FIRST B-29 RAID ON JAPAN TARGET TOKYO 1945 3446
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- Опубликовано: 7 май 2013
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Narrated by then-actor and later President of the United States Ronald Reagan, TARGET TOKYO presents the story of the first bombing raid on Tokyo by B-29 Superfortress bombers of the U.S. Army Air Forces flying out of Saipan. B-29 crews are followed from their training staging at Grand Island, Nebraska to their bombing embarkation point on the island of Saipan. From there, the B-29 attack on the Nakajima aircraft plant outside Tokyo is depicted. This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD. For more information visit www.PeriscopeFilm.com God Bless America
My late Uncle, William C. Heath, flew as a flight engineer on B-29s out of Guam. He flew 14 combat missions. they were on their way to bomb Japan again when they got a radio call to come back, the war was over! In 1983, long after my uncle had died at age 55, I tracked down his pilot, Kenneth Midkiff, in Montgomery, Al. Rest in peace, gentlemen, well done.
my cousin was navigator on one of the B-29's that fire bombed Tokyo and the stories that he would tell us kids around the campfire in the 60's still makes the hair on the back if my neck stand up to this day, and I am 70 now, BRAVE PATRIOTS!
My Dad was a pilot on Saipan in '45. I have some color slides he took in the sky and over Tokyo.
@@genedryer-bivins8314 make sure you duplicate those images. Slides degrade over time. The color can/will fade and the substrate becomes brittle and fragile.
The B-29 shown at 9:15 has a tail designation of "T - Square - 5". This is "Joltin' Josie, The Pacific Pioneer." It was the very first B-29 to land on the new runways on Saipan. This is the very first landing of a B-29 arriving at Saipan on 12 October 1944. The "T" on the tail is for the 498th Bomb Group, the "square" means the 73rd Bomb Wing, and plane number 5 was part of the 873rd Bomb Squadron. This aircraft, piloted by Capt. Wilson C. Currier, crashed on takeoff from Saipan on 1 April 1945 with the loss of the entire crew according to the book, "Rain of Fire, B-29s over Japan, 1945" by Charles L. Phillips (USAF Ret.). A great read.
May G@d have received them with open and welcoming arms.
2019 and here I am blessing these guys' mission and rooting for them!
Yes & why not!? What they had done will never fade away!
Amen to that God bless them American's
Edigy -
The '29 crews out of Grand Island, flew many training missions into the Caribbean, out of GI, well before their commitment took them to Japan. This presentation makes it appear that they just gathered in GI, then went off to Japan. As a kid growing up in GI, at the time, it was truly something to remember.
jim smith
While I'm sure you're right, it still missed a significant part of their history. My family lost a friend who was a navigator on one of those missions.
Thank you for posting this... saw my Pops B-29 @14:08 "Thumper" !!!
Tell us more!
Your father was a courageous man if he is still with us thank him for his service to our nation! The great generation indeed
My father was on that plane too!!!!! He was a bombardier - had to switch plans several times because of attrition. Wonderful! He went on to Tinian Island and the west field. Decades later, I met Paul Tibbetts at a small airfield in south Florida. He and I chatted for about a half-hour. Mr. Tibbetts remembered my dad like that, "short fellow who couldn't be beaten at Cribbage!" How cool was that?
@Grim Reaper And from me and fellow Brits.
@Pheno Jack, Yes please tell us more.
Certainly, Mr. R. Reagan became "the Official voice" of those WWII films...
Great documentary!
That’s not Reagan
Wasn't sure but have heard him narrate a film about China in that war. Did a good job like this narrator which made me think, "Is that Reagan?"
@@kentcyclist If not Regan, who than!
B-29 Superfortress bombers were nemeses for Japanese in 1945. My father was conscripted as an assemblyman to Mitsubishi War Factory in Nagoya City during the Second World War. When his factory was bombed by B-29s, quite fortunately, he could manage to escape. My father told me later that he had witnessed that Mitsubishi War Factory was completely demolished by carpet bombing.
Mission accomplished!!
Was pops a war criminal?
thanks for sharing. Glad your father made it out alive
Buster Biloxi The man was probably just doing his job for his country
@@busterbiloxi3833 Of course not. My father was a high school student at that time. Most of men in in their working life were already conscripted into Imperial Army, so a lot of students and girls were mobilized as temporary workers in order to fill vacancies.
What a wonderful glimpse into this phase of World War 2, featuring America's "Greatest generation"... The men who took Saipan and the flyers who ended the war with Japan in the final chapter... Those were truly great heoric men. So many of them were literally boys, in their late teens. A great find... Thank you so much for uploading this!
The crews on that 1st mission had 100+ hours of flying time in the B-29, 50 hours in Nebraska schools + 50 hours flying to Saipan + several local flying. B-29's in movie were the early, still have the 20mm cannon in tail gun position!
Bravest men ever.....thanks so much for allowing me to grow up in a free country.
We sure do have a lot of rules for a so-called free country...
Way less rules than would be if japs had won.
Just for scale, the B-29 Superfortress was about the same size, same engine power, and similar flying altitude as the modern Q400 turboprop.
Differences were that the B-29 wings were 50% wider, which gave it much more lifting power, so it could weigh double at takeoff, but flew about 200 km/h slower.
Aside from the B-29 having 50 feet more in wingspan, and 70,000 lb higher gross weight, and another 10,000 feet of service altitude, yeah, about the same......
@@briggsquantum You're not very good at reading, I see.
I see the usual arguments springing up in the comments. I like the way Stephen Ambrose put it in the famed "World at War" series when asked the purpose of World War 2. "It defeated the Nazis of Germany, the Fascists of Italy and the Militarists of Japan, and never was justice better served".
steviea427
Thanks George.
Raymond Gordon Trolling trolls, why bother.
@Erich Klein I often wonder how much of the awful things that the Soviet Union became were accelerated by the insane things done to them by the west. Look at how the British and French and Americans joined the White Russians fighting the Reds in 1919. Look at how the French and British cowardly refused to stop Hitler and forced the Russians into their arms. In spite of it all the Russians bore the brunt of the Nazi holocaust and worked with the west but never, ever trusted us.
@@jjhpor lol
In Reagan's description of the B-29: "...and a body longer than a Corvette."
No, not THAT Corvette. THIS corvette: 'a small warship'. :)
awesome. My grand father in law worked at a Nakajima plant, but not the one they targeted. It was likely the Musashino plant which is around 11 miles from central tokyo. come to mention it, that area does not have many old buildings....
Ronald Reagan had a great voice for voice-over work in film. What a great man.
True- he made army newsreels m-f, and never saw combat-oh, and he got his girlfriend pregnant before marriage
@@davidmoser7849 or were you a turkey baster kid? Artificial insemanation from across the room!
@@davidmoser7849 SQUIRT ! SQUIRT!
@@davidmoser7849 Idiots don't know Raygun served his country from the Brown Derby in Hollywood.
President Reagan built up the army and navy at a time when it was needed badly but at the same time he allowed the steel industry to all but collapse, Japan and South Korea sold their steel for less than it cost to make, which in turn began the Rust Belt.
Great video. Those were brave men flying a great airplane. God bless them and America.
Woody's Wagon I believe was lost at sea after facing engine trouble and the PIC attempted to ditch...this is a wonderful piece of history that we should never forget.
My dad trained navigators at Mather after a stint in the Phillipines on a B17. This documentary brought home to me the need for accuracy and detail that was such a part of his personality that drove me crazy as a kid. If only I'd known why. Pleasure hearing Reagan's voice.
I couldn't imagine flying from the West coast to Hawaii with nothing guiding you but a paper map
BigRedChester,
How about a well-marked navigational chart, magnetic compass, magnetometer, gyro, sextant, RDF (radio direction finder) and dozens of men who've each spent at least several months studying and practicing navigation.
Those of us living in the GPS era may never understand, nor even appreciate the millenially-honed art and science of navigation without it. On the way to the fun & games of Vietnam combat, our XO, Mr. Englehart told us that we would sight Oahu at 11:15 AM, next morning. Sure enough, 11:15--RIGHT ON THE NOSE--there she was, Diamond Head, rising her gorgeous face from the briny blue. No sailor or airman can ever forget such a sight.
Thanks for sharing this interesting and informative newsreel, thank goodness Periscope Films saves these pieces of history for all to see. 😀👍🇬🇧🏴
I don't recall seeing any credits, but that narrator surely sounds like Ronald Reagan!
Yes, it is him.Says that at the top.
Look up, genius, and see the description that mentions the narrator. Can you do that?
Buster Biloxi ooh, Buster. You musta gone to skool to learn you some readen and riten. Listen, I’m not in the habit of reading the description to find the name of the narrator, even if he is a two-bit actor who joined the Culver City Commandos. Closest he got to a gun, there was a guy on set to make sure he didn’t hurt himself with it. 😁
@@busterbiloxi3833 their is no need to be rude
Try looking at the credits, Ace!
One of the best books I ever read was “ 30 Seconds Over Tokyo”, the Doolittle raid. Great book.
12 O'clock High is another good book
Thanks uploaded to my website
Good to hear Ron's voice again.
I was wondering if that was Pres Reagan's voice.
@@charlesflinnill978 Yes it was.
@@charlesflinnill978 Ditto
Yes, the bastard that saddled generations with debilitating debt.
...good times.
@@mikebronicki6978 if you are talking about President Reagan you have him confused with hate America obama!
One of my late uncle (on my dad's side) was a tail gunner of a B-29. Not sure which base he was stationed at. Much respect!
what's sad is the B29 was such a great beautiful achievement and with the on coming of the jet fighter became totally obsolete by the Korean War
nice video. thank you for the post
The Russians thought so, They reverse engineered the B29 and copied it (dumb idea) meanwhile the US was already designing the next generation of jet bombers.
?
@@4thstooge75, the props hung on. Early jets were fuel eaters. SAC first all jet bomber, the B-47, was medium. The first all jet heavy, the BUFF, B-52, didn't come into service until the mid 'Fifties.
B-29s were used very effectively against North Korea, carrying out MacArthur's prediction that "We'll bomb them back to the Stone Age". They did require protection by American jet fighters to survive the MiGs, but they did the job.
Yip, it is a great flying machine! In fact, to complete the "B-29" from conscription then to actually fly that it took more money than to do the same with the A-Bomb!
Glad Reagan called them Superforts; which is correct!
Strato Super Fortress is correct.
When we do some more fighting ; we'll do some more commenting...
Confucius say: people who live in paper houses, shouldn't support thrones.
Jerry Newberry Jesus said “ live by the sword and you will die by the sword”
@@alexandrecosta4832 too late. I was already in a war. Now if you are going to take vengance, bring firepower.
I wonder what Ronald Reagan would think and what he would say about what the political climate is in this country today.
Big Bill O'Reilly Reagan was a Lieutenant in the US Army during WW 2. He had bad eyesight so he was classified as being fit for limited service. It was not his fault that he couldnt serve in combat. You are talking through your ass.
Big Bill O'Reilly He could have avoided the army altogether. You call me a coward, asshole? Too bad you can’t say that to my face.
@Big Bill O'Reilly
You get the government you deserve....
Probably the same thing I do, pathetic.
Americans are a strong people, and they could not let the attack on Pearl Harbor go unrewarded.
Those Boeings are big and strong like the US
Saludos amigos!
Donald Coder American are not strong, they don't know why they are fighting. if they know they wouldn't have fought.
the power behind American strength is in the hands of Roman Catholic Jesuits.
@@iskaykabeya609 BS, Iskay K! Can you explain why after the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor the US military induction centers were flooded with thousands of volunteers & new recruits.
Donald Coder The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in open combat. We only targeted warships, manned by combatant personnel. No civilian facilities were deliberately hit.
Even the Kamikaze pilots targeted warships exclusively.
These bombers and the monsters inside them firebombed Japan INDISCRIMINATELY. They killed women, children, infants...could you ever justify that
@@shizukamori6755 Boy you'd be disappointed to learn about what the IJA did in China, and other nations in SE Asia!
what a generation, every man , woman, and child did their part to keep america free, to save the loser generation of today who don’t disrespect the flag and this country, thank you so much for all you gave . i will never forget, and you have my utmost respect.
and look at it now.
Millenials and somali reps are wretched ingrates whi do not deserve to live in the United States.
Even I as a child collected metal and tinfoil for the war effort to give to the guy who picked it up from our neighborhood at least once a month .
@@jameswise6110 thank you for all you did..what a great generation...
Different video I'll never be able to recall the exact details of attributes the planes that didn't make it back basically tore apart from the turbulence. The violence of the fire storms had an unforeseen effect on the planes ability to fly. Not sure if it is the same raid but still, an eery thing to imagine. Regardless of politics now or of the time it was a horrific measure of our capability of destruction.
Not this raid. The fire bombing came later.
The music at the start immediately reminded me of the music while the B-36 was flying in the Jimmy Stewart movie Strategic Air Command (1955).
Even if I just see a documentary of those things, I get hearing damage. Not mounting eleven engines was a fail, though.
I hear it, after the fanfare when the strings start their own theme. Music to accentuate the beauty and grace of a grand aircraft.
@Peter Brown, just last weekend I was standing next an an R-4360 engine talking with a docent at the Bluegrass Aviation Museum in Lexington KY. This guy, a retired Air Force mechanic, was describing all the things that would go wrong with it. News to me was torsion fatigue front and rear, at the propeller shaft and engine mounts. The beast produced more torque than it could take indefinitely.
@@daveburch235 Thank you, Dave.
We have a lot to learn from these people that's not in any history books.
Great job.
Imagine watching urself when you were in a war film
Must bring back memories
I'm so sorry for the innocents that died, children.
I spent 2 weeks in Atami, Japan in 1970 for R&R. A beautiful country but crowded and small. My tour guide was a Japanese man who spoke perfect English. I asked him where learned our language and he told me the story of being an orphan raised by two young American soldiers during the occupation of Japan. He added, "I love Americans." I went back to Chu Lai, Vietnam to finish my tour as a Huey door gunner and crew chief. Later, I pulled a second tour in Danang, Vietnam. I thought I was doing what our fathers had done. Bring freedom to oppressed people.
What were your R&R location options?
U were no bring freedom but death to people. And for that u and ur kind will pay soon in future
"Love that navigator" That's a pretty good poke from SF to Oahu by dead reckoning. Maybe they had marker ships in place along the route??
Yes, and radar pickets.
Also, radio beacons on Hawaii.
God bless all those boys who fought on Iwo Jima, they gave us a place to land and prepare to have our just retribution for Pearl Harbor.
Iwo Jima provided a base for fighter escorts, and haven for crippled bombers. Thank you Marines.
One of my mothers life long best friend's husband fought on Iwo Jima. The back of his skull was shattered and they wanted to put a metal plate in his head. The success rate for such operations was very low and his wife refused to allow them to do it. He spent his life with nothing but skin and hair protecting the back of his head, he lived into his 80's and has children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren surviving him.
My great Uncle Mark died on Saipan. Semper Fi
Thats too bad. He wouldn't see all the good that he paid for with his life. GOD BLESS HIM & ALL OTHERS LIKE HIM!!!
I just saw some of the same footage of the beach runners, setting up mosquito netting on a film about Enola Gay and the development of the atomic bomb. Standard shots get reused over and over.
They said all but two came back to Saipan. It would be interesting to know how many took off for Tokyo.
111 is what i gleaned from the net
A great story about our Aviation during WW2.
My late father-in-law was a USAAF Colonel [a Flt Surgeon in a B-17 Group]..in the Pacific in 1942-43. told me this story back in '76, when I got out of the Navy.
Quote: "In May 1942 (b4 Midway) my pilots came crying w rage to me, bks they had just got orders to put "off limits" all 3 large OIL REFINERIES in the far East (somehow recently captured "intact" by Japs since Dec 7th) These were BP and Shell in Singapore and ESSO up in Hanoi (then Fr Indo-china). He said they stayed that way as long as he was there (2+ yrs) He also said the men told him they could end the war in 6 WEEKS if they could just be allowed to bomb the Japs' oil refineries and shut off their fuel supplies. Think on that one, folks. BTW ESSO refinery at Hanoi was still off limits til 1972. They call it the theater of war..for a reason.
This may have happened after this film was bade.
The early 29s, like all new aircraft had its teething problems, and the plane was beginning to get a reputation as a killer. When the Wing which dropped the Bomb received its first planes, COL Tibbets requested that it be delivered by a WASP crew. When the pilots saw women bring in the killer without a hitch, they shut up about it being too tough to fly.
I thought i recognized that voice.
That was beautiful.
Awesome, i Really good stuf, woahhh!!!
@PeriscopeFilm, May The Good Lord Bless You.
You are so very welcome. Love our channel? Help us save and post more orphaned films! Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/PeriscopeFilm Even a really tiny contribution can make a difference.
0:14 Target Tokyo I thought at first it was opening for a movie on TMC?
chris miller
Close, there was a movie I think was called 30 Seconds over Tokyo.
They were going to bomb a new American Retail chain store that just opened a store in the Japanese market.
What is that music at the beginning?
I'm glad that everyone loves Japan as a Japanese
I remember seeing this film in the movie theaters in the late 1940s or early 1950s. .25 cents, 10 cents admission, 10 cents for a box of popcorn and 5 cents for a cup of Coca Cola.
Historian Victor Davis Hanson states that , for every Japanese civilian and soldier that was killed in WW2, they killed 9 people. Another thing, without the A bomb forcing a surrender, fleets of B29s freed up from the European theater, would have burned Japan to the ground while the USSR grabbed more Japanese territory. That said, think of Hiroshima in 1946 and Detroit in 1946, now look at each today. That's a non sequitur I know, but theres irony there.
There were no B-29s in the ETO, they were never going to be used there, only in the Pacific.
My understanding is there were no B-29 in Europe.
@@yank-tc8bz True, they did send one to England to make the Germans aware that they could be in real trouble.
@@jamesmcdermott1808, despite what the Gipper told us, the first B-29 raids were launched from China. The birds were deployed by way of England and India. The results were disappointing.
@@davidlentz9683 You are right: "On 15 June 1944, 68 B-29s took off from bases around Chengdu, 47 B-29s bombed the Imperial Iron and Steel Works at Yawata, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. This was the first attack on Japanese islands since the Doolittle raid in April 1942. ---wikipedia. So this film depicts the first raid on Tokyo since the Doolittle attack.
The Voice is Ronald Regan.
My father was on that base in WW2.
Curtis LeMay 21st Airforce ,USAAF SWPA 1943 to 1946/1947 .
Grand Island NY is just a few miles up stream from Niagara Falls.
Nebraska, not New York state.
0:01 RIP eardrums
Salute to Brave 🇵🇭🙏🇺🇲
Amazing to see and hear the chief's announcement to the group of where they're going and their sigh
People today do not realize how HUGE the B-29 was by contemporary standards. It weighed some 150,000 pounds fully loaded. Compare this to the B-17 which had max weight of 65,500 pounds.
God Bless those brave men!
Did I hear that right? 2200 horsepower from each of four engines? I have trouble wrapping my mind around that!
My father fought on Okinawa and told me that without the B-29 he would certainly have been killed in Operations Olympic/Coronet
These were different times the fire bombing was started weeks after leaflets were dropped over the target citys warning all women and children to pack up and leave my dad was in this b-29 squadron 498th 73rd wing t sqare 5 joltin jossie thee pacific pioneer bombrr he talked a little about the war years after this tore him up knowing the deaths caused it had to be done to help end the war this times were brutal on all sides nothing to brag about
You know damn well there was no warning.. Leaflets..lmao!! Hey just to let ya know in couple weeks we are gonna bomb you😂🤣😂🤣 Dumbest shit I've ever heard!
@Jeff Ring My sensei in Denver in the late 90's was a 13-year old boy in Hiroshima in August 1945. They dropped leaflets telling the women and children to leave. His parents got him out to a relative some 20 or 30 miles away. So I guess there were leaflets. Those who were smart saved themselves.
Rod, My relatives in Japan was bombed by th B-29. But they were farmers and they did not target where my relative were living, but they can feel and see in the distance where they were bombing. She said it was very frightening. They were living inside a cave near their farm. Even if you drop leaflets, where do you go? My parents said Japan was in sad shape at this time, they had nothing. Even though they were farmers they had only potatoes and rice, everything else was gone. This is what I was told. You cannot blame your father, my parents are American now and they do not have any ill feeling towards America. Japan got what came to them because of the country's leaders. God bless your father. He is our hero. Take it easy.
Different times indeed rod warner. One in which youth feel it is not necessary to use punctuation.
@@jeffring8954 ~ That was because they weren't after civilians, they were just aiming to destroy the manufacturing plant. You're comment is the dumbest sh*t I'VE ever heard.
This was the first B-29 raid on Tokyo but far from the first B-29 raid on Japan, which first occurred in June, 1944 out of India.
It really sucks to get your ass kicked when you started it and deserved it.
They said all but 2 of the B-29's made it back to Saipan from the Tokyo bombing mission. Anyone know any historical information of the 2 aircraft or survivors or fate of the crew of those Superforts?
In 1945 a lot of men that hadn't seen action yet must of been itching to get some before the war was over.
As a little girl during the Korean war my mom recalls kids running and pointing at the sky shouting "B-29! B-29!". She said, what's a B-29? Even I wonder how these little village kids knew 🤔
njaneardude was this in Korea?
What a time to be alive!
Salute and respect ✈️
God Bless my Country! The United States Of America!!!
U never know how important is prayer before to war
My dad and uncles fought in that war. My brother and i enlisted in the military. My brother- air force. Me -navy. Vietnam was going on at the time.
The music at 13:00 sounds familiar but I can't place it?
I think this is the Rachmaninoff piano concerto #2
My dad was stationed at GRAND ISLAND NEB ALSO WAS AT GUAM WORKED ON B-29'S
Not quite 1st over the target. That would be the guys from the combat mapping squadron that took the pictures for their targeting.
Thank you Ladies and Gentlemen! God bless you for all your sacrifice.
“A body longer than a corvette”
It took me a minute to realise he was talking about a class of warship, not the car 🤔
I wish he had given a little information about the two that didn't get back. Shot down? If so, by ground fire, fighters? What happened to the crews?
This isn't the first B29 raid on Japan, the first one was an attack on the steel works at Yawata Japan by 75 B29s based in China on the night of June 15/16 1944.
@Harold Albert they were B25 Mitchell bombers. I knew a man who put high performance carbs and extra fuel tanks in the planes before they flew to California. They loaded them on the Hornet and the rest is history.
Following the Dottlitte Raiders!
Reagan is a great narrator
I was lucky to meet Ronald and Nancy Reagan, and got to shake their hands.
Have you been able to wash off the filth?
@David Watson Reagan started the decline of the American middle class. And he conspired with Iran.....very illegally.....before the election. Full disclosure: I am a fraternity brother of Reagan. Embarrassing.
@Jan Pearson Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Soviet collapsed of its own issues. Reagan had nothing to do with it.
@Jan Pearson Believe what you want. The Soviet Union was almost in the dust bin, with or without St. Reagan.
General Harmon vanished in a plane crash!
That was indeed, "The Greatest Generation" ! God rest them all. 🇺🇸❤🙏🙌🏼
that was the hardest thing to figure out was the ladder Ha I love the B 17 in 12 oclock high
I invite everyone to listen to the revisionist history podcast on this - That first raid was a complete failure. Due to the Jetstream planes were too fast and did not hit the target.
God bless the brave generation who gave all for our freedom today and tomorrow.
People who would argue about these missions don't understand what total war is or why it was necessary during WW2. WW1 was a world war but the technology of that time stopped it from being a total war. Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany had to be defeated even if it cost every man, woman, and child in the free world.
Many realities in WW1 and every war till Vietnam, thank God for these men who answered the call, because of them I've had complete freedom. 🙏🇺🇲
Americans have been murderers and not heros
For all ur crimes u will pay likewise now
Think how good those excellent aircraft would have been with the mighty Allison turboprops, just a few years ahead. Col, NZ.
Grabd Island used to be biggest mule market in USA?
Cool where in when did they take off.
If you go to the web page of the 500th Bomb Group Assoc. (Tail letter "Z"), the mission was not a cake walk. About 1/3 of the planes had to turn back due to engine failures, they missed the target by a mile, and it took 5 more missions there until they damaged the plant.
They ran the missions like in Europe, but the 29's were so loaded down with fuel and bombs the engines would burn themselves up straining to the altitude to the assembly point. Then they had trouble flying formation in the hot Pacific Up drafts and jet stream with the Big B-29's. The stress would cause the engines to over heat, leak oil, or even catch on fire.
Only after the 4th mission, did they decide that each plane would just take off, fly at 5,000 ft. to a point just out of radar range of Japan, then climb and assemble. By that time they had burned off enough fuel to take the stress off the engines.
The B-29 could not hit the broad side of a barn. It used the Norden Bomb sight, but the combination of higher altitude, much higher speeds, and the high upper level winds over Japan made accuracy a joke. That was the main reason they switched to night time fire bombing missions.
A number of years ago I read an article by the people who maintain the B-29 Fifi. According to them, The R-3350 engine had design flaws that were not resolved until 1947.
God bless you and keep you, Superfortress Heroes!