Page 37 - Volume 10 Number 8

of B-29s sent to bomb Japan paved the way for the “Enola Gay” to usher in the Atomic Age in August 1945.
With Japan on the verge of total capitulation, General Arnold told workers at Boeing-Wichita, in part: “What I told Earl Schaefer in Washington, I want to tell you people at Boeing, Wichita and Kansas. You were given a job to do and the way you finished the job met our greatest expectations. For myself and on behalf of the Army Air Forces, I say to you, well done, and thanks from the bottom of my heart.” KA
NOTES:
1. It took Boeing-Wichita workers an average of 157,000 man-hours to build the first 100 bombers, but by 1945 it took only 17,000 man-hours to complete the last 100 airplanes. Production of the B-29 peaked at 4.2 bombers per day and 100 per month – a phenomenal feat of American industrial might that neither Germany nor Japan could hope to equal. The last B-29 built in Wichita rolled down the runway on October 10, 1945.
2. According to the Kansas State Historical Society, during the war Boeing, Beech Aircraft, Cessna Aircraft and Culver Aircraft manufactured more than 25,800 military airplanes along with sufficient spare parts to construct another 5,000. Boeing-Wichita built 1,644 B-29s and produced equivalent spares to build another 125 bombers.
3. In December 1944, Arnold was promoted to General of the Army, a five-star rank he shared with his contemporaries in the Army and Navy. When the Army Air Forces became the United States Air Force, he served as its first leader. Born in 1886, Arnold died in 1950.
Additional note: As of 2016, only two B-29s are airworthy and flying – “Fifi,” owned and operated by the Commemorative Air Force (former Confederate Air Force), and just recently added “Doc,” owned and operated by Doc’s Friends in Wichita, Kansas (see sidebar).
Ed Phillips, now retired and living in the South, has researched and written eight books on the unique and rich aviation history that belongs to Wichita, Kan. His writ- ings have focused on the evolution of the airplanes, companies and people that have made Wichita the “Air Capital of the World” for more than 80 years.
AUGUST 2016
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 35