FP-1945-Graphs

Buildup of B-29s in the Marianas.

Missions and Tons per Targets

Missions & Tons per week by kind of target

Early missions, flown primarily from Saipan by the 73rd Wing were against Truk and Iwo, also used for training missions.

Aircraft Plants were given an early high priority

Urban areas, small industry that fed the assembly plants, covered large areas and received the most tons of bombs dropped.

These were often massive incendiary raids by multiple wings.

Air Fields on Kyushu were being used against the forces landing on Okinowa.

Kamekazis were giving the Navy a difficult time. 20th AF operations were diverted to destroy the Air Fields in short order.

313th Wing, 6th BG Mined the Seas about Japan, a task performed well. Losses low, results devastating.

Japanese used searchlights to map the minefield being created.

These were Heavy Industry targets

The 315th Wing devoted full time to the Oil Industry, flying at night using their new special Radar.

Guns were removed except those in the tail, to carry extra heavy loads of High Explosive Bombs.

Composite graph of missions against Japan during 1945.

Tons delivered went up abruptly in March when the Tinian 313th wing and Guam 314th wing gave support to the Saipan 73rd wing.

Results had been very poor prior to March. Then during two weeks of March the most destructive Urban raids ever took place – the first merging of multiple Wings into a composite set of (5) low level Incendiary raids – this was the turning point, even the Japanese knew they had lost the war – it was simply a matter of how long it would take for them to quit and stop the ever growing destruction descending upon them. Those first Incendiary raids were unexpectedly successful and the supply of incendiary bombs on hand was soon consumed. By May it was necessary to divert operations to support the Navy, each Bomb Group was given it's own Air Field Target, and using high explosives the Kyushu Kamikaze Airfields were soon destroyed. There was surprisingly little resistance against these raids – the Japanese were focusing on the Okinowa invasion, air defense of Industry and Urban areas – they could not be all places at once. From July on it was steady sustained destruction and strangulation.

The number of missions went up dramatically when attention was diverted to the Kyushu Airfields. Prio to this most missions were made up of wings and multiple wings – the Kyusu missions were individual Bomb Groups of up to three Squadrons each -- squadrons were putting up about 11 airplanes each, not yet up to their full strength of 15 to 20 airplanes each. By June the 58th wing had moved from China to Tinian and the capacity to haul more tonnage continued to increase. Although the number of missions flown fell off after May, the number of aircraft and the tonnage of bombs continued to grow.

Table I

Date Number of Missions per Week Tons of Bombs per Week

Mo	wk	#M	Urb	AC	AF	Oil	Iwo	Min	Ind	Oth	Urb	AC	AF	Oil	Iwo	Min	Ind	Oth	Lost	%L
O	43	1								1								42	0
	44	2								2								67	0
N	45	3					2			1					150			40	1
	46	0																	0
	47	1		1							87	440							2
	48	2	1	1								280							8
D	49	2		1			1					202			640				5
	50	1		1								177							4
	51	2		2								354							7
	52	2		1			1				207	143			120				3
J	1	1	1																5
	2	1		1								130							6
	3	1		1								158							5
	4	2		1						1		178						165	0
	5	4		2			2				290	366			288				11	12
F	6	1	1																2
	7	4		1						3		296						295	12	10
	8	6		1			1			4		309			84			181	2
	9	2	1	1							542	403							9	4
M	10	1		1								535							1
	11	2	2								3419								15	4.4
	12	3	3								6145								6
	13	7		4	1			2				3228	532			1097			11
A	14	9		6				3				3028				134			6
	15	2			2								151						1
	16	8	2	1				2	3		2050	560				116	2816		22
	17	26			26								2823						3
	18	30		1	29							607	3223						14
M	19	25			22			2	1				1933			1188	533		7
	20	22		1	17	3			1			526	1236	1401			296		4
	21	6	2	1				3			6364	1486				429			7
	22	6	2					4			6907					733			47	5
J	23	3	2					1			5565					61			18
	24	13	2	8				2	1		5786	2311				457	208		14
	25	9	5					4			4811					1270			3
	26	12	3	3	2	0		3	1		3339	1160	298			1055	861		8
J	27	22	8	4		2		3	5		7332	1339		437		528	936		9
	28	12	8			2		2			7624			653		435			4
	29	13	8			2		3			6618			937		563			6
	30	13	8			2		3			6633			1228		490			3
	31	21	9	5		1		3	3		6407	2121		659		536	2239		7
A	32	8	4			2		2			5209			1701		648			1
	33	15	6	2		1		3	3		5647	630		940		580			0
	34	7	2			1		4			1218		0	957	0	0	2574	0	0
		333	80	52	99	16	7	49	18	12	92199	20967	10196	8913	1282	10320	10463	790

The percentage of losses went from: 12% in early February to, 4.4% by the end of May and to less than 1% in the final month.

The cause of losses is less certain. One fourth were known to be due to Enemy Aircraft or Flak over the target. One third were over the target but due to unknown causes. One third were sufficiently damaged they ditched on return or crashed when trying to land, often many of these crew members were rescued. Some 6% were lost enroute, from a crash on take off or a need to ditch, these losses were not due to enemy action. Later data was kept on numbers of aircraft that landed safely but suffered damage due to enemy action. Most was due to flak, flak caused more losses or damage than enemy aircraft.

Many of raids were at night and the Japanese made extensive use of Search Lights. Crews strived to avoid or escaped being "Coned" in these lights. As an experiment, the bellies of some of the 28th Sqd, 19th BG, 314th Wing aircraft were paint a dull black. Vern Chandler flew one of these, upon return he was requested to make a report on the effectiveness to 20th AF Headquarters at a staff meeting held by LeMay. Chandler reported that searchlights passed over them but did not cone on them -- it worked. LeMay turned and said, "Paint Em".

The Resume of 20th AF Missions reports total aircraft in a “combine” and does not tell how many were from 73rd, 58th, 313th and 314th wings. 58C refers to when the 58th wing operated out of China prior to being relocated to Tinian. Most of the airborne aircraft hit the Primary target unless bad weather obscured the primary target. At least half of the lost aircraft dropped their bombs on an enemy target.

The 20th AF data did not provide information on the number of Aborts. The numbers have been derived as those Airborne less those that hit a target or were lost.

Aborts = Airborne - Primary - Secondary - Lost

Awards were given to flight and ground crews who achieved sustained operations without aborts. Floyd Maupins crew of 28th Sqd 19th BG, 314th wing flew M-11 for 35 missions without an abort. M-11 was maintained by James McCall's crew and added more missions by a new crew without an abort. This was the exception.

The activation of a Wing and it's sub groups was a transition not the step change shown above

Table 2

Resume of 20th AF Missions -- Data Summary by Wing

Item	#M	Wing	AirB	Pri	Sec	Abt	Lost	KLA	KHA		ResF		Iwo		BLd		Ton		EAS		EAA		Ds		Pb		Dm
Min		58C	10	10	0	0	0									29						0		0		0
Avg		58C	62	47	3	10	1.6									200						3.6		2.3		5.7
Max		58C	130	105	19	37	14									638						27		19		31
Sum	49	58C	3060	2343	144	497	79									9794						177		111		280
%		58C		76.5	4.7	16.2	2.6															1.8		1.1		2.9
Min		58	29	23	0	0	0	6.5	8.8	571		0		10607		149		0		0		0		0		0
Avg		58	102	95	2.5	4.3	0.4	14	15	738		13		14679		693		13		6.7		0.3		0.5		1.1
Max		58	180	169	15	9	2	21	25	1051		42		19979		1623		45		54		6		5		15
Sum	25	58	2645	2461	64	112	9					319				18006		335		174		9		12		30
%		58		93	2.4	4.2	0.3															5		6.9		17
Min		73	9	0	0	0	0	5.7	7.2	532		1		2500		10		0		0		0		0		0
AVG		73	118	99	9.9	7.7	2	17	20	907		16		10648		639		18		88		842		4.5		8
Max		73	182	173	64	22	9	29	34	2212		39		20000		1473		45		984		80		23		50
Sum	66	73	4837	3934	467	367	79					120				25669		136		5130		297		148		266
%		73		81.3	9.6	7.58	1.6															6		2.9		5
Min		313	10	4	0	0	0	7	7.8	498		0		8939		27		0		0		0		0		0
Avg		313	43.5	38	2.3	2.5	0.16	14	16	777		7		13056		278		12		11		1.7		1.1		1.3
Max		313	136	133	18	12	2	23	27	1128		40		16906		1029		45		87		21		11		8
Sum	61	313	2696	2376	145	150	10					257				17241		277		690		71		47		57
%		313		88.1	5.4	5.6	0.37															1007		6.8		8
Min		314	9	0	0	0	0	6.8	7.9	464		1		4888		21		0		0		0		0		0
Avg		314	49	44	2.29	2.5	0.37	15	18	817		6		11325		282		17		14		1.5		0.7		1.7
Max		314	167	160	22	10	3	22	29	1516		22		16923		1172		49		85		10		7		11
Sum	69	314	3384	3043	158	167	25					196				19494		428		976		70		36		84
%		314		89.9	4.67	4.9	0.74															7		3.7		8.6
Min		315	35	32	0	0	0	10	12	879		1		14631		208		0		0		0		0		0
Avg		315	78.7	73	1.3	4.2	0.2	13	15	1134		5		17443		615		16		1		0		0		0
Max		315	141	132	4	10	2	16	18	1386		14		20648		1043		38		9		0		0		0
Sum	14	315	1180	1095	20	63	3					61				9228		234		16		0		0		0
%		315		92.8	1.7	5.3	0.25
Min		Com	93	0	0	2	0	4.5	8.5	544		5		5392		290				0		0		0		0
Avg		Com	268.4	228	19.5	16.6	4.46	14	20	803		34		11300		1479				114		9		5.9		10.2
Max		Com	530	473	177	45	26	26	34	1191		100		16565		3609				672		86		31		76
Sum	37	Com	9930	8430	722	613	165					570				54726				4242		291		183		317
%		Com		85	7.3	6.2	1.7															6.8		4.3		7.5
Min		All	9					4.5	7.2	464				2500
Avg		All	107					15	18
Max		All	530					29	34	2212		319		20648
Sum	321	All	26552	23682	1720	1969	370					1523				154159						915		385		793
%		All		89.2	6.5	7.4	1.4															6		4		8

Terms: #M=number of missions; AirB=Airborne; Pri=Primary target; Sec=Secondary target; Lost=Aircraft lost;

KLA=Lowest Altitude in 10,000 ft; KHA=Highest Altitiude in 10,000 ft; ResF=Reserve Fuel remaining;

Iwo=Numbers of aircraft landing on Iwo; BLd=Average Bomb load in pounds; Ton=Tons dropped per mission;

EAS=Enemy Aircraft sighted; EAA=Enemy Aircraft Attacks;

Ds=EA Destroyed, Pb=EA Probable, Dm=EA Damaged