"It was a plane so advanced, we wrote in June 1945 about how one crew fought off 79 fighter planes, downing 7 of them, during a bombing run on Kyushu, Japan. Its weapons platform was so dominant that fighter escorts were no longer strictly necessary—as Major General Curtis LeMay put it simply: "These big boys can take care of themselves."
Remember that the war was basically over at that point, and they were fighting against an enemy starved of resources and experienced manpower, particularly pilots (cf. kamikaze tactics).
The "79 fighter planes" claim doesn't pass the sniff test to me either. Remember that two months after this, the Japanese didn't even bother sending fighters to even try to intercept the planes that bombed Hiroshima (for example).
I'm not saying that the claim is definitely false, but I wouldn't take anything written in the press during the actual war at face value.
I always figured the Japanese assumed the plane in the case of Hiroshima was a reconnaissance plane gathered ground photographs and checking on the weather. As you correctly noted, they didn't have many resources. I'd figure a lone reconnaissance plane would rank pretty low on the list of targets they were trying to intercept.
The "79 fighter planes" claim doesn't pass the sniff test to me either. Remember that two months after this, the Japanese didn't even bother sending fighters to even try to intercept the planes that bombed Hiroshima (for example).
The first proposition is a reasonable explanation for the second. If you're not willing to lose 79 fighters, then don't engage a B-29.
There's a recorded instance of a B29 shooting down 14 fighters over Tokyo (it was also rammed by two fighters and still made it home). There are also instances of B29s downing MiGs over Korea.
The late model B17s were pretty effective too. An old Strategy & Tactics magazine quoted stats for two different air forces (recall it was the "US Army Air Corps" and "Air Forces" were simply an organizational unit) operating out of Britain over a two year period in WWII, one was bombers and the other fighters. Both shot down roughtly the same number of planes -- but the bombers used 100x as much ammunition. (Sorry, this is a 1970s print publication, no link, just my memory.)
Also recall that the Japanese lost almost all their trained pilots early in the war, so the B29 was using a far superior weapon system against very inexperienced pilots.
Kill claims are notoriously overestimated during this period, frequently by ratios of 5:1 or more. The only reliable way to estimate kills is to look at enemy records and see how many aircraft were recorded as lost during a given period.
Take a look at some of the entries here; April 17th stands out.
"the 91st and 306th Bomb Groups claimed 63 German fighters destroyed, plus 15 probable and 17 damaged. Only two were confirmed destroyed, with nine damaged."
"It was a plane so advanced, we wrote in June 1945 about how one crew fought off 79 fighter planes, downing 7 of them, during a bombing run on Kyushu, Japan. Its weapons platform was so dominant that fighter escorts were no longer strictly necessary—as Major General Curtis LeMay put it simply: "These big boys can take care of themselves."
Remember that the war was basically over at that point, and they were fighting against an enemy starved of resources and experienced manpower, particularly pilots (cf. kamikaze tactics).
The "79 fighter planes" claim doesn't pass the sniff test to me either. Remember that two months after this, the Japanese didn't even bother sending fighters to even try to intercept the planes that bombed Hiroshima (for example).
I'm not saying that the claim is definitely false, but I wouldn't take anything written in the press during the actual war at face value.
I always figured the Japanese assumed the plane in the case of Hiroshima was a reconnaissance plane gathered ground photographs and checking on the weather. As you correctly noted, they didn't have many resources. I'd figure a lone reconnaissance plane would rank pretty low on the list of targets they were trying to intercept.
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The "79 fighter planes" claim doesn't pass the sniff test to me either. Remember that two months after this, the Japanese didn't even bother sending fighters to even try to intercept the planes that bombed Hiroshima (for example).
The first proposition is a reasonable explanation for the second. If you're not willing to lose 79 fighters, then don't engage a B-29.
http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&...
There's a recorded instance of a B29 shooting down 14 fighters over Tokyo (it was also rammed by two fighters and still made it home). There are also instances of B29s downing MiGs over Korea.
The late model B17s were pretty effective too. An old Strategy & Tactics magazine quoted stats for two different air forces (recall it was the "US Army Air Corps" and "Air Forces" were simply an organizational unit) operating out of Britain over a two year period in WWII, one was bombers and the other fighters. Both shot down roughtly the same number of planes -- but the bombers used 100x as much ammunition. (Sorry, this is a 1970s print publication, no link, just my memory.)
Also recall that the Japanese lost almost all their trained pilots early in the war, so the B29 was using a far superior weapon system against very inexperienced pilots.
Kill claims are notoriously overestimated during this period, frequently by ratios of 5:1 or more. The only reliable way to estimate kills is to look at enemy records and see how many aircraft were recorded as lost during a given period.
Take a look at some of the entries here; April 17th stands out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_and_overclaiming_...
"the 91st and 306th Bomb Groups claimed 63 German fighters destroyed, plus 15 probable and 17 damaged. Only two were confirmed destroyed, with nine damaged."
Honestly that sounds like bullshit to me. See the Clash of Wings documentary, episode 11, for more about the bombing of Japan with the B-29.
Summary please?
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