IN 1932, THE AIRPOWER VISIONARY BILLY MITCHELL, a retired army aviator, had called for the development of a heavy bomber with a flying range of 5,000 miles, a bomb-load capacity of 10,000 pounds, and a service ceiling of 35,000 feet. At the time, the idea had seemed futuristic and fantastic, like a machine conjured up in the imagination of Jules Verne or H. G. Wells. But the 1930s was a decade of long strides in aviation. By 1940, as Hitler’s armies rampaged across Europe, aeronautical engineers believed that a very heavy, very long-ranged pressurized bomber had become feasible. With FDR’s
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