Fact Sheet Alphabetical List

Fact Sheet Search

  • The Mission

    The world entered a new era on Aug. 6, 1945, when the crew of the B-29 Enola Gay released an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan. Maj. Charles W. Sweeney, commander of the 393rd Bomb Squadron, accompanied the Enola Gay on the mission, piloting the B-29 The Great Artiste as an observation aircraft. The

  • "Bockscar": The Aircraft that Ended WWII

    By August 1945, U.S. Navy submarines and aerial mining by the Army Air Forces severely restricted Japanese shipping. The AAF controlled the skies over Japan and the AAF's B-29 bombing attacks crippled its war industry. A plan for the invasion of Japan had been drawn up; Operation Olympic was

  • Japan Surrenders

    Following the end of hostilities, weather and photo-reconnaissance flights continued over Japan while other B-29s made mercy flights to drop food and supplies to 154 prisoner of war camps in Japan, China and Korea, where Allied personnel were being held captive. On Sept. 2 in ceremonies onboard the

  • 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,