The Free Lance-Star (June 15, 1944)
JAPAN BOMBED AGAIN
U.S. super-bombers attack homeland
B-29 Superfortresses of 20th Air Force strike powerful blow from Asiatic bases; sky battleships blast targets on mainland
Washington (AP) –
The Army threw a new fighting giant into the war in the Pacific today, turning loose the new B-29 Superfortress in an air attack on the Japanese homeland.
It was the first fighting assignment for the sky mammoth, and the announcement also served to disclose for the first time the existence of the 20th Air Force (of which the 20th Bomber Command is a part), a world-roaming unit under the personal direction of Gen. H. H. Arnold, chief of the Army Air Forces.
The War Department withheld details of the new bombing of Japan proper – the first such attack on the mainland since the Doolittle raid of April 18, 1942.
There was no immediate hint of what part of Nippon had been hit, nor from where the B-29s went into action.
The War Department subsequently disclosed that planes taking part
The B-29, it was disclosed for the first time, is a heavily armored ship whose bombload, range and ceiling exceed that of any other plane. It is powered by four engines of 2,200 horsepower each, each carrying two superchargers. Its wingspan is 141.2 feet, as compared with the B-17s (Flying Fortress) span of 104 feet.
Arnold said in connection with the announcement:
This employment of the B-29 makes possible the softening up attack on Japan very much earlier than would be possible with aircraft hitherto known to combat.
The text of the communiqué said:
B-29 Superfortresses of the U.S. Army Air Forces 20th Bomber Command bombed Japan today.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall, in a statement on the attack made public by the War Department, said that the Superfortress introduced a new type of offensive against the enemy and “also creates a new problem in the application of military force.”
Because of the tremendous range and heavy bombload of this newest bombardment plane, said Marshall, they can strike “from many and remote bases at a single objective.”
Considered as task force
Their power is so great, the Chief of Staff continued, that the U.S. Joints Chiefs of Staff decided it would be uneconomical to confine the Superfortress organization to a single theater, and “these bombers therefore will remain under the centralized control of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with a single commander, Gen. Arnold, acting as their agent in directing their bombing operations throughout the world.”
Marshall said:
The planes will be treated as major task forces in the same manner as naval task forces are directed against specific objectives.
This type of flexible, centralized control recognizes that very long-range bombardment is not a weapon for the Air Forces alone. Under the Joint Chiefs of Staff, thereafter commanders will have a voice in its employment, ensuring that maximum effectiveness will be obtained through missions which will contribute directly to the overall strategy for the defeat of the enemies.
Doolittle raid two years ago
It was the second U.S. raid on the Japanese homeland. On April 18, 1942, when U.S. military fortunes were at their lowest, the nation was electrified by word that Tokyo and other Japanese cities had been attacked from the air.
The first announcement then came from the Japanese and it was not until weeks later that it was learned that a force of B-25 Mitchell bombers under James H. Doolittle, then only a lieutenant colonel but now a lieutenant general commanding the 8th Air Force in Britain, had carried out that adventurous mission.
The Mitchells flew from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet and after crossing Japan flew on to the continent. One landed in eastern Siberia, the others in China. Some of them came down in Japanese-held territory and a few of the fliers were taken captive. Months later, the Japanese themselves made it known that some of those prisoners had been executed.