Whirlwind - Barrett Tillman [66]
LeMay went even further than adopting unorthodox tactics. Except for the tail guns, most .50 calibers were removed from B-29s to save weight. Similarly, without having to climb to 25,000 or 30,000 feet, less fuel was required, with less strain (and therefore less maintenance) on the finicky R-3350 engines. All those factors translated into extra ordnance.
Flying in the face of airpower orthodoxy, the bomber chief impressed his subordinates with his almost eerie outward calm. But despite LeMay’s stoicism, others entertained serious doubts. Recalled a 73rd Bomb Wing officer, “For almost a week most of us wondered if we were planning the greatest disaster in aviation history.”
The planning behind major bombing missions involved multiple factors, often interdependent. Timing was a major challenge, especially given the geographic distribution of the bomber bases (Guam to Tinian to Saipan was 140 miles). Furthermore, barely one B-29 could take off per minute from each runway. That translated to a 300-plane bomber stream some 400 miles long, nose to tail.
Rising from their far-flung roosts, the silvery bombers spread an aerial net over the Central Pacific. Forming up by squadrons, groups, and wings, they droned through the humid atmosphere, striving to arrive at a point in time and space where each B-29 was properly positioned for its 1,500-mile-run to Japan. In order to provide the maximum concentration of force over the target, every Superfortress needed precise navigation and skilled flying for optimum results.
Between scheduled missions to Japan, the 73rd, 313th, and newly arrived 314th Wing worked hard in February, learning more about joining up, flying, and bombing at night. The building blocks of success were formed at the most basic level: eleven men per bomber, each having mastered his own specialty and fitting into the larger entity of the crew.
The 20th Air Force planned a ten-day fire blitz, using every incendiary in the Marianas and all that the Navy could deliver in that time. In early March LeMay would start with Tokyo and work his way down the list: Kobe, Nagoya, and Osaka. The logisticians told him that no replacement incendiaries would be available before the second week in April.
The effort leading up to the Tokyo raid was immense. Orchestrating the work of as many men as a light armored division was LeMay’s operations officer, Colonel John Montgomery. In the day and a half before takeoff, some 13,000 men on three Pacific islands toiled almost without stop. Mechanics brought each plane’s four engines to the best possible condition. By hand or by truck, ordnancemen hauled bomb bodies from storage dumps to the hardstands where “bomb builders” attached tail fins, hoisted the weapons into the cavernous bomb bays, and inserted fuses. Fuel trucks drove from plane to plane, filling their tanks with 100/130-octane gasoline. According to Montgomery, preparing a combat wing for a maximum effort was “a helluva lot worse than planning a maintenance schedule for an airline.”
That was an understatement. Maintenance was the axle upon which operations turned because it dictated the number of planes airworthy for each mission. Typically, XXI Bomber Command’s in-commission rate hovered around 60 percent, meaning two in five Superfortresses were unavailable. But for the Tokyo strike Montgomery drove and inspired his “wrench benders” to a superlative effort, finally preparing 83 percent of the command’s B-29s for the forthcoming fire raid. In such numbers lay the secret of America’s success in the Pacific air war. They also reflected the ethos of industry that would drive the country forward into the booming postwar era.
Finally the preparations were complete after thirty-six hours of nonstop toil. Blitz Week began with a green flare arcing into the moist Marianas air on Friday afternoon, March 9. LeMay and his chief of staff, Brigadier General August Kissner, watched Brigadier General Tommy Power lead the new 314th Wing off Guam’s North