Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [26]
However, the Superfortress’s debut in homeland skies could not help but make an impression on individual Japanese. An author, Masataka Kosaka, would write of “the sight of a glistening B-29 trailing white vapor high in the sky.” It engendered an eerie mixture of fascination and fear, comparable to the emotion that American sailors would shortly experience in watching kamikazes. But the Superfortress represented something more. Kosaka declared, “its beauty and technological perfection . . . came to symbolize the superior strength and higher civilization of the United States.”
The military view was expressed by Lieutenant Commander Mitsugu Kofukuda of the Sixth Air Corps: “By the time the B-29 Superfortress appeared . . . we had achieved great strides in increasing the firepower of our fighters and interceptors. However, even these steps came too late, for the B-29 represented a remarkable advance over the tough B-17, and we were unable to keep pace with American engineering developments.”
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On July 4, Ken Wolfe was recalled to Washington for a session on Arnold’s carpet. Despite his avuncular demeanor, Hap was not a happy warrior. Officially he lauded Wolfe but behind the scenes he was testy and impatient. Some 20th Air Force office politics only exacerbated the situation. The chief of staff, Haywood Hansell, expressed displeasure with Wolfe’s attitude, which was considered pessimistic. Though having few friends at court, Wolfe saw his view as realistic: his command had been committed to combat prematurely without adequate training or support. In truth, Wolfe probably did the best he could at the time. His role in bringing the Superfortress into service merited more recognition than condemnation.
Nevertheless, Wolfe was out after only three missions, the second to Japan occurring while he was in Washington. Learning that he had been “promoted” to overseeing B-29 production and training, he cabled the 58th Wing that he would not be returning and that a new commander would be named. That could only be Major General Curtis LeMay, America’s foremost bomber commander, just returned to the States from England. Meanwhile, wing commander Blondie Saunders would remain in caretaker status until returning stateside for a new assignment.
Years later, Curtis LeMay blamed the higher-ups (by inference, Hap Arnold) for the gremlins dogging the B-29 and unfairly treating Ken Wolfe: “People sat around a table and said, ‘Let K.B. [Wolfe] take it out there. He’ll be able to do it.’” As an unexcelled operator, LeMay recognized that Wolfe the engineer had been handed a near impossible task.
Three weeks passed before enough supplies could be stocked to support the second Empire mission, and it left much to be desired. On the night of July 7—the day after Saunders temporarily took over from Wolfe—just seventeen Superfortresses were sent to bomb Sasebo, Omura, and Tobata. Three diverted to secondary and “last resort” targets around Hankow, China. The mini-mission cost two planes, including one from the 40th Group that burned from an electrical fire on the ground. Another, from the 462nd, ditched with three of the crew drowned. The Omura plant was untouched and other damage was light.
On the 29th, the 58th Wing launched against the steel works at Anshan, Manchuria. One plane was ganged by fighters; one succumbed to flak and another crashed near Likiang. But the mission was noteworthy in that one B-29 was lost forever when it landed at Vladivostok with flak damage. Ramp Tramp thus became the first Superfortress retained by America’s Soviet allies, being reverse-engineered after the war to produce the Tupolev Tu-4 “Bull,” Russia’s first nuclear-capable bomber.
The third B-29 mission to Japan was flown on August 10–11, nearly two months after the first. Two dozen bombers attacked individually in the Nagasaki area. More significantly, that same night thirty-one bombers staged through Ceylon to attack a Japanese refinery in Sumatra, Dutch East Indies. Other Superfortresses dropped