The B-29’s combat debut came on June 5, 1944, when ninety-eight planes departed Kharagpur to hit Japanese-controlled railheads in Bangkok, a thousand miles away. The raid dropped 368 tons of bombs on the target, an encouraging result. Ten days later, the Superforts paid their inaugural visit to the Japanese homeland. As U.S. amphibious forces stormed the beaches of Saipan in Operation FORAGER, fifty B-29s lifted off from Chengdu to bomb the Imperial Iron and Steel Works at Yawata, Kyushu.
