Customer Reviews

Superfortress: The Story of the B-29 and American Air Power

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Gen. LeMay gives a well-written, accurate history of how it was in the WWII Mariana Islands for the young crews and newly designed Superfortress. The first part of the book is a bit slow, but the description of the missions and battle strategies over Japan in the latter days of the war are enthralling. My dad, a B-29 bombardier and navigator based on Tinian, confirmed Gen. LeMay's account of the challenges they faced, their sincere appreciation of the Marines' contribution to securing the Islands which saved many airmen's lives, and their dedication to duty above all else.

My personal thanks to Gen. LeMay and Gen. Arnold for their leadership in making my Dad's and many other Americans' dad's efforts well worth the sacrifice.

I read more books about the WW2 in the Pacific than any other military topic so I was impressed that I learned so much about the B-29 and the Pacific War from this history.

The only real flaw is a common one in this type of book. Where the writer (LeMay) laments that everthing would have worked so much better if they had only done things HIS way.

I like this book on many levels.
_ History of the B-29 and development of US Heavy Bombers in general.
_ History of the later stages of the War against Japan and how heavy bombers would have been used in an invasion.
_ Great Anecdotes.
_ Very useful tables at the end including a list of every significant B-29 combat mission in WW2.

Here's a good look into the purposeful development and use of this magnificent airplane. The book provides a good overview of the nature of the challenges of the Pacific theatre in WW2. In this book, I learned for the first time about Operation Air Show, a flight of 435 B-29 over Tokyo Bay during the surrender proceedings. In other readings since, I have learned that there were also (at least) another 450 carrier based fighter aircraft in Operation Air Show.

This book was in excellent shape and well written. The book describes the war time rush to produce a bomber with many new innovations and the problems encountered with the engines. It details how the B-29 was instrumental in ending the war without the need for an invasion of the Japanese home island. Finally, it also describes the two atomic missions that followed the fire bombing of many square miles of Japanese cities. It showed General LeMay to be a person who could get things done but still retain a connection with his troops.