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  • Invasion Plans

    After months of bombardment by AAF and naval aerial forces, Japan was reeling. By July 1945, its cities were devastated, its industrial might was crippled, and the blockade imposed by Allied aircraft, submarines and mines cut it off from outside sources of food and other supplies. AAF planes

  • Japan Devastated

    While the B-29s had been concentrating on targets in support of the invasion of Okinawa, they were able to fly two night incendiary raids on Tokyo and Yokohama. On May 14, General LeMay's Superfortresses began a series of concentrated fire bomb raids against Japan's most important industrial cities.

  • Okinawa

    The B-29 fire bombing campaign against Japan was interrupted temporarily in April and May 1945 as AAF bombers attacked airfields and aircraft plants with high-explosive bombs and mined Japanese waters in support of the invasion of Okinawa, the largest of the Ryukyu Islands. Five days after the Army

  • Ryukyus

    The capture of Iwo Jima did not completely eliminate the need for a comprehensive air-sea rescue program along the B-29 route to Japan. Such a program had begun with the first B-29 training missions and continued throughout the rest of the war, an effort that paid dividends in lives saved and in

  • Iwo Jima

    Iwo Jima, an island of volcanic rock, is located halfway between Saipan and Japan. In enemy hands, it was an obstacle to B-29 formations en route to Japan, a staging area for enemy aircraft strikes against B-29 bases in the Marianas, and a threat to air-sea rescue operations along the B-29's flight

  • Fire Bomb Raids

    On Jan. 20, 1945, Maj. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay took command of the 21st Bomber Command. Earlier, experimental missions using incendiary bombs had been carried out against Japanese cities with inconclusive results; however, a high-altitude "fire bomb" raid on Feb. 3 against the city of Kobe proved

  • Marianas

    While Gen. MacArthur's troops were poised in New Guinea in preparation for a move against the Philippines, naval forces under Admiral Chester Nimitz in the central Pacific swept into the Marianas past Truk and the Carolines to secure sites for B-29 bomber bases. Saipan was invaded on June 15, 1944,

  • The Tragic Story of The Flying Dutchman

    On Nov. 10, 1942, the C-47 nicknamed The Flying Dutchman (S/N 41-18564) hit a strong down-draft over the Owen Stanley Range while carrying U.S. Army troops from Port Moresby to Pongani, New Guinea. It crashed into the side of Mount Obree, killing seven of the 23 onboard and destroying most of the

  • Brig. Gen. Clinton D. "Casey" Vincent

    Clinton D. Vincent was the second youngest general officer in Air Force history, earning his star at the age of 29. After only seven years of service in the armed forces, he rose to the temporary rank of brigadier general. Vincent spent the first year of World War II with the Karachi American Air

  • Development of the Boeing B-29

    Development of the Boeing Superfortress "very heavy bomber" began late in 1939, and the first XB-29 made its initial flight on Sept. 21, 1942. In a bold wartime gamble, the AAF ordered the plane into quantity production months before that first flight. Among the B-29's new features were pressurized