Air University Review, May-June 1967

The First of the Twenty-First

Major General Haywood S. Hansell, Jr., USAF (Ret)

The author, Major General Haywood S. (“Possum”) Hansell, Jr., USAF (Ret), shepherded the B-29 air offensive plans, including establishment of the twentieth Air Force and capture of the Mariana Islands, through the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General Hansell served as commander of the XXI Bomber Command until 20 January 1945, when he was rotated to the United States.

The achievements of American air power in World War II are well documented and well known. They constitute a fascinating and exhilarating story of mature and victorious strength. In the latter part of the war in the Pacific, the XX Bomber Command and the XXI Bomber Command were combined and ultimately became the world’s most powerful air force, the Twentieth Air Force. In its maturity, the XXI Bomber Command became an American legend, but its early days—from birth to adolescence to commitment in battle—are less well known and, unfortunately, not well documented. It is with the thought of describing the modest beginnings which led to such magnificent power and stature that this brief résumé has been compiled.

To begin at the beginning, one must describe the circumstances in which the XXI was created and the purposes for which it was commissioned.

In the beginning there was division. There was division of opinion, hotly contested, as to whether there really was such a thing as decisive air power, to be considered in the same context as land power and sea power. There was division, even more hotly contested, as to who should control it and how it should be organized and employed.

The proponents of air power in 1941 put forth their thesis in Air War Plans Division—Plan 1 (AWPD-1). The plan called for a major strategic air offensive, to achieve, in itself, a major military purpose. It espoused a purpose which would make a signal contribution to victory in war and which might, in fact, be conclusive. It did not deny land power and sea power. It contemplated concerted action by all three. But it did contend that air power could, in some circumstances, be the decisive factor in war.

AWPD-1, prepared before Pearl Harbor, described the end purpose of air warfare against Axis Europe in these terms:

To wage a sustained air offensive against European Axis Military Power. To apply air power for a breakdown of the industrial and economic structure of Germany. To support a final offensive if invasion becomes necessary.

The end purpose of air warfare against Japan, to be undertaken after victory in Europe, was described in similar vein in AWPD-42, dated 9 September 1942.

Because the environment of the future war was not clear, AWPD-l called for three types of strategic bomber aircraft with which to pursue the air offensive:

· B-17s and B-24s (then in existence) for use if European bases were available

· B-29s and B-32s (both then in the project stage) for use from British, Near East, and African bases against Axis Europe and from Pacific bases against Japan

· A 4000-mile-radius bomber (then a design objective) for use from Western Hemisphere bases if overseas bases were not available.

The B-17s and B-24s were the backbone of strategic air warfare in the European Theater. The 4000-mile-radius bomber became the B-36, but it was not ready in time for World War II. The B-29 was developed and put in mass production and became available in time for employment in the Pacific. It was a major strategic weapon which had to be reckoned with in the preparation of overall war strategy in the Pacific.

The creation of this powerful air weapon, the B-29, really marked the conception of the XXI Bomber Command, for the B-29’s potential demanded recognition in the formulation of Pacific war plans.

Solution of the problem of the command of strategic air forces was even more difficult than solution of the technical problems posed by the extravagant requirements demanded of the bomber airplane. Unity of command was a cherished military concept in both the Army and the Navy. In the Army this unity was achieved by designating single commanders to exercise command over all units within specific geographical boundaries. In the Navy it was achieved by retaining control of combat naval forces under ultimate command of the top naval echelon of the nation. Fleet units were almost never assigned to territorial command areas, and when they were it was always with the proviso that they could be withdrawn at any moment for employment elsewhere if the naval situation should so require.

Strategic air forces did not fit either concept, but their command characteristics more closely resembled those of the Navy than those of the Army. The long-range air force straddled several land commands. Its bombers might be based in many areas, each of which was under separate Army or Navy jurisdiction. But bombers of the strategic air forces had to have unity at the target area, and they had to have continuity of application if they were to accomplish their strategic mission. The very flexibility which constituted the cardinal virtue of strategic bombers constituted their greatest vulnerability: there was a constant temptation to divert them from their long-range strategic war objectives to targets that were critical only to local area commanders.

Several tentative steps toward unification of strategic air command had taken place in Europe. The Combined Chiefs of Staff gave the Chief of Staff of the Royal Air Force the role of coordinator over the U.S. Eighth Air Force and the RAF Bomber Command. Later the Eighth in England and the Twelfth in the Mediterranean were coordinated by General Carl A. Spaatz. Still later, the Eighth in England and the Fifteenth in the Mediterranean were combined into United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe, under actual command of General Spaatz.

But the problem of unity of command became very acute indeed as primary attention turned to Japan and the B-29 force began to emerge. In order to apply this very heavy bomber (VHB) force against Japan proper, which was its real role, plans were made to establish a number of bases within action radius of Japan. Three bases were to be in China, the Marianas, Alaska, and either the Philippines or Formosa.

The first of these plans, called “Project Matterhorn,” resulted in establishment of bases in India and China. U.S. forces there were under command of General Daniel I. Sultan, U.S. Army. He in turn was a part of the Allied command headed by Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, Royal Navy. The Joint Staff planners proposed placing four groups of B-29s in the Philippines, which, when recaptured, would be under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. Plans were also being prepared for placing B-29s in the central Pacific and in Alaska. The Mariana Islands, which were to be captured largely for this purpose, would be under the command of Admiral Chester Nimitz, U.S. Navy.

Each of these base areas was under a separate theater command, and these field commanders were very powerful people indeed. Each had strategic purposes to be achieved. Each wanted to apply the B-29s to his own strategic theater purposes. Each resented any incursion into his area of control. Yet there was one area in which unity of air command and continuity of effort was imperative, and that was the target area itself, Japan, which was under the control of none of them.

In March 1944 the Air Staff presented to the Joint Chiefs of Staff its concept of Pacific strategy. It called for a concerted bomber offensive against the Japanese home islands. In order to carry out this air offensive, the Air Staff advocated capture of the Marianas and establishment of the main B-29 force there. When the Philippines had been retaken, a B-29 force was to be established there also. The B-29s in Chengtu, China, were to be moved forward when better base areas became available. A base was to be constructed in the Aleutian Islands as well. The main thesis of the plan was a unified and concerted air bombardment, concentrated against a single list of targets in the Japanese home islands and coordinated through a unified air command.

Actually it was the similarity of this air problem to the traditional naval problem which finally was persuasive. At least, it was this similarity which persuaded Admiral Ernest J. King to accept the idea of a strategic air force that would be assigned to none of the surface commands but would report directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The concept was similar to that under which the U.S. Fleets operated: they reported to the Joint Chiefs, and the Chief of Naval Operations functioned for the Joint Chiefs as their executive agent. Admiral King accepted the parallel concept of a strategic air force that would report to the Joint Chiefs, with General Henry H. Arnold as its commander and executive agent of the Joint Chiefs.

Admiral King’s endorsement was vital because the bulk of the bombers would be in the Pacific Ocean area, which was a naval command. General George C. Marshall, with his typical breadth of vision, supported the concept. The plan was accepted and approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff on 10 April 1944. General Arnold was designated the commander of the new strategic air force. He in turn appointed me its Chief of Staff, in addition to my assignment as Deputy Chief of Air Staff. The Headquarters Army Air Forces served General Arnold as headquarters of the Twentieth Air Force.

The new strategic air force was even given an out-of-sequence number in order to enhance the idea that it was a different sort of creature. It was designated the Twentieth Air Force, though there was no Sixteenth, Seventeenth, Eighteenth, or Nineteenth. The Twentieth Air Force was conceived to have, eventually, three or four bomber commands: the XX Bomber Command in China-India, the XXI in the Marianas, the XXII in the Philippines or Formosa, and perhaps a XXIII in Alaska.

Although this decision made possible the development of the bomber offensive against Japan, it did not mark the close of the argument from the theater field commanders. They continued their efforts to gain control of the B-29 units in their areas. General MacArthur’s headquarters was especially insistent and coupled its requests with a strong contention that B-29 operations out of the Marianas were militarily and technically unfeasible.

As a result, the Twentieth Air Force was under extreme pressure to perform. One major slip and the critics would have had their way; the Twentieth Air Force would have been dismembered and parceled out to the various theaters. An understanding of this tension and pressure is vital to an understanding of the early struggle of the XXI Bomber Command to meet its commitments. We had given a pledge to launch an air offensive against Japan in November (1944). This action was tied into the carefully prepared plans for the Pacific campaigns of Admiral Nimitz and General MacArthur.

The target date had to be met, and the success of a highly controversial operation had to be demonstrated if air power was to reach fruition in World War II.

The XXI Bomber Command was activated at Smoky Hill Army Air Field, Salina, Kansas, on 1 March 1944. The XX Bomber Command was then in process of establishment in the China-Burma-India Theater.

The 73d Wing, which was originally scheduled for the XX Bomber Command, was transferred to the XXI when the XX was reduced from two wings (eight groups) to one wing, the 58th. The XXI Bomber Command was trained and staffed by the Second Air Force. The headquarters of the command was later moved from Salina to Peterson Field, Colorado. 

Creation of the parent organization, the Twentieth Air Force, did not take place until 12 April of that year. The Twentieth was to consist of a thousand B-29s in combat units, supported by necessary auxiliary units and given the necessary training.

When I took command of the XXI Bomber Command on 28 August 1944, the units of the 73d Wing were training for radar bombing at night, along the pattern of the XX Bomber Command in China, of which it was to have been a part. The XX, because of its location, logistics problems, and relationship to the main target areas, had been assigned target priorities different from those of the XXI. The Japanese airplane and engine factories were not within range of the bases in China. The XX operated primarily at night, using radar bombing techniques. Precision bombing was neither feasible nor expected.

On the other hand, the aircraft factories and engine factories assigned as targets to the XXI Bomber Command, based in the Marianas, were precision targets. As a matter of fact, they had yet to be located precisely--a major task for the reconnaissance squadron of the XXI. They could not be found, hit, and destroyed with the radar bombing equipment we had available at the time. So the units had to be retrained on a crash basis to do high-altitude, daylight precision bombing and to fly in formations which had not yet been selected. The airplane and engine factory targets were at the extreme limit of the B-29 radius of action as it was then. Formation flying always reduces available range, making completion of missions even more problematical. As a matter of fact, it took several months of actual operation to master the techniques of fuel control that would give the B-29 its design capability.

There was spirited dispute at the time over this change in bombing tactics. The dispute persists, but the reasoning is not hard to trace.

Our only real experience in massive bombing operations had taken place over Europe. The whole concept of American air power--the selection and destruction of vital targets on the ground through precision bombing--had faced the possibility of disastrous failure there. The ability of massive bomber formations to fight their way through enemy defenses and reach remote targets, without intolerable losses, came dangerously close to being disproved. If the German fighter forces had been left free to expand, the price might have been too high. And if that price had been too high, the air offensive would have failed and with it the hope of surface invasion.

The bombers of the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces had to be directed against the sources of enemy fighter development and strength: the aircraft and engine factories, the air bases, and the sources of aviation fuel.  These constituted the targets of the intermediate objective: the enemy air force. At the earliest possible time the penetration capability of the bomber formations had to be supplemented by escort fighters.

This experience in Europe obviously weighed heavily in the establishment of target systems in Japan. The aircraft and engine factories, and to a more limited extent the oil resources of Japan, Were established as the intermediate objective, to receive first priority in point of time.

The other lesson of European air combat simply could not be applied initially to the Twentieth Air Force. The range of the B-29 was such that no escort fighters could accompany the formations. Until Iwo Jima could be captured and a fighter base established there, the bombers would be entirely on their own. This was really the most controversial point of all. Seasoned experts on every hand assured us that the B-29s would simply be shot out of the air. But it was a risk that had to be taken if the strategic purposes were to be achieved. And the B-29s had some other factors working for them: greatly improved defensive fire power and high-altitude performance.

Orders for conversion to daylight tactics were issued early in September, and tactical doctrine for daylight operations was established. Training was intensive. But training missions from Kansas to Cuba, simulating the mission from Saipan to Japan, left bombers down all over the Gulf States. Meanwhile the pressure to commit the command to combat was becoming intense.

Final practice missions were flown, groups of the 73d Wing participating in two long-range missions, which stressed take-off, assembly, rendezvous, formation flying, and simulated frontal penetration.

Although the Marianas were captured on the initiative and insistence of the Army Air Forces to serve as a base for B-29 Operations in the Pacific, the decision was taken before crews had had enough flying experience with the aircraft to know really what their performance was. Initial experience in the training area indicated that the distance from the Marianas to Tokyo, 1200 miles one way, was so great that the round trip was very marginal for the B-29, even on paper, and without opposition. Obviously there would be no land-based fighters for the first part of the campaign, before the capture of Iwo Jima, and the Marianas were separated from Tokyo by more than a thousand miles of hostile environment: the Pacific Ocean.

When the time came to move the first units to Saipan six weeks later, the crews had averaged less than one hundred hours of total flying time in the B-29, and the average high altitude formation flying experience was less than twelve hours. The engines of the B-29 had developed a very mean tendency to swallow valves and catch fire. The magnesium crank cases burned with a fury that defied all extinguishing efforts. In addition, gunsighting blisters were either blowing out at high altitude or frosting up so badly that it was impossible to see through them, but there was no time to fix them properly.

A request was made by the XXI Bomber Command that units be flown to Saipan, under Air Transport Command control, in squadron formations in order to get precious experience in flying formation for considerable distances. This was denied on the ground that the airplane lacked sufficient range to fly from Sacramento to Hawaii, 2400 miles, in formation. The flight would have been without a bomb load, in the face of no opposition, and with excellent communications, weather reporting, and base facilities. These same units, on arrival in Saipan, were faced with a round trip of about 2500 miles, with bomb loads, in the face of enemy opposition, and with no weather data or communications.

Two bases, each with two 8500-foot paved runways and 80 hardstands, necessary shops, housing, fueling facilities, and other essentials, were supposed to be ready on Saipan. The bases were to have been built by the Central Pacific Area Command, but stubborn interference by the Japanese garrisons in the Pacific and competition from U.S. Navy construction work had set the schedule back by several months.

I landed the first B-29, “Joltin’ Josie, the Pacific Pioneer,” at Saipan’s Isley Field on 12 October 1944, with Major (now Major General) Jack J. Catton as my copilot. A rousing reception from the men who had been laboring in tropical heat and rain to build the field greeted our arrival.

Of the two bases under construction on Saipan, one could not then be used at all by B-29s, and the other had one runway 7000 feet long--5000 feet of it paved--a taxiway at one end only, about forty hardstands, and no other facilities whatever except for a bomb dump and a vehicle park with gasoline truck-trailers. It was hardly ready to receive the 12,000 men and 180 aircraft potential of the 73d Wing. Ground crews put up borrowed tents in what was certainly one of the most disorderly military encampments of the war, but they worked day and night to meet the demands for the first strike.

The bases on nearby Tinian Island had hardly been started. Those in Guam, where the main headquarters of the XXI Bomber Command was to be located, had not even been started. Communications were completely inadequate. The aircraft of the 73d Wing arrived rapidly on Saipan after mid-October and had to be double-parked on hardstands. In the meantime a shipload of supplies arrived at Guam, to become a depot.

The ship had been carefully loaded so that supplies could be unloaded in reverse sequence and stacked at the depot in “combat loaded” order. The procedure was new and elaborate but one which would give us an operating depot in a matter of weeks. Actually, fighting was still going on in Guam, and confusion reigned supreme. The harbor master said, “I’ll give you twenty-four hours to get that— —ship out of here.” The supplies were dumped in the jungle and never recovered. It became necessary to supply and maintain the B-29s, themselves new and unfamiliar, by air all the way from Sacramento, California—8000 miles away! The in-commission rate was low.

As indicated earlier, the strategic concept was for the defeat or neutralization of the Japanese air forces as an intermediate objective. The major strategic air offensive was against the war-supporting and economic systems of Japan, the primary objective. The plan of operations against the primary objective contemplated destruction of major selected industrial facilities by direct attack and burning out of the major cities in order to eliminate the small supporting industries, which were known to be widely distributed in Japanese homes and residential areas. (Sample Japanese villages were actually built in Nevada, and various types of incendiaries were tried against them. From these tests and experiments, incendiary bombs and clusters were designed and put into mass production.) 

The primary target system assigned to XXI Bomber Command by agreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, giving first place to Japanese aircraft and aircraft engine factories, was not lightly conceived. It had been learned that air superiority is necessary in order to carry out effective surface operations and invasions as well as major strategic air operations. The Joint Chiefs had been persuaded to back the air offensive, but they were looking over the shoulders of the airmen at the invasion shore. Second priority was given to Japanese industry, which was distributed throughout the great urban industrial areas, and third to Japanese shipping.

It must be remembered that the Twentieth Air Force had won its right to exist only by becoming a creature of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The official war plans of the JCS did contemplate invasion, and the Twentieth Air Force could not be divorced from that ultimate concept. Certainly that was wise in the early stages. Air power, applied by itself, had never before been sufficient to bring about capitulation of a major nation that was still in full control of its own military means. What if the strategic air offensive should not be effective? The Joint Chiefs simply had to have a backup plan. To be sure, there was some skepticism of air power, but even if there had not been, it would have been unwise to fail to provide for a backup. Actually the JCS did give the Twentieth Air Force priority second to none in the creation and launching of the force, and they did direct the capture of the Marianas as a base of operation of the XXI Bomber Command.

It has been implied that the air strategists who conducted the early operations of the XXI had limited vision and were too much influenced by the need to pave the way for invasion. This is not so.

The pattern of B-29 operations against targets in Japan was not conditioned by the limited conception of the role of air power inherent in the basic idea of defeating Japan by ground invasion. The initial target list had as its objective the defeat of the Japanese air force, but this, like the defeat of the German air force, was an intermediate objective. It was considered a necessary preliminary in order to ensure and enhance the effectiveness of strategic bombing operations. To be sure, the objective also contributed to successful future ground and sea operations. But the primary objectives were essentially the same as those in Germany: the military, economic, industrial, and social structure, which supported the will and the ability of the Japanese nation to wage war.

Plans for the first bombing of Japan from the Marianas called initially for a combined first strike with the Navy, so that carrier-based aircraft would divert some of the Japanese fighter defenses and absorb some of their capability. For the rest, the B-29s would have to depend upon high altitude (their principal advantage) and their own defensive gunfire. The B-29 was designed as a high-altitude bomber, the first to have pressurized crew compartments. It had turbosupercharged engines. It was reasonably fast at high altitudes. It was heavily gunned. By operating information it was expected to fend for itself against enemy fighters, which would be operating at their ceiling and have little if any margin of performance superiority.

The first airplanes and crews to arrive on Saipan were given a small amount of training in the Pacific area. Six short training missions were flown against Truk and Iwo Jima. In spite of all the obstacles, the XXI Bomber Command declared itself ready to meet combat commitments exactly on time, by the middle of November.

In the early morning of 1 November, an F -13A, photoreconnaissance version of the B-29, took off from Saipan and became the first U.S. plane over Tokyo since April 1942. Called “Tokyo Rose,” the aircraft flew above the Japanese capital at an altitude of 32,000 feet, photographing a complex of aircraft and engine plants just west of Tokyo and another on the outskirts of Nagoya. They were excellent and priceless photographs. Before the first strike on Tokyo on 24 November, 17 sorties had been flown over Japan by F-13s. Many of the missions were hampered by bad weather, but enough information on the location of aircraft factories was obtained for the first bombing missions. Copies of the photographs were provided to General Arnold for the JCS and to Admirals Nimitz and William Halsey.

Mosaics were made, strips laid out, initial points and target approaches selected. Every crew was required to trace its photo map, mark landmarks and target runs, and then redraw them from memory—over and over.

As the day for the combined operation against Japan approached, the Navy found itself in serious combat trouble in its movement into the Philippines. The Navy announced that it was unable to participate in the planned combined air operation against Japan. The XXI Bomber Command declared itself ready to g ahead on its own. The mission was on.

The strike, the first on Tokyo since the Doolittle raid on 18 April 1942, was labeled “San Antonio One,” and the second was to be called “San Antonio Two.” I was to lead the first, and Brigadier General Emmett (“Rosey”) O’Donnell, Commander of the 73d Wing, was to lead the second. However, General O’Donnell was shifted to the first strike after I was ordered not to lead the mission because of my extensive knowledge of the Pacific campaign plans.

The morning of the planned assault, “San Antonio One,” 15 November, dawned with an ominous calm, which changed suddenly into a tropical storm. A typhoon hit Saipan and lasted six days. The island and the base became a sea of mud. In the meantime the B-29s were sitting on their hardstands, fully loaded and the orders for the mission had been distributed. The prospect of a security leak became a nightmare.

During this time members of General Arnold’s staff and at least one field commander continued to express doubt of the planned offensive from the Marianas. I received a letter from General Arnold forwarding these expressions of doubt and the conviction of their authors that the missions as planned could not be carried out. It was contended that the airplanes lacked the necessary range and that the Japanese would shoot them out of the air. General Arnold did not countermand the mission or the plans. He simply forwarded these warnings which others were expressing. The decision to carry out the planned mission or to change it was left to my judgment.

It was quite true that until the time for take-off of “San Antonio One” the XXI had never flown a formation as large as a squadron a distance as far as Tokyo and back, even without bomb loads and without enemy opposition. 

The potential impact of the mission on Pacific strategy and the future of the Air Force extended far beyond the XXI. The Army Air Forces, at the JCS planning and command level, had been advocating primary reliance upon the effectiveness of the air offensive, with provision for an invasion of the Japanese mainland only if the air offensive proved inconclusive. This viewpoint did not follow Army and Navy planning. To admit at this late juncture that the air offensive could not even attack its intermediate objectives would have grave repercussions indeed. The whole command structure of the Twentieth Air Force as a worldwide command reporting directly to the JCS, in a role parallel to that of the U.S. naval fleet, was in delicate balance. To subject it to re-examination resulting from a major degradation of capability would have had very serious aftereffects. To those who believed that the air offensive was not only the most effective avenue to victory in the Pacific but also the cheapest in terms of American lives, the abandonment of the planned mission would be a disaster almost as great as the tactical disaster of failure might have been. But there was no denying that the decision to carry out the plan was extremely risky.

I thought I understood why General Arnold had sent me this message. Disaster on the first missions of the XXI Bomber Command would have changed Pacific strategy and delayed recognition of coordinate air power by many years. Since there seemed to be a high probability that such disaster would actually ensue, the ill effects would be less severe on the future of the air forces if the responsibility were borne by a subordinate field commander. It was not an unreasonable precaution to take, under the circumstances.

On 24 November, 111 B-29s of the 73d Wing, XXI Bomber Command, took off on the trip toward Japan, representing over 90 percent of the B-29s on Saipan. Some of the crews had arrived less than a week before, and their first take-off was for Tokyo. Each take-off was an ordeal. The B-29 was originally designed for a gross weight of 120,000 pounds. By urging and pleading, we convinced Wright Field to raise the allowable gross to 132,000 pounds. In order to carry every gallon of gas that could be pumped aboard, they were taking off at 140,000 pounds! A faltering engine would spell the end for any airplane.

Primary target for the B-29s on “San Antonio One” was the Nakajima Aircraft plant on the outskirts of Tokyo, and the secondary targets and “last resort” areas were the docking facilities and urban area of Tokyo. A total of 277.5 tons of bombs was carried by the 111 B-29s. Seventeen bombers turned back because of fuel problems, and six missed bombing because of mechanical troubles. Flying at 27,000-33,000 feet, the bombers picked up a 120-knot wind over Japan, giving them a ground speed of 445 miles per hour. This speed taxed the limits of the optical bombsights. Twenty-four planes bombed the Musashino plant, and 64 unloaded on the dock areas. Only one B-29 was lost in combat. U.S. gunners claimed 7 enemy fighters destroyed and 18 probables. Final count for the XXI listed 2 B-29s destroyed, 8 damaged by enemy action, one man killed, 11 missing, and 4 injured.

After the war ended, it was learned that 48 bombs had hit in the factory area; one percent of the building and 2.4 percent of the machinery were damaged; and 57 persons were killed and 75 injured.

The weather at the target was far from favorable, and the bombing left much to be desired. However, the losses were small, and the operation was carried out in spite of the hazards and obstacles. Not the least of the hazards was the return to base. The mission lasted 12 to 14 hours, and the return was at night. There were no runway lights, only smudge pots along the single runway strip. The next nearest landing strip was at Kwajalein, over a thousand miles away. If a B-29 splattered itself on the runway, the rest of the aircraft behind it were all through.

In my judgment this first attack by the 73d Wing was a very real achievement, and the crews who flew it were men who should be marked for praise. From a newly assembled unit in Kansas, newly equipped with an untried airplane, trained for single-aircraft night-bombing by radar, they had progressed to daylight bombing information at 30,000 feet over a Japanese target, operating from a half-prepared base in Saipan, 1200 miles away. All in two and a half months! The bombing was only fair, but the men who performed the job were magnificent.

The decision to launch the offensive in the face of such adverse conditions and recommendations seems to reflect recklessness and good luck more than sound judgment. But this first great gamble proved the feasibility of the assault. Momentum and confidence and improved efficiency would come with experience and numbers.

“San Antonio Two” was staged on 27 November, with the same target priorities. The crews of the 81 B-29s that flew the mission found Tokyo completely covered by clouds, so the bombs were dropped by radar on the secondary targets. The Japanese were provoked into trying to halt the bombing by making air raids on Isley Field, and they destroyed some B-29s. The Japanese were realizing that their home islands were indeed susceptible to sustained attack and that their fighters could not turn back the B-29s.

The next three months were frustrating, to say the least. Schools were established to train the lead crews, in a determined effort to improve bombing accuracy. Enormous efforts were made to improve maintenance. The depot had to start all over again, and in the meantime the air supply from Sacramento had to be improved. More missions were run against aircraft and engine factories. But the weather was a terrible opponent, and there was no intelligence of its movements. Japanese fighter opposition was desperate but not very effective, at least in comparison with German fighters. Air kamikaze ramming tactics were tried with some effect. Morale was a critical problem. The airplane engines were still unreliable. Airplanes that were disabled from combat or from other causes were 1200 miles from friendly territory, and crews had the choice of drowning or bailing out over Japan, to be executed by maddened Japanese. The U.S. Navy made a tremendous contribution to morale by stationing rescue submarines at intervals along the route.

On 13 December, 74 B-29s of the 73d Wing were credited with doing significant damage to Japanese aircraft plants. Most of the bombers carried 500-pound general-purpose bombs, while others were loaded with incendiary clusters. The primary target was the Mitsubishi engine plant at Nagoya. Photographs failed to show the entire damage. Later reports indicated that engine assembly shops and auxiliary buildings were destroyed or damaged. A total of 246 people were killed and 105 injured. Aircraft engine production capacity was reduced from 1600 to 1200 per month. The Mitsubishi No.4 Engine Works no longer made parts. The Japanese also began the transfer of plant equipment to underground facilities. It was the most destructive mission to date for XXI Bomber Command.

The order for succeeding missions was for maximum strikes against top-priority targets by high-altitude precision bombing when weather was acceptable. When this was not possible, secondary targets were to be hit, and time was also given to night attacks by use of radar. But still, bombing effectiveness was hard to assess because of cloud cover. Reports of effectiveness were deliberately played down by the XXI Bomber Command headquarters to counterbalance the known tendency to exaggerate.

Night incendiary attacks against Japanese urban industrial areas in early 1945 were part of the original plans for employment of the XXI, but they were scheduled for performance after the Japanese aircraft and engine factories had been knocked out. One wing of the XXI, the 315th, had been equipped exclusively for such operations. Its aircraft were delivered without armor or armament, except for a tail turret, and they were equipped with a new radar bomb sight that permitted more accurate bombing. All the XXI units were equipped and trained for radar bombing of those area targets that rendered good radar return.

Preparation for aerial mining operations against shipping in Japanese waters was also initiated during this early period. The program, which turned out to be one of the major contributions of the Twentieth Air Force met with some opposition to start with.

Mining of rivers and harbors in the Netherlands East Indies by the B-29s of the XX Bomber Command had been one of the first operations carried out by that command from bases in Ceylon. Admiral Nimitz’s staff proposed a much more extensive campaign for XXI Bomber Command in Japanese home waters. In fact the Navy’s initial proposal would have absorbed most of the total command capacity in the first three or four months. I objected to this on the ground that it constituted another major diversion from the principal purpose for which the command had been created and deployed. The objection was directed not primarily to the idea of mining but to the magnitude of the diversion at a time when utmost endeavor was needed to develop our primary capability. The problem was settled when General Arnold issued a directive calling for a mining effort at a much reduced initial level and postponed somewhat in time.

Even while the problem was being discussed at high level, initial steps were undertaken to prepare for a mining campaign of some intensity. I directed the 313th Wing, whose aircraft began to arrive on Tinian in December, to undertake development of techniques and tactics for this type of operation. One group of the wing was designated to carry out this work. The XXI Bomber Command owes a debt of gratitude to the Navy personnel for the fine assistance they rendered in adapting Navy mines to installation in B-29s and in helping the development of dropping techniques and tactics.

The first three months for the B-29s in the Marianas helped lay the groundwork for the much larger bombing offensives against Japan during 1945. If it is conceded that initial periods are always the most difficult ones, then the initial period of XXI Bomber Command was marked with reasonable success. It cannot be denied, however, that such success as was achieved was accompanied by a full measure of good fortune. It might so easily have been a period of disaster. If one of the initial operations, from uncompleted bases, had returned to find our single, partially paved runway blocked out by weather or obstructed by a crippled B-29, the whole force would have been lost. The only alternative base was 1500 miles away.

The Twentieth Air Force and the B-29 air offensive were experimental ventures. Most of the senior veteran commanders of World War II were on record as saying that a strategic air force which was not under a theater commander was wrong and that an air offensive against Japan from the Marianas could not be carried out with the B-29. But that air offensive against Japan was launched by the men of XXI Bomber Command, and the later success of the XXI and the Twentieth Air Force owes much to the modest achievements of those first fine combat crews and the men who backed them up.

Washington, D.C.

Contributor

Major General Haywood S. Hansell, Jr., USAF (Ret), (B.S., Georgia Institute of Technology) is a consultant with General Electric Company. He completed flying training in 1929 and was assigned to the 2d Bombardment Group, Langley Field, until 1931. Then at Maxwell Field he flew with the “Men on the Flying Trapeze” pursuit demonstration team. He graduated from the Air Corps Tactical School in 1936, then served on its faculty. After graduating from the Command and General Staff School in 1939, he was assigned to the Office of the Chief of the Air Corps and served as a Special Observer in England in 1941. As a member of the Air War Plans Division, Hq Army Air Forces, he assisted in preparation of AWPD-l and AWPD-42. Wartime assignments were as Air Corps member, Joint Strategic Committee, Joint Chiefs of Staff; Air Planner on General Eisenhower’s staff in England (1942); Commander, 3d Bomb Wing and 1st Bomb Wing, Eighth Air Force (1942-43); Deputy Commander, Allied Expeditionary Air Forces (July 1943); Air Corps member, Joint Plans Committee, JCS (November 1943); Deputy Chief of Staff, Hq AAF, and Chief of Staff, Twentieth Air Force (April 1944); Commander, XXI Bomber Command (August 1944); and Commander, North Atlantic Wing, Air Transport Command (January 1945). General Hansell retired in 1946 but was recalled at the outbreak of the Korean War and served with the Mutual Defense Assistance Program and Weapons Systems Evaluation Group until 1955.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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