B-29 bomber: the Historic aircraft of WWII

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Quick thank you to the Pueblo Wise Broad Air Museum, John Hill,

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and everybody who brought us out.

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It really was a blast.

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If you guys are in the greater Colorado area, it's absolutely worth a trip.

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Please.

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You can go check it, check them out.

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Um, I'll put a link to the museum in the show notes.

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If you ever want to visit,

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this is it.

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This is the B29, the plane you've been waiting for.

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And it was worth waiting for.

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It's the biggest, fastest, mightiest heavy bomber in the world.

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It can travel farther and higher than anything else on wings.

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It has a pressurized cabin, permitting high altitude flight without oxygen masks.

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It has five remotely controlled, electrically driven turrets, each

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carrying twin 50s, with a 20mm cannon added to the turret in the tail.

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Yes, the B 29 is everything you've been promised.

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And the pilot who flies one has an enviable job.

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Important, glamorous, and tough.

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Welcome to Talk With History.

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I'm your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian, Jen.

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Hello.

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On this podcast, we give you insights into our history inspired world travels,

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YouTube channel journey, and examine history through deeper conversations

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with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.

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Now, Jen, last episode, I did not tell a joke.

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Thank God.

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This being our road trip series, I have to, I have to

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keep telling the cheesy jokes.

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The dad jokes.

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Yes.

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Okay.

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So I'm going to ask you one for this particular episode theme.

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What sound does a rubber airplane make?

Jenn: 00:02:24

What sound does a rubber airplane make?

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I

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don't know.

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Boeing.

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That's good.

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So if you are listening and that made you laugh or you made your eyes roll or

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you have a better joke, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and tell that joke.

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And if it makes me laugh, which it probably will because

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I'm easy to entertain, I'll tell that one on the podcast.

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So help us out.

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Leave us a review and let's keep this thing going.

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The B 29 Bomber was a revolutionary long range heavy bomber that played

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a pivotal role in World War II.

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Introduced by the United States Army Air Forces in 1944, the B 29 was a

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technological marvel of its time, boasting advanced features such as pressurized

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cabins, remote controlled gun turrets, and a powerful four engine setup.

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The most notable contributions of this aircraft came through its

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deployment and use in the Pacific theater, eventually culminating in

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the first use of the atomic bomb.

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The legacy of this aircraft endures as a symbol of the United States

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determination and ingenuity during one of the most transformative periods

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in world history, and Jen got the opportunity to get an intimate look

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inside of one of these legendary aircraft.

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So Jen, let's talk about the B 29

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Superfortress.

Jenn: 00:03:59

Yes, what an amazing aircraft.

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It's just beautiful.

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When you think about this aircraft, we just did our talk about

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Oppenheimer and how much they spend on the Manhattan Project.

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We did

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a live stream on our YouTube channel.

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And remember how

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much that was.

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Yeah, what, two or three billion?

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Yeah, it was like two billion.

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It took three billion dollars to, to design the B 29 bomber.

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That's crazy.

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It is the most expensive of the war.

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Yeah.

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That they made, anything, even more than the bomb.

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And the reason why is because they needed an aircraft that

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could fly the Pacific, right?

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That's what, because they couldn't carry something so heavy off an

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aircraft carrier.

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Well, and also if I remember right, bombers at the time, they had some,

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but They had to either fly them off an aircraft carrier or it's like

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kind of island hop to get over there.

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And it just wasn't viable for long

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range.

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It's not.

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It wasn't.

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It wasn't viable for long range.

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So you couldn't carry something very heavy.

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Plus, it made you very vulnerable to the attack pilots.

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And so, um, the fighters.

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And so what was great about the super forges is it could fly 30, 000 feet.

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350 miles an hour, which the, the fighters couldn't get up that

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high and once they got up that high, they couldn't fly that fast.

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So it was an engineering marvel.

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And didn't they

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like basically say like, Hey, we need something that can

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fly this far and do these things.

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And they essentially built it in like two years.

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They did.

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So it

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really was, it was Charles Lindbergh who saw the need for an aircraft that

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could do this and actually had a good talk with one of our five stars, Arnold.

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Yeah.

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And threw a ton of money at it.

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And that's when, and you know, and they're coinciding the Manhattan Project.

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Sure.

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Because

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they don't know if one or the other, they're going down

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both roads.

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So you can't like make something.

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Without a way to deliver something right and you can't make a way to

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deliver something without having something to deliver right, right?

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So these are going on kind of simultaneously

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and they had other intent for the b29, right?

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I mean it was it was not just for the atomic bomb But it was

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also for other bombing raids and kind of striking deeper into yeah

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long range long range Bombing and it really it was really used on the Pacific

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theater because it really was to fly over that ocean Um because it couldn't

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get close up to, uh, you know, to Japan.

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But, uh, yeah, it was Boeing that actually, your joke is so, it's so

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apropos, uh, cause it was Boeing that designed the B 29 bomber.

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And of course, like anything else with government contracting, people came

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with their plans and it was Boeing that had put forth the best design.

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And so you got this huge aircraft, like you said, with like 140 feet wingspan.

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141 feet longer than the.

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first flight

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by the Wright brothers.

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So when we're standing in the hangar there, it at the Pueblo Air Museum,

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and you see this huge wingspan of this aircraft, it is remarkable how

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big, and it has the two, two engines on each side, and it's a prop plane.

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So these are propellers that are spinning.

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It just really is a marvel, an engineering marvel to look at it.

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Well,

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and it was neat too.

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And we'll talk a little bit about kind of where we were

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visiting when we were in Pueblo.

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Um, but it was neat too because once you get up close to one of these aircraft,

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and if you ever have the opportunity, Pueblo, Colorado, Fantastic Air Museum,

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we'll talk a little bit more about it, to get up close to one of these

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aircraft to see how big these things are.

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Now, obviously, the insides were pretty crowded.

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They didn't have the small technology that we had today, but then seeing

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footage, and I show some of it in, in our video that I'll link in the

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show notes, seeing footage of dozens, of these aircraft just lining up

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getting ready to go down the runway.

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I mean, and so these maps, I mean, it really kind of helps put more of that

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World War II industrial effort into scale.

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Exactly.

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Seeing

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that.

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So from 1944 to 1960, that's the lifetime of the B 29.

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They basically made a little less than 4, 000 of them.

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So about 3970 are rolled off the, um, the line.

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Um, and like you said, pressurized cabin, which was rare.

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There weren't any aircraft at the time with pressurized cabins,

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the whole length of the aircraft.

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So that means everybody, the crew didn't have to wear oxygen masks

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because above 10, 000 feet, you have to wear supplemental oxygen.

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So this allowed you to have, you know, frame of mind and keep

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your wits about you long mission.

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Right 14 hour flight without a without a mask on and you got one gunner to

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control the four turrets Which is also rare And so it really was like they were

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putting these things together that was really going to make this an efficient

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Aircraft for what they needed it.

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But like you said There's only two aircraft B 29s that fly today, and

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you might see pictures of them online.

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It's the Fifi and the Dock.

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Yeah, I show footage of the Fifi in our video.

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And they still fly, but then there's 22 static aircraft.

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And the two most famous ones, um, and of course we're, we're right in August.

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So we have Hiroshima, the Enola Gay.

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We, who dropped the, the bomb, little boy, um, the Enola Gay was

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named after the pilot's mother.

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And so Enola Gay is where the name comes from.

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And then you have Boxcar, who dropped the bomb in, in, in Nakasaki, um,

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Fat Man was the name of that bomb.

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And Boxcar is the captain of that plane named, last name

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was Box.

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Yeah.

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And little known.

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Well.

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Maybe that's not so little known, but I didn't know this.

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It's not B O X, it's B O C K S, so box.

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Like that's, that's the last person's last name.

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Like chicken bock or chicken pock.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Chicken

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bock.

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Yeah.

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So if you're listening and you didn't know that and you always

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thought it was actually B O X C A R.

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No, that's, that's not actually correct.

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Yeah, it's

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CK.

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Um, so those, the Enola Gay Smithsonian, uh, boxcar is at the, uh, Air Force Museum

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in Dayton, Ohio, birthplace of aviation.

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And then you have the other 20.

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spread out across America.

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And we got to see one and we got a personal tour of one.

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Yeah.

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And so just to kind of tell how this opportunity for us came about.

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So we actually had someone reach out to us, I believe is one of

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our Arlington videos, right?

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They, they commented and they reached out, they shot us an email.

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And so it was John Hill, um, who kind of did a lot of the coordinating.

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He's a great guy, um, and reached out to us probably six to nine

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months before we ever got.

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To come out.

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Yeah.

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Cause it's Colorado.

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It's Pueblo, Colorado.

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So it's, uh, it's difficult for us in Virginia to make it out to

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Colorado, but it coincided with

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our road trip.

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Yeah.

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So it ended up working out coinciding with our road trip and we had

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kind of shifted some plans around.

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We were able to make this work.

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It actually lined up really well.

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And so.

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This was exciting for us because it was one of the goals that I've kind of had

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that's on the download I don't talk about too much for the channel is for museums

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like this to reach out to us and say hey We would like you to come and make a

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video at our museum to help promote the museum and eventually for that kind of to

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be one of our Potential kind of business avenues right for us to help promote

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museums and we've just kind of done it for free up to this point And this was kind

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of like the first Sort of sponsorship.

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They didn't really directly pay us money or anything like that

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But they did offer us, you know us you and I the walk with history a

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lifetime membership and that lifetime

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membership Enabled us to get the hands on tour of the b29, right?

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It allowed us for the hands on tour inside Because there's certain

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criteria for some of the other aircraft and we haven't made those videos

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yet and they'll be coming out soon I mean you got to sit in an f 15 and

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what's the other aircraft you sat in?

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Was it an F 16?

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There was two that you sat in.

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Yeah,

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I think it was an F 15 and an F 16.

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Both of them are Air

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Force.

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Right.

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But part of that is that they can't just let the public sit in these things.

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So if you go to Pueblo, the Pueblo Air Museum, right, it's about an hour and

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a half to two hours south of Denver.

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Um, You actually, if you buy a lifetime membership, those people

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there are, are allowed to let these members on occasion sit inside of

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some of these aircraft and do what the public is not authorized to do.

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And so they, they've, they've worked on this and this, it's been

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around for a couple of decades.

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It's a phenomenal museum, very kid friendly.

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Very good.

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If you were out in the Denver area, I highly recommend making a trip out

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there if you're a fan of aviation.

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Or even if you just want to take your kids to something, that whole

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kids area, I didn't get to, I haven't showed it in the video yet.

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That's coming up in future videos.

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But it was, it was just amazing.

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But we'll talk a little bit more about the B29.

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Yes.

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Yes.

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A very, a stem for kids.

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That's what I really appreciated about it.

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The Pueblo Weisbrod Aircraft Museum and it's a non profit and Fred

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Weisbrod was the former city manager of Pueblo and it's two hangars.

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They have 40 military and civilian aircraft.

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It's all done by volunteers and they're, they do restoration.

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And one of the planes they're restoring is the B 29, um, Superfortress.

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It's the Peachy and the captain, Robert.

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Haver was from Pueblo, Colorado.

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Mr.

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Weisbaugh, he's the one who made sure to save that aircraft because it was

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going to go to be kind of like a static target for target train for, for, for

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pilots to practice target training.

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And he saved it because the pilot of that aircraft was from that city

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and they were able to get it back there and get it in the hangar.

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And that's so neat.

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It's connection to the town.

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Yeah, yeah, and it was and I believe there was like, you know,

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if you go back and watch the video I don't remember if everything kind

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of made the my my editor's cut But there was sections of it that he saved

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and then other sections they were able to get from other other places.

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So, um You know, the, this aircraft, you know, as John Hill said,

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it's not a, not a combat veteran.

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It didn't actually fly in combat or anything like that.

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Well,

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it was shot down over

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Tokyo.

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This, the one sitting in the museum.

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Oh, yeah.

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The original Peachy aircraft was shot down.

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Yes,

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the original Peachy aircraft was shot down over Tokyo in May of 1945.

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It's 35th trip over

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Japan.

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Yeah, and, and I encourage you to go watch the video.

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One, it's actually doing quite well for us.

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I think it's going to be a popular video.

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Um, but, but two, it's the nose art is classic world war two nose art.

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So

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peachy is the younger sister of the pilot.

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So the pilot from Pueblo.

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Um, Robert Haver, it's his younger sister, her name, her nickname was

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Peachy, and she wears this little leather skirt and a little leather vest and a

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cowboy hat and really not nothing else.

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Yeah.

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It's, it's, it's like think Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, but.

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Yeah.

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And they painted her on the side of the aircraft.

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And they actually have the outfit that she wore for the,

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for modeling it there as well.

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Um, but it's really neat, uh, that that's, it's so, I always find it so

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neat how aircraft are named by the crew.

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Yeah.

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And something special to them, something that has meaning to them.

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You know, when you think of the Memphis Belle, right, that was the

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girlfriend of the pilot, like it's just something that really ties them

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to home and something that really makes them smile and, you know, kind

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of cheers them up and it's for morale.

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So that's why I really, I love nose art and I really loved this nose art.

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But, um.

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Yeah, it has the original serial number, so you can always look it up.

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It's 44 62022.

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Yeah, it was recovered in 1972, which is, it's really neat that this uh, aircraft

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is, is there at the Pueblo Museum.

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Yeah,

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and just to kind of paint the picture for those listening, if

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you haven't seen the video yet, you know, the, this B 29 is just kind of

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looming inside of their first hangar.

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So there's the first hangar that you can walk all the way through the museum.

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You can actually walk outside.

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They have a bunch of aircraft outside.

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Yes.

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And then they've got a separate hangar with some of the more modern aircraft.

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Now, where the B 29 was, they've got a bunch of World War II kind of memorabilia

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and historical artifacts all the way from, and again, this is in upcoming

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videos, but from flight jackets to, you know, propaganda posters to, you know,

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different kinds of communication areas.

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And so you can go all through and get a feel for what that era was really like.

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Even though the public can't crawl kind of in as, as much as you got to do.

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Yeah.

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Inside of the B

Jenn: 00:17:03

29.

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So I got to see what it's really like to be in the crew of a B

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and you sat in the bombardier seat, like picture.

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Picture the kind of plexiglass front nose that's has clear mm-hmm.

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right?

Scott: 00:17:14

If you've watched Star Wars is kind of that kind of hexagonal windows.

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Totally.

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An influence.

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And your city, you got to sit right up front.

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And the nose of that

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aircraft.

Jenn: 00:17:24

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:17:25

So, and I got to sit, it's a basically like a, a flip seat where you kind

Jenn: 00:17:29

of stand on the seat, then you flip the backup and you sit down and right

Jenn: 00:17:33

in front of you is the instrument that the bombardier is using.

Jenn: 00:17:36

Uh, it looks like it's calibrated and it has all these different, um, dials

Jenn: 00:17:40

on there for different, the compass.

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settings and for you to make sure you're dialed into where you're, you're bombing.

Jenn: 00:17:45

Right.

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And so, and you can have a little, I look through space, but that little area where

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the bombardier sitting and then right behind the bombardier, you got the pilot

Jenn: 00:17:54

and the co pilot, and then you have a navigator and a radar man who's all kind

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of sitting in that same general area.

Jenn: 00:18:01

But this is, this is where you are for your 14 hour flight.

Jenn: 00:18:05

And really when you, when you think about it for like, To get a bomb on target, to

Jenn: 00:18:11

get one thing on target, and you really have to, you're the guy, when you think

Jenn: 00:18:15

about it, like the pilot flies you there, but you're the guy who has to drop it,

Jenn: 00:18:19

and it has to be perfect, and you have to think of everything, you know, you

Jenn: 00:18:22

have to think of trajectory, and wind, and doing all the math, all the math,

Jenn: 00:18:25

so, it really was a neat experience to sit there, and to be there, and

Jenn: 00:18:30

to kind of feel, you know, What that must have felt like for that person.

Jenn: 00:18:34

Yeah, now

Scott: 00:18:35

it wasn't John who, our initial kind of docent, who was showing us around,

Scott: 00:18:39

but he kind of gave us the outside tour and told us about the pilots and the

Scott: 00:18:42

crew and Peachy and all that stuff.

Scott: 00:18:44

But it was another gentleman named Dick who brought us into, inside the aircraft.

Scott: 00:18:49

Um, and you really got, spent more time inside and I was wrangling kids

Scott: 00:18:52

and kind of taking shots from outside.

Scott: 00:18:54

So

Jenn: 00:18:54

Dick was, Dick has been the one who's been restoring the aircraft

Jenn: 00:18:57

and I asked him what Brought you to Pueblo, Colorado and he said the B 29.

Jenn: 00:19:03

Yeah, and I thought that was amazing that he said he came there To restore that

Jenn: 00:19:09

aircraft like that's how much people love these aircraft and there's so few of them.

Jenn: 00:19:14

And so he's slowly building this aircraft back To its original original

Jenn: 00:19:22

looks and Original parts and he found pieces on eBay and he's been

Scott: 00:19:26

fixing them He's found pieces you guys you even spent one point and

Scott: 00:19:30

I didn't it didn't really the audio the conversation didn't make The video cut

Scott: 00:19:36

but there's one at one point in time.

Scott: 00:19:38

I'm showing you all these dials right where I think it's either the navigator

Scott: 00:19:42

might have sat or one of the flight engineers sure and There's all these dials

Scott: 00:19:46

with all these labels and all the stuff and he's recreated some of the labels.

Scott: 00:19:50

Some of the labels are still original, which is really cool.

Scott: 00:19:53

But even you, when you were talking to him, you couldn't tell the difference.

Scott: 00:19:56

He's doing a phenomenal job.

Scott: 00:19:57

And one of the places that he really, he spent a ton of time that we show right

Scott: 00:20:01

in the very beginning of the video.

Scott: 00:20:03

was the gunner's turret,

Jenn: 00:20:04

the turret and kind of its little sight gauge and the way

Jenn: 00:20:08

it can move 360 on like a rail.

Jenn: 00:20:10

He's he found that original piece and was able to clean it up and recreate it and

Jenn: 00:20:17

make sure it fits and is workable in the B

Scott: 00:20:20

29.

Scott: 00:20:20

Yeah.

Scott: 00:20:20

So picture that clear bubble on top of the aircraft, right?

Scott: 00:20:24

That's where someone's actually looking through.

Scott: 00:20:27

that bubble at the enemy aircrafts around them.

Scott: 00:20:30

And there was really, and he was talking about the

Jenn: 00:20:32

barber's chair.

Jenn: 00:20:33

So he sits.

Jenn: 00:20:34

That person sits on a chair that also swivels 360.

Jenn: 00:20:38

Right.

Jenn: 00:20:38

So it kind of, and they're higher up because they're sitting in that bubble.

Jenn: 00:20:41

Their head is in that bubble.

Jenn: 00:20:43

And then there's two gunners to either side of him.

Jenn: 00:20:46

Right.

Jenn: 00:20:46

With bubbles on each side of the aircraft.

Jenn: 00:20:47

With bubbles on each side.

Jenn: 00:20:48

And then of course, there's a tail gunner in the back.

Jenn: 00:20:51

So you really, I mean this is a big crew.

Jenn: 00:20:54

When you think about what's on a B 29, it's.

Jenn: 00:20:57

10, 11 people who are in tandem making this aircraft work, flying this aircraft.

Jenn: 00:21:03

So it was just amazing for, to, to be there with him and for him to

Jenn: 00:21:07

show me how all of it worked and then to climb around that thing.

Jenn: 00:21:10

Like it's a tunnel and, uh, and I said, how did people get through this tunnel?

Jenn: 00:21:16

And he's like, well, they would put mattresses down and they would

Jenn: 00:21:19

slide on their flight jackets.

Jenn: 00:21:20

But think of like, you know, young men who were just laid down and

Jenn: 00:21:23

pull themselves through this tunnel.

Jenn: 00:21:25

That's what I'm thinking.

Jenn: 00:21:26

Oh my, does he expect me to, he did not expect me to do that.

Jenn: 00:21:29

Thank God.

Jenn: 00:21:29

But like, it really is a physical demanding job and you just don't think

Jenn: 00:21:35

about how physical it is just to, for one flight, for one, you know, uh, mission

Jenn: 00:21:41

to be able to, to complete your mission.

Jenn: 00:21:42

You have to, there's a lot you have to do and then you

Jenn: 00:21:45

probably are on your guns for a.

Jenn: 00:21:48

a significant part of your flight as well.

Jenn: 00:21:50

And again, just to be that alert and aware, it takes, it takes a lot.

Scott: 00:21:55

Yeah.

Scott: 00:21:55

And, and so we, I think we were talking, there was about four gunners, right?

Scott: 00:21:58

One on each side where the one, uh, probably lead gunner in the, in the,

Scott: 00:22:02

that bubble turret, the top bubble turret and the one in the back.

Scott: 00:22:05

And one of the cool things about this aircraft, we talk

Scott: 00:22:07

about how technologically advanced it was at the time.

Scott: 00:22:11

Think about this, the mid 1940s, the one.

Scott: 00:22:14

Uh, they designed this aircraft, the B 29, so that this one gunner in the turret

Scott: 00:22:19

could actually control every single gun on, on the aircraft that, that turned.

Scott: 00:22:24

So he could essentially take control of all of them.

Scott: 00:22:28

And I, then I imagined the others could take individual control at the same time.

Scott: 00:22:32

So I thought about that.

Scott: 00:22:33

I was like, that's actually pretty incredible.

Scott: 00:22:35

Yeah.

Scott: 00:22:35

For, for that era.

Scott: 00:22:37

I mean, they made some serious technological advances and you

Scott: 00:22:40

mentioned on the live stream that.

Scott: 00:22:41

Yeah.

Scott: 00:22:42

You know, governments, and us in the United States specifically,

Scott: 00:22:46

have never had more technology advances than we do during wartime.

Scott: 00:22:49

Yes.

Jenn: 00:22:50

That's when we throw a lot of money at technology and you can see When we

Jenn: 00:22:54

increase that cost during wartime towards military advancement and technology.

Jenn: 00:22:59

It's when the greatest jumps are made and When you think about it if there was a

Jenn: 00:23:04

chance that you lose a gunner you don't lose the gun Right, right, and that's

Jenn: 00:23:09

what makes it so so unique is you're not going to wound yourself on that side

Jenn: 00:23:15

and not have that gun still available to you, even if you might lose the person.

Jenn: 00:23:19

And that's what you have to think about with, you know, technology and defense.

Jenn: 00:23:24

And uh, it's just, it's just amazing.

Jenn: 00:23:26

That aircraft is, is really something to see.

Jenn: 00:23:29

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:23:30

And

Scott: 00:23:30

one of the neat things that I found on YouTube and I kind of

Scott: 00:23:33

downloaded the video and kind of interjected it throughout our video.

Scott: 00:23:36

was an old training video.

Scott: 00:23:38

I mean, I call it a training video.

Scott: 00:23:40

Really, it was more like a kind of a propaganda war video.

Scott: 00:23:43

Sure.

Scott: 00:23:44

Kind of more for the public than anything else.

Scott: 00:23:46

But even in the 40s, it had like animations.

Scott: 00:23:48

It would talk about this is where the crew sits and it would animate.

Scott: 00:23:52

Here's how the guns would turn.

Scott: 00:23:53

And here's what the pilots do.

Scott: 00:23:55

And it's that kind of old timey like and the pilots like brave and.

Scott: 00:23:58

important and this, that, and the other.

Scott: 00:24:00

You know, it's like, it's classic 40s, it's classic 40s kind of war propaganda

Scott: 00:24:05

video, but it was, it was very well

Jenn: 00:24:07

done.

Jenn: 00:24:08

And honestly, no other nation has an aircraft like this.

Jenn: 00:24:12

I mean, even Britain wants to use it, but really America is the one who's designed

Jenn: 00:24:17

it, made it, and put it into operation.

Jenn: 00:24:21

No one has touched anything like this when it comes to flight technology.

Jenn: 00:24:26

And that's why the B 29 was so unique and really, like, they couldn't stop it.

Jenn: 00:24:34

Like even dropping the bombs, like it couldn't, no one could get up

Jenn: 00:24:36

there to stop it from happening.

Jenn: 00:24:39

And, um, another thing that I find really unique is the A, we

Jenn: 00:24:43

talk about what makes a B 29.

Jenn: 00:24:44

A.

Jenn: 00:24:45

And Dick kind of mentions that it really was each place is making

Jenn: 00:24:51

different parts of this aircraft.

Jenn: 00:24:52

Like each manufacturer.

Jenn: 00:24:54

Each manufacturer is not rolling off one B 29.

Jenn: 00:24:57

One place is making the front, one place is making the middle, one place

Jenn: 00:25:00

is making the tail, and then they're kind of putting it all together.

Jenn: 00:25:02

So in different areas, they're doing something a little bit different.

Jenn: 00:25:06

And that's what makes things, the design is just a little

Jenn: 00:25:09

bit different in some places.

Jenn: 00:25:10

And that's what makes it.

Jenn: 00:25:11

gives

Scott: 00:25:12

it the A.

Scott: 00:25:12

Yeah.

Scott: 00:25:13

And I think we said on the video that the B 29A had like an improved wing design

Scott: 00:25:18

and some improved kind of defense systems.

Scott: 00:25:20

Um, so again, they're constantly iterating and making those things better because you

Scott: 00:25:26

have the best and brightest all focusing their efforts on things like the atomic

Scott: 00:25:31

bomb as well as, um, Things like the B 29.

Scott: 00:25:34

The B

Jenn: 00:25:35

29.

Jenn: 00:25:35

And honestly, when you think of the B 29, I want people to think a lot of

Jenn: 00:25:39

the Manhattan Project because they're rolling off, I think the first B

Jenn: 00:25:43

29 rolled off in 1942 from Seattle.

Jenn: 00:25:46

And then the second one is in 1943, uh, and sometimes they would roll

Jenn: 00:25:53

off test flight and there was a mishap where the whole crew died.

Jenn: 00:25:57

But most of the time someone would test flight it and fly it right back into

Jenn: 00:26:01

the hangar and they would fix all the things they were saying from that flight.

Jenn: 00:26:06

So these test pilots who are learning this B 29, they're learning.

Jenn: 00:26:11

on the go.

Jenn: 00:26:12

It is like, we're, this is, this is the, the feeling of urgency of wartime.

Jenn: 00:26:18

It's like, we're making this, we're testing it, we're fixing it,

Jenn: 00:26:22

we're testing it, we're fixing it.

Jenn: 00:26:23

And so those, by the end of 1943, they only had 15 that were airworthy.

Jenn: 00:26:29

And even though they had made like a couple hundred only 15

Jenn: 00:26:33

were really like safe to fly.

Jenn: 00:26:35

So when you think about how much they had to kind of overcome and learn and

Jenn: 00:26:39

get better to get this aircraft in the air, it really did take a lot of

Jenn: 00:26:43

time and money and people to do this.

Scott: 00:26:46

Yeah.

Scott: 00:26:46

And, and.

Scott: 00:26:47

The other kind of video I found that was kind of, I cut inside of our video was

Scott: 00:26:52

another kind of mini documentary I found on YouTube that talked about the B 29 and

Scott: 00:26:58

more specifically kind of the operations and lead up to the first atomic bomb drop.

Scott: 00:27:03

Right?

Scott: 00:27:03

So it talked about how the Japanese at the time, we were fighting

Scott: 00:27:08

them back, but they basically said we're going to fight to the last.

Scott: 00:27:13

last man, last soldier, last woman, and all this stuff.

Scott: 00:27:17

And it kind of all the lead up that a lot of us have learned about,

Scott: 00:27:20

especially here in America, um, leading up to that kind of historic day.

Scott: 00:27:25

And unbeknownst to us, really unplanned for us when we did our

Scott: 00:27:30

live stream on Sunday, that was the 78th anniversary of Hiroshima.

Scott: 00:27:34

Um, so it was kind of neat to be able to talk about that in Oppenheimer

Scott: 00:27:38

and kind of just remember that, you know, talk about it and, you know,

Scott: 00:27:41

talk about what we had learned.

Scott: 00:27:44

Yeah.

Scott: 00:27:45

Right.

Scott: 00:27:45

And obviously we focused on the movie.

Scott: 00:27:46

It was kind of an Oppenheimer review.

Scott: 00:27:48

And so if you enjoyed that movie, if you've seen it, or if you're

Scott: 00:27:51

curious, you can go to our channel and check out that live stream.

Scott: 00:27:54

We had a friend of ours on, the history chick, Sarah, um, but talking about

Scott: 00:28:00

that and how significant the B 29 was, and it really was, that aircraft

Scott: 00:28:04

really was kind of what it was.

Scott: 00:28:06

part of the golden age of aviation in, you know, in the forties, you know,

Scott: 00:28:11

in the world war two advancements.

Jenn: 00:28:12

Exactly.

Jenn: 00:28:13

And like you had said, Japan had really, they were faltering, but

Jenn: 00:28:18

they had made a stance that they weren't going to surrender until

Jenn: 00:28:22

the last person was, was dead.

Jenn: 00:28:25

Like they basically had said, we're going to fight until the end.

Jenn: 00:28:29

I don't want people to think we weren't feeling that on the other side.

Jenn: 00:28:33

Getting these aircraft and that, um, that atomic bomb ready took men and women

Jenn: 00:28:40

and their families and sacrifice to get these things ready to do what it did.

Jenn: 00:28:46

We were trying to meet the enemy where they stood.

Jenn: 00:28:50

And that's really, I mean, it was, and when you think of the 1940s, and that's

Jenn: 00:28:53

why I always say it's the greatest generation, everybody was all in.

Jenn: 00:28:57

The country was all in people making these aircraft coming off the assembly line.

Jenn: 00:29:03

We're women, right, Rosie the Riveters were doing this, men were

Jenn: 00:29:06

doing this, kids were helping out at home and it was the country all

Jenn: 00:29:11

together who was making this happen.

Jenn: 00:29:13

So it really was like if Japan was digging in their heels, America

Jenn: 00:29:18

was meeting them where they

Scott: 00:29:19

were at.

Scott: 00:29:20

Yeah.

Scott: 00:29:20

And so that's why, again, it was, it's, it's difficult to describe on

Scott: 00:29:25

a podcast what it was like to kind of climb in that classic, just silver

Scott: 00:29:30

shiny aircraft, a hundred and forty.

Scott: 00:29:32

One feet wide, you know, I don't remember how long, how long the aircraft

Scott: 00:29:37

is, but climbing inside that, I mean, you just, you can feel the history

Scott: 00:29:41

there and everybody's been commenting on the video saying, you know, Jen,

Scott: 00:29:45

we can tell how excited you were and how passionate you were to be there.

Scott: 00:29:48

So it really was an experience.

Scott: 00:29:50

I encourage you to check out the show notes and watch the

Scott: 00:29:52

video on our YouTube channel.

Scott: 00:29:54

Um, I think you would really enjoy it if you enjoy this podcast.

Scott: 00:29:58

So the B 29 Superfortress soared through the skies during the golden

Scott: 00:30:04

years of aviation, leaving an indelible mark on World War II.

Scott: 00:30:09

With its pressurized cabins, remote controlled gun turrets, and four engine

Scott: 00:30:14

prowess, the B 29 epitomized the pinnacle of mid 20th century aviation engineering.

Scott: 00:30:20

Its illustrious legacy was etched into history over the vast expanse

Scott: 00:30:24

of the Pacific theater where it undertook daring missions, raids,

Scott: 00:30:27

and, of course, the historic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Scott: 00:30:33

Beyond its military triumphs, the B 29 Superfortress ignited an enduring

Scott: 00:30:36

fascination with the soaring possibilities of flight, forever linking it to

Scott: 00:30:41

aviation's golden age and the stories and legends of the greatest generation.

Scott: 00:30:47

Thank you for listening to Talk With History Podcast and please

Scott: 00:30:50

reach out to us at our website, www.

Scott: 00:30:52

talkwithhistory.

Scott: 00:30:52

com.

Scott: 00:30:52

But more importantly, please share this if you have aviation.

Scott: 00:30:56

Fans in your in your friends circle shoot them a text to link to this

Scott: 00:31:00

podcast or a video on youtube Because we rely on you our community to grow

Scott: 00:31:05

and we appreciate you all every day.