B-29 attacks

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David C. Clarke
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B-29 attacks

#1

Post by David C. Clarke » 12 Mar 2008, 10:22

Something that has always bothered me. IJN and IJAAF aircraft, with the exception of the ki-84 were not known for their speed. In fact, contemporary accounts seem to emphasize their lack of armor and self-sealing fuel tanks. However,the B-29 bombers managed to incur heavy losses even when escorted by P-51s and F6 Hellcats. Some portion of the eqtuation appears to be missing. If IJN and IJAAF fighters were so totally outclassed by the B-29, why did those bombers and their escorts suffer such large losses? I know there came a time when the IJN and IJAAF were withdrawn to save their strength for the coming invasion, but it seems u to this point that the "inferior" Japanese fighters inflicted heavy losses on B-29 formations and their escorts.

Could it be that American racism never quite credited the IJN and IJAAF fighters with the tenacity and superior designs available to the Japanese at this stage? A ramming attack by a a "Tony" could easily be written off as a tactic of desperation, but the far many fights by KI-100s, Raidens and Shiden-Kais against bomber formations and their escorts would seem to be a totally different matter. Yet we read so little about these in contemporary literature. How many fighters and bombers did the Allies loss in 1945 over Japan from strictly air to air combat???

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David
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JamesL
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Re: B-29 attacks

#2

Post by JamesL » 12 Mar 2008, 17:37

Would you please quantify and source your claim of "heavy losses"?

US Army Air Force records indicate 74 B-29's were lost in air-to-air combat over Japan. Other B-29 losses can be attributed to anti-aircraft artillery, mid-air collisions, weather, mechanical problems, ditching after running out of fuel.

Depending upon the mission, B-29's flew as low as 5,000 feet and as high as 35,000 feet.


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David C. Clarke
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Re: B-29 attacks

#3

Post by David C. Clarke » 13 Mar 2008, 00:10

Hi James, I will qualify my remarks. Let's suppose that I remove the entire phrase "heavy losses". That still leaves us with the issue of how many losses. I've learned that statistics, particularly under the stress of war, have a half-life of about sixty seconds, even if they appear again and again in subsequent literature. For years and years it was "common historical knowledge" that, for instance, the F-86 enjoyed a 14-1 kill ratio over the MiG-15 in the Korean war, but modern accounts using Russian and Chinese sources vigorously dispute this.

Returning to the B-29, the question I ask as the basis of this thread is:

"How many B-29s and their escort fighters were lost, from all causes, during the air war against the Japanese Home islands?"

That should give us a basis on which to anchor further discussion and avoid the touchy issue of nationalist sentiments. I'm of the firm opinion that a shot-up B-29 making it back to Okinawa only to be written off as a combat loss, was a victim of the air war over Japan, but I don't know that such were counted in the "74" statistic.

Bestens,
David
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ChristopherPerrien
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Re: B-29 attacks

#4

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 13 Mar 2008, 08:51

Various sites on the net put the figure of lost B-29's at 360-400. These are both combat losses and "operational" losses.
This sites seems intersting although English is obviously not the native tongue of the ownerhttp://www.sun-inet.or.jp/~ja2tko/eng/e ... 29no2.html

Total produced B-29's were about 4000.

Losses for escorting fighters? idk

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Pips
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Re: B-29 attacks

#5

Post by Pips » 13 Mar 2008, 11:37

If one considers direct, known, losses attributed to direct enemy action, then it woould appear that the loss rate for the B-29 bomber campaign conducted by both the XXth and XXIst Bomber Commands was minimal. However a review of all losses paints quite a different picture.

Of the 414 bombers lost in combat 148 are attributed to enemy action and 151 to operational causes (including take-off/landing accidents which were very common), with the remaining 115 lost to 'unknown' causes, which in all likelihood can also be attributed to enemy action. In addition to the above figure of 414, a further 97 others were lost in training accidents (in theatre), 12 were destroyed on the ground due to enemy action and a further 286 were scrapped/cannibalised due to damage suffered on missions. In terms of personnal, 1,090 men were listed as dead; 1,732 as missing in action, and 362 returned from prisoner, internment or missing-in-action status.

To the above total of 809 B-29's lost to all causes 'in theatre' a further 260 B-29's were lost in training in the USA. A grand total of 1,069. The real picture is always more grim than 'official' figures would have one believe.

Furthermore, but for the 'safe-haven' of Iwo Jima the cost to the XXth Air Force could have been dramatically worse. From it's capture in February '45 to wars end 2,396 B-29's made emergency landings on Iwo; 524 of those required major maintenance work on the Island prior to them being classed capable of flying onto the Marianas for additional repairs and/or scrapping.

The single most costly target for the Twentieth proved to be the Nakajima Musashino plant in Tokyo, the infamous target number 157. Of the 505 bombers that attacked the target over nine missions, 47 were lost - a 9% lost rate. Quite astounding given the overall loss rate for the B-29 campaign is less than 1%.

The above figures can be found in several reference books on the B-29, my favourites being "Blankets Of Fire" by Kenneth P Werrell, "Birds From Hell", by Wilbur H Morrison and "Boeing B-29 Superfortress:, by John M Campbell.

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Re: B-29 attacks

#6

Post by David C. Clarke » 14 Mar 2008, 03:36

An excellent post indeed Pips!!! :) :) :)

I think that you summed it up in this sentence:
The real picture is always more grim than 'official' figures would have one believe.
Again, it seems that "official losses", like any other wartime statistic, is a hollow phrase and best understood by looking at the entire picture.

Very Best,
David

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Peter H
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Re: B-29 attacks

#7

Post by Peter H » 15 Mar 2008, 14:54

Japanese B-29 "Killers" i.e pilots with B-29 kills

NAME / CONFIRMED / DAMAGED / UNIT
Ito, Fujitaro / 17 / 20 / 5th Sentai
Shirai, Nagao / 11 / / 244th Sentai
Ichikawa, Chuichi / 9 / 6 / 244th Sentai
Ito, Totaro / 9 / / IJAAF
Kono, Kensui / 9 / / 70th Sentai
Endo, Sachi-o / 8 / 8 / IJNAF
Kimura, Sadamitsu / 8 / / 4th Sentai
Kashiide, Isamu / 7 / / 4th Sentai
Ogawa, Makoto / 7 / / 70th Sentai
Tobita, Hitoshi / 7 / / IJAAF
Negishi, Nobuji /6 / / 53rd Sentai
Sasaki, Isamu /6 / / Test Centre Fighter Unit
Torizika, Moriyoshi / 6 / / 53rd Senati
Yoshida, Yoshio / 6 / / 70th Sentai
Kawakita, Akira / 5 / / 9th Sentai
Kuramoto, Juzo / 5 / / IJAAF 1.
Nishio, Hannoshin / 5 / / 4th Sentai
Sumi, Tadao / 5 / 6 / 56th Sentai

"Confirmed kills" total 124,nearing US reported losses to enemy of 148.

Ito's Ki-45 "Toryu"

http://www.freewebs.com/gregboyington/ijaafki4546.htm

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Re: B-29 attacks

#8

Post by JoeB » 15 Mar 2008, 23:42

DCClarke wrote: For years and years it was "common historical knowledge" that, for instance, the F-86 enjoyed a 14-1 kill ratio over the MiG-15 in the Korean war, but modern accounts using Russian and Chinese sources vigorously dispute this.
That is illustrative, even though not right on topic. What you mean is Soviet and Chinese *claims*, known only relatively recently, were much higher than US recorded losses. But while in some cases knowledge of specific claims (Soviet mainly because details of Chinese ones are still less well know) can illuminate the real cause of, for example, 'unknown' losses, claims can't actually create losses which don't exist at all at the same places and times in detailed then-secret records; or alternatively that gets into the realm of elaborate conspiracy theorizing (how voluminous then-secret records of all kinds would have basically the same losses if they weren't the real ones), not objective history. This topic is a special interest of mine, I've done a lot of review of USAF KW records v specific MiG claims, and while as I said some claims add information to vague knowledge of loss cause on US side, in general they don't change the loss answer very much in % terms. Btw 14:1 was based on a simply erroneous F-86 loss total in one particular book, 10:1 (~800:78) is the common quote and 78 the actual official total of F-86 air combat losses. I estimate around 85-90 going F-86 by F-86 with benefit of opposing claims, v. actual number of Soviet/Chinese MiG's downed in air combat 319/224 (well known published workd in Russia and Chinese official total respectively), with probably around 50 more NK, the vast majority by F-86's. That discounting rate for the F-86 official victories is actually good by WWII standards (800 victories, ~550-600 actual opposing losses), it also holds up for subperiods of the war where all MiG losses are known in detail . The discount factor OTOH between the combined MiG claims was a lot more (642/211/44 Sov/Chinese/NK victories specifically against F-86's, there is a seeminly reasonable direct NK source in this case, v ~85-90 F-86 air combat losses). Some WWII era fighter overclaims were almost as high though, and bomber overclaims against attacking fighters were frequently that high, in fact B-29's in Korea were credited 27 MiG-15's but appeared to have downed as few as 3. A student of two-sided WWII fighter combat accounting wouldn't have estimated the F-86's real exchange ratio much higher than 6-7 :1 based on 10:1 claimed, and that's about what it apparently was. The MiG's low claim accuracy is somewhat more surprising, but the Soviets claimed around 7 times more Japanese a/c than they downed in their 1939 war with Japan, not much different considering their claims in Korea may have a been more accurate than the 10:1 average MiG overclaim (though at least some F-86's were downed by the Chinese for sure, and the Soviets made most of the claims), and the MiG overclaim ratio wasn't quite as high v non-F-86 targets, but I'm just using the F-86 example.

Pip's post for B-29 losses is good. The % of unknowns was pretty high (much more than in Korea). For case by case examples I again (as on another thread) recommend Henry Sakaida, this type "B-29 Hunters of the JAAF" which goes through many B-29 v J-fighter engagements especially in the early unescorted daylight phase of the campaign from the Marianas. It's clear some B-29 losses not attributed to fighters were actually, but the Japanese claimed many more B-29's than were downed, again it's standard, only the degree varies. Also a signficant % of those kills were by ramming, I counted more than a 1/3.

But the campaign went like this: a few raids from China on Japan by B-29's from June '44 then serious effort from Marianas Nov '44 throough Feb '45 no escorts, and that's when most of the fighter losses were suffered. Then in March '45 devastating night fire raids with relatively light losses to the pretty small Japanese night fighter force. Then in April a few daylight raids escorted by P-51's from Iwo Jima, with quite heavy losses to the Japanese fighters, by their accounts. Thereafter a mix of day and night raids but even the day ones were not often escorted anymore, the fighter threat was rapidly receding, and the P-51's flew most of their missions on sweeps or against Japanese airfields. Meanwhile from February onward USN carrier fighters were operating separately over Japan, and by summer of '45 landbased fighters of USAAF and USMC from Okinawa also, so again B-29 loss rate to fighters dropped off to quite low in the period when most of the B-29 sorties were flown (since the force was constantly growing, it was much bigger and flying sorties at a much higher rate by say June '45 than it had been back in January when the loss rate peaked).

Joe
Last edited by JoeB on 16 Mar 2008, 03:53, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: B-29 attacks

#9

Post by Jerry Asher » 16 Mar 2008, 02:20

While searching for data on the construction of the B-29 bases in China I came across this tidbit that seems to me to go a long way to explain I B -29 operational losses at first. In February 1943 virtually the entire B -29 design and testing team was killed in an accient. The Air Force made the decision to go ahead and start from the paper plans that survied. What was loss was all the human intuition over the myriad of components and systems. The decision to go ahead and accept the losses is counter to the general practice of American developmnet and procurement. The engines were a particular problem for the planes throught the months of 1944. Also often overlooked is that the 1st B-29 missions from OKINAWA began in the second week of August 1945. In short if the war had continued the Americans would have had a close and tried and tested B -29 force at its disposal. HTH

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Re: B-29 attacks

#10

Post by ChristopherPerrien » 16 Mar 2008, 06:26

David C. Clarke wrote:An excellent post indeed Pips!!! :) :) :)

I think that you summed it up in this sentence:
The real picture is always more grim than 'official' figures would have one believe.
Again, it seems that "official losses", like any other wartime statistic, is a hollow phrase and best understood by looking at the entire picture.

Very Best,
David
I don't follow this logic at all. Or much of what PIPS was implying or why. I readily believe his figures are accurate or quite close , but his analysis seems a little off.

example:
The single most costly target for the Twentieth proved to be the Nakajima Musashino plant in Tokyo, the infamous target number 157. Of the 505 bombers that attacked the target over nine missions, 47 were lost - a 9% lost rate.
The loss rate for these missions would be on the order of 1% FOR EACH MISSION. Which was typical for B-29 missions Adding the total losses/loss rates for NINE missions is just bad math.
Of the 414 bombers lost in combat 148 are attributed to enemy action and 151 to operational causes (including take-off/landing accidents which were very common), with the remaining 115 lost to 'unknown' causes, which in all likelihood can also be attributed to enemy action.
HUH? Why ? the B-29 had a notorious tendency toward engine fires , and the stress that these planes endured while in combat may well have exacerbated the problem in combat situations where the engines were pushed to their limits or way past them. So there is no way to automatically accrue such losses to ENEMY action, only that they occured somewhere near or over Japan .

And the other 151 is not attributable to combat , so there is no reason to go giving victories to the Japanese just to disprarage an airplane, for whatever reason. And again about the engines , the take-off was the most dangerous time for laden B-29's as this was when the engine were put under the most stress and could catch fire. The Japanese didn't cause this , but it did happen in the "combat zone".

Again
To the above total of 809 B-29's lost to all causes 'in theatre' a further 260 B-29's were lost in training in the USA. A grand total of 1,069. The real picture is always more grim than 'official' figures would have one believe.
Not really , flying airplanes was dangerous back in WWII no matter where they where flying , over Japan or over America.
A 25 % TOTAL loss rate for airplane forall causes during WW II is not grim.
and a further 286 were scrapped/cannibalised due to damage suffered on missions.
????????????????????????? Not really , It is a matter of scrapping marginal planes or planes that had some sort of mechanical problem that made it more ECONOMICAL to scrap a broken/bad/lemon/ airplane to fix SEVERAL other planes. Again, most of the "cannibalised" airplanes were far more due to engine problems and engine fires than damage suffered from combat.

I suggest a book "Point of No Return" for a better understanding of exactly how B-29's were lost and how few of those were done in by the Japanese.
In terms of personnal, 1,090 men were listed as dead; 1,732 as missing in action, and 362 returned from prisoner, internment or missing-in-action status.
Okay, Another real figure , still not a "statistic", It puts the total dead for B-29 ops for the war at about 2500 men. Considering the B-29 had a crew of 11 , you really have to think about how many planes were TOTAL losses and that those lost planes were the real "killer" incidents(combined with barbaric treament of captured B-29 airmen). The Japanese didn't shoot down or cause more than about the inital 148 B-29's listed as lost to enemy action.

No grim statistics here, just a "typical" loss rate for an airplane, probably better than many others and the Japanese did poorly against it.

Chris

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Re: B-29 attacks

#11

Post by David C. Clarke » 16 Mar 2008, 08:56

If 809 B-29s were lost "in theater", that is still quite a burden for any air force, even one so well-endowed and robust as the USAAF, to endure.

By comparison, the Japanese only produced 396 KI-100s, 476 J2M Raiden and 1400+ Shiden single seat fighters. Certainly other earlier model Japanese fighters defended the homeland, but certainly other American bombers (B-17s, B-25s and B-26s) took part in the air campaign over the Japanese home islands.

I only throw these statistics at the Board to remind everyone that, contrary to what has been written in other Threads, the air war over the Japanese home islands was not a walkover. And that due credit should be given to the air heroes of both sides, rather than one hiding behind the propaganda and prejudices of the past. Much research needs to be done in the future, INHO, about exactly how deadly this particular campaign was. I submit that if such shoddy research were ever put forward on the Allied air campaign against Germany, it would be laughed off of the Forum. (This comment is definitely not aimed at you, Chris!)

~D, the EviL

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Re: B-29 attacks

#12

Post by gianpaolo » 16 Mar 2008, 19:50

In addition to the 414 b-29 lost all causes on combat mission by the xx and xxi bc , 3111 were damaged -

419 with " major damage" per Usaaf Statistical Digest .


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gianpaolo

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Re: B-29 attacks

#13

Post by zmija » 18 Mar 2008, 22:51

Peter H wrote:Ito's Ki-45 "Toryu"
Looks more like Bf-110 to me.

Pic from wikipedia
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Re: B-29 attacks

#14

Post by Peter H » 05 Nov 2008, 05:22

Discussing air tactics
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Brady
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Re: B-29 attacks

#15

Post by Brady » 05 Nov 2008, 09:01

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Above from B-29 Hunters of the JAAF (Osprey Aviation Elite 5) (Paperback)
by Koji Takaki (Author), Jim Laurier (Illustrator)

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