B-29 Superfortress

The B-29 Superfortress is an American long-range, pressurized-cabin heavy bomber built by Boeing, entering United States Army Air Forces service in 1944 for the strategic bombing campaign against Japan in the Pacific theater of the Second World War. Its pressurized crew compartments, remotely controlled defensive gun turrets and very long range represented a major technical advance over earlier heavy bombers, allowing sustained high-altitude missions over Japan from island bases such as the Mariana Islands, and B-29s conducted an extended campaign of incendiary raids against Japanese cities under General Curtis LeMay from early 1945 onward. The aircraft earned its lasting historical significance as the only type ever to deliver a nuclear weapon in war, when the modified B-29s Enola Gay and Bockscar dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, bringing the war to its end within days.