwell, Joseph: 30

Strategic Air Intelligence Section: 35

stress and flying fatigue: 40

submarine warfare: 46

Superfortress: 11

technological advances: 27

technological and operational adaptation: 2

technological complexity: 1

technology of the B-29: 47

tension between the services: 31

Tenth Fleet: 31

theater strategy in the Pacific: 9

Tinian: 23

training requirements: 29

Truk: 23

Twentieth Air Force: 22

Ultra: 39

unintended consequences: 46

United States Strategic Bombing Survey: 35

US Army in the Pacific: 10

US Navy: 9, 10, 21

US submarine attacks: 39

very long-range (VLR) bomber: 14

weather forecasting: 30

weather over Japan: 30

White, Capt Thomas D.: 36

White, Tom: 35

Wolfe, Kenneth B.: 15

Wright R-3350: 27

Wright R-3350 engine: 15

XX Bomber Command: 22, 23, 24, 39

XXI’s first missions: 23

Yamamoto, Isoruku: 36

64
Endgame in the Pacific

Complexity, Strategy, and the B-29

Air University Press Team

Chief Editor

Preston Bryant

Copy Editor

Lula Barnes

Book Design and Cover Art

Daniel M. Armstrong

Composition and

Prepress Production

Mary P. Ferguson