Very Heavy Bombers in the ETO.

RAF against Japan

Don’t know how significant this is to the discussion, but I think real planning for “after Germany” began around April/May ’44, shortly BEFORE D-Day. Sorry for the imprecision, but I’d have to do some digging to get a clearer idea.

re building B-29s, summer of ’42 [yes, I’m jumping back!] was a time of much planning in terms of resources, etc, and I do recall a comment which I think was about then (might have been slightly later) along the lines of “If we’re going to focus on one US type to build here, it seems like the B-29 would be the one to choose [vs. the Merlin Mustang].” But I don’t know anything directly about the idea of building B-29s in UK.

bob

Let me set Buttler/BSP, 1935-50, Chapter 7, alongside big picture events.
Trenchard, House of Lords Qs: Where are the 1936 Big Bombers? Minister of Aircraft Production Beaver is shunted out, 1/5/41.
15/7/41: the first Very Heavy is funded as Warwick III.
10/41: PM agrees the massive industrial programme to deliver 11,000 Heavies, inc. many Lend/Lease B-17/B-24.
New Year,1942: FDR agrees Germany First, so (to be) the Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO).
4/7/42: Warwick III becomes Windsor.
29/7/42: “our best chance of winning the war is with the big Bombers” WSC to Attlee, D.Reynolds, From World War to Cold War, OUP, 2007,P.117.
12/8/42: Stalin berates WSC in the sense that the German dies if you shoot him -you should try it. WSC depicts Big Bombers as the Second Front…but where are they?
The sole credible candidate PM, Stafford Cripps (RSC), ex-Ambassador to Moscow, had strenously, publically opposed the CBO, but by 9/42 was a Harris convert ‘to the verge of ventriloquism’, saying “the one (way) Germany can be defeated is by air attack” P.Clarke, The Cripps Version, Pp360/362.
22/11/42 scapegoat for absent Heavies, MAP Llewellin is replaced by RSC: on his desk, 15 Very Heavy/75/100 ton schemes by 5 firms (inc. Vickers Scheme ‘C’).
Minister of Labour Bevin, now a more credible putative PM, criticises MAP’s privileged vacuuming of able bodies: Aero was:“the one industry which had failed to improve (output pro-rata) to the amount of labour supplied” 7/1/43, C.Barnett,Audit of War,P157.
10/1/43: RSC ejects Short Bros. Board, puts in AWA to deliver the last 108 Stirlings from S.Marston. Industry gets the message.
11/3/43: he funds Bristol’s Very Heavy scheme, disguised as Brabazon Type I Transatlantic, and tells the outraged established Heavy firms to get on with the knitting. They do.
21/4/43: he orders 300 Windsors.
7/43 he funds (to be) Lincoln, buying 162, 8/43.
2/12/43 he funds HP.66/69 Hastings B.I/II, intending to buy 200.
11/44 Quebec Conference: FDR accepts British Forces, additional to ANZ, in PTO, despite the criticism “our boys are not dying to restore the British Empire”. Before that, WSC, so Portal and MAP, might well have PTO in the fore of their mind, but Theatre leader, paymaster and supplier of most material needed for…well, anything, really, had not seen UK there.

Without a date, Buttler,P.120 has: “it was thought…undesirable to introduce a new type (Windsor, in PTO) until it had been fully tried out in UK”. I suggest: obviously. And ditto likewise B-29 and B-32 (UK or Mediterranean).

Unless WSC+FDR chose not to fly them anywhere near Uncle Joe. A good reason for that would have been to respect his territorial sovereignty (aka paranoia); an Alternative would be to guard our sole advantage offsetting his volume.

The appearance was supposedly to allow 8th Air Force Technical and Tactical staff to evalulate the machine, but in reality it was an attempt to mislead German Intelligence into believing that the B-29 was to be based in the UK.

I think the ‘supposedly’ bears more in reality than the ‘attempt’ part of that statement
I also think we are getting hung up on the B-29 and this non operational vsit to the UK.

Ken have you considered that the Vickers ‘Type C’ six engined, tailess canard design was one of the very heavy bombers in consideration? Seem to think that was mooted c.’42-3?

That is what is meant by “the B-29 was “too late” for European war”.

If I may be allowed to throw something into the put here – I think I can shed some light on the first B-29 to visit Europe…. to quote myself:

As a result of superhuman efforts on the part of all concerned, 150 B-29s had been handed over to the 20th Bomber Command by 15 April 1944. Such was the urgency that the aircraft left Kansas with spare engines and a kit of spare parts in each of their bomb-bays.
First away, flying 41-36963, was Col Frank Cook, the former production engineering officer at Wright Field. Colonel Harman was next; he taxied his YB-29 to the end of the concrete ribbon at Salina, and took off for the wars. With the coming of April, more and more Superfortresses departed for the battle zones – four or five B-29s every dawn. Before each aircraft left, an engineering officer signed a statement saying the work ordered on this aircraft had been completed satisfactorily.
Colonel Frank Cook’s flight plan from Salina took him non-stop to Miami. Taking off at night, under secret orders, Colonel Cook flew south for one hour over the Atlantic, then he changed course and flew north, while still over the sea, on to Newfoundland. From there ‘963’ flew non-stop at twenty thousand feet to a base in the UK. All this was according to plan. The appearance was supposedly to allow 8th Air Force Technical and Tactical staff to evalulate the machine, but in reality it was an attempt to mislead German Intelligence into believing that the B-29 was to be based in the UK. For the next two weeks, one thousand citizens, persons with vital war roles, inspected ‘963 at both Glatton and Knettishall. It was a feint and it worked, for at no time did enemy aircraft seek out and interfere with the ‘air train’ of Superfortresses which was to follow Colonel Harman across the Atlantic to Africa and on into India. Colonel Harman landed his Superfortress on the hot, dusty runway of his India base on 2 April. More B-29s were to follow him.

I’ve been looking into ‘Very Heavy’ for a while, mainly due to the St Mawgan connection.

No where can I find reference to a specific type of very heavy bomber or transport that was percieved in 1943 to requir a special base for it as such. The only type I can find is the B-36, but then I can’t find evidence of UK bases being required for it at that time.

I don’t know about Langford Lodge but the four Very Heavy Bomber stations Sculthorpe, West Raynham, Marham, & Lakenheath were all being completed in 1945 with 6,000ft (later three would have one 9,000 ft runways, due to USAF Jet bombers – but unrelated).
All were in East Anglia, so threat from enemy bombing must have been considered very low, to non existant by then.
St Mawgan had a 9,000 x 300ft runway built in ’43 (and a longer one planned), but there wasn’t a transport aircraft envisaged that required that size, it was required to move many aircraft (16,000 a year, 169 recorded on one day) on long dstance ferrying and delivery flights though.
All these stations had more dispersals (of standard size) than normal and better taxitracks from the runway, coupled with the runway size this lends credence to many aircraft movements being the driving factor of their designed layout, not aircraft size as such.

I do get that designs, such as the B-29 & Windsor, were getting bigger and heavier but not to a degree that required much bigger runways then already being planned and built.
Bigger runways were designed to get more aircraft down in a shorter time, witness the monster wartime diversion runways, 750ft x 9,000ft, at RAF Carnaby, Mantson, and Woodbridge that were designed to land formations of returning diverted bombers in streams and get them of into parking areas as quickly as possible.

Personally I can only assume that the Very Heavy Bomber/Transport idea was a single scheme, but my hunch is it referred to frequency of movements and action than to especially heavy aircraft.

But…dates don’t fit.

T.433 Warwick III was redefined as T.447 Windsor and so funded in R&D, 4/7/42, 300 ordered 21/4/43. (to be) Lincoln and (intended to be Hastings B.1, but chopped) were ordered into R&D 4/43.
(I had thought Stalin’s comitment to declare v. Japan was at Yalta, 2/45, but A.Roberts, The Storm of War,Allen Lane,2009, P.571 has that only as the date – 90 days after VE Day – and P.382 has him committing at Tehran, 11/43). So: vast cascades of B-29, B-32, Lincoln and Windsor planned as we go into 1944. But not until Quebec, 11/44 does Portal advise PM that RAF could aid “the softening-up process against Japan” M.Gilbert, The Road to Victory, 1986, P957. He will have had in mind Windsor, Lincoln, interim IFR Tiger Force Lanc. and came home to set about just that. Because only there and then did WSC persuade FDR to accept a Commonwealth involvement in the invasiuon of Japan. Adm King didn’t need a BPF, Gen MacArthur didn’t want more confusion – we write of him as Anglophobe, but he was Philophile: I shall return! B-29 would have been based on Philippines if his progress had been faster than USN/USMC’s island-hopping.

The logic, till PTO bases became available, was to shakedown the new types (B-29 and B-32), from Aleutians v. Korea/Manchukuo, and from Langford Lodge/Elvington and such, over the Baltic and down the Elbe. Massive Depot/infrastructure support. Unlike…over the Hump into target-sparse S. China. The logic of ordering Lincoln/Windsor before FDR accepted UK-from S.Pacific, was to come up from the Med onto Ploesti.

Odd. We will find no evidence of my thought, of not provoking Joe…but a fellow may mull, eh?

Production numbers. B-29s (or any other plane) weren’t produced by a wave of the hand… it took time to build them.

Bluntly put, alertken, there weren’t enough B-29s to meet the needs of both the PTO and to start converting bomber groups of the ETO before VE day came.

Given this fact, the pressing point about where to send them came down to this: range.

Range required by where the bases and targets were, and range of the aircraft in question.

B-17s & B-24s had all the range needed for all ETO operations, while they lacked the range needed for PTO missions.

It would be wildly illogical to send B-29s to the theatre where B-17s and B-24s could do the job instead of the one where they couldn’t!

Therefore, all B-29s HAD to go PTO until PTO had all it needed, only then could ETO start getting them… and by then there was no need for them in ETO.

That is what is meant by “the B-29 was “too late” for European war”.

The Feb. 1945 date seems far too late. By then, it seems everyone knew the collapse of Germany was just a matter of time and the bomber offensive was just about over.
That was just two months before Boeing would produce its last B-17G. That indicates that the USAAF felt it had more than enough B-17s around to finish the job.
If they felt they had enough B-17s, there was no need to go to the trouble of introducing a complex new type to the theater. Obviously, the training, spares/maintenance support, and basing issues would have been huge.

I’ve checked my library and I’m a bit surprised no one has written about it more.
In the mass-market semi-official Boeing company history, Vision by Harold Mansfield (1956) it says simply the B-29 was “too late” for European war.

Simply put, the B-17, B-124 and Lancasters could attack Germany..with fewer losses as Luftwaffe strength lessened…but only the B-29 could attack Japan from the Pacific island bases.

Perhaps it depends on the definition of “finally deciding”.
By that date it just could have been a minor paperwork excercise…the final accounting for something everyone knew was never going to happen. “Put paid to”, as the English say. 🙂

Lifting from ls’ links with thanks: cnam100/Horsham: “USAAF plan was to convert nine B-24 equiped groups to B-29 between June-Sept 1945. These groups would have all been 2nd Air Division units, all based in Norfolk and Suffolk. A training squadron was planned to be based at Boscombe Down. No doubt the runways of the choosen airfields would have need to be longer than for B-24 operations. In February 1945 the plans for UK based B-29 were cancelled.”

at: “In the unlikely event of English airfields being threatened with serious air attack or even invasion, there was a fallback plan to base 800 B-29s in Northern Ireland, plus B-32s later. The plan was not abandoned until May 1944 and a project to extend many runways to the necessary 9,000 feet was shelved.”

So we have (jb/Putnam) end-1943, May,’44 and Feb.’45 as deletion of ETO US Very Heavies. Lincolns and Windsors not discussed. I find it all most odd. Clearly, if we were still sending out Halifax/Lancaster/B-17/B-24 once Very Heavies were deployable, Ministers would have been culpable in hazarding 2 crews to deliver the weight of 1. In logic, PTO/SEAsia would have been equipped as well as (and after de-bugging – which dished B-32, mortally in-Theatre), not instead of ETO. I’m not impressed by thoughts (in ls’ links) of spoofing the Axis.

After Kursk, August,1943, with no armour German conquest ran out of range: ahead lay fighting withdrawal to a point where the Allies would choose not to press on – say somewhere around the Pripet Marshes. Stalin was paranoid that US/UK had a War Aim Phase 2, anti-Soviet agenda – see for example our non-disclosure of Manhattan, of which we now know he was aware. I mull the thought that to avoid feeding that paranoia FDR/WSC chose non-UK basing of Very Far types with range into USSR.

The YB-29 Hobo Queen made its European landfall at St Mawgan in 1944 then did a tour of several bases…see ‘”Washington Times”
http://www.rafwatton.info/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=S7i-60gxfv0%3D&tabid=90&mid=417

and see post#15 on
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=40981&highlight=b-29+uk

For the 2nd B-29 UK visit at Bovingdon in 1946 post#15 on
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=87533

and for one actually using Heathrow possibly 1949
http://www.skyport-heathrow.co.uk/2011/07/flypast-what-was-bombers-missi.html

By the time the B-29 was far enough along that the USAAF began to think about where it would go, it was clear that it wouldn’t be needed in the ETO…or to re-phrase it, it could be better used in the Pacific.

Swamborough and Bowers write in United States Military Aircraft since 1909 (Putnam, 1963,1971,1989)
By the end of 1943, “…a policy decision was taken not to use the B-29 against targets in Europe…” (pg 114 of the 1989 ed.).
At that time, B-29 delilveries were just getting underway. Combat operations were 6 months in the future.

Prior to that, I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t some plans made to base them in the UK. Only seems sensible. If they had decided to use B-29s in Europe and there had been no plans for their basing, someone would have looked foolish.

You’ve inadvertently filled in some holes for me.

Lakenheath, Sculthorpe, West Raynham, & Marham were all rebuilt during the mid 1940s as Very Heavy Bomber stations, the only stations completed as such, complete with unique buildings such as the 294/45 VHB Control towers (largest in the RAF).

Heathrow was built as a Very Heavy Transport station, one of two, the other being St Mawgan, both featured the unique 1228/43 VHT towers.

Stansted, Mountfitchet, was I believe a standard USAAF bomber/depot station.

The bit I never could work out was what were the heavy bombers and transports?

These stations were far larger than the standard RAF bomber/transport stations of the time, and like you I assumed that heavy referred to range, and possibly frequency of movements.
You have supplied some aircraft info that I hadn’t known.

The B-36 was originally designed with the European theatre in mind (bombing Germany if Britain and its airfields were wiped out), not sure if that helps.

You forgot to mention that the B-29 was in a completely different league than that ghastly Windsor, I too cannot understand how money was spent on that, even Lincoln appeared superior!