B-29 Superfortress Units of World War 2

Osprey Combat Aircraft #33

by Robert F. Dorr, Mark Styling (Illustrations)

The ultimate piston-engined heavy bomber of World War II (1939-1945), the first production B-29s were delivered to the 58th Very Heavy Bomb Wing in the autumn of 1943. By the spring of 1944 the Superfortress was bombing targets in the Pacific, and by war’s end the aircraft had played as great a part as any weapon in ending the conflict with the Japanese. Indeed, the final dropping of two atomic bombs from the B-29 convinced the Japanese to sue for peace. This book traces the wartime career of the B-29, as the aircraft went from strength to strength in the Pacific Theatre.

96 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 17, 2002

About the author

Author of "HITLER'S TIME MACHINE."

Author (1955- ); Air Force veteran (1957-60); retired Foreign Service officer (1964-89).

Author of about 75 books on the Air Force and on military history and operations.

Author of the weekly "Back Talk" column in Air Force Times newspaper, the monthly "Washington Watch" column in Aerospace America magazine; the monthly "Front Line" column in Combat Aircraft magazine; the monthly "Washington News" column in Air International magazine; the "The Way It Was" photo feature in Warbirds magazine; the "History Mystery" feature in Air Power History magazine, and other stuff.

I live in Virginia with spouse and Labrador retriever, have grown sons, new iMac. "HITLER'S TIME MACHINE" was published in December 2014

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I am reading about World War II I always run across different weapons, tanks, and aircraft used in battles and I need to know more about them. I always turn to Osprey books as great reference material on these subjects. Robert Dorr in correlation with Osprey Combat Aircraft has given us this book on B-29 Superfortress Aircraft. Of the 3,970 built only 26 survived in complete form today. It didn't enter combat until 1944 but played a decisive role in the defeat of Japan. With a wingspan of 141 feet and length of 99 feet it was capable of carrying up to a 10,000 pound fat bomb. Along with more information then I want to digest I got a great story about this formable foe. For the casual historian and model builder the book also give 16 pages of color artwork including close up nose art of this airplane. Dorr's book is a comprehensive, nicely illustrated volume on the career of a mighty warbird.

[Aaron Shipman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good short primer on the B-29’s use during World War 2. The information was fairly bare bones and included stories from men who had flown the bombers. If looking for a short history covering development and then combat of the B-29 this is the book for you. It is heavily illustrated and has a center section with color drawings of several wartime aircraft. The history of the aircraft depicted are later covered in an appendix. This book would be a good resource for modelers hoping for some details of the planes, due to the afore mentioned illustrations. I found the lack of a bibliography and proper citations troubling though. While the author does cite the author, and work for the first citation, he does not give page numbers nor editions. It was because of this that I knocked it a star.