Unfortunately, Kenney’s enthusiasm for the B-32 and the possibilities it appeared to offer FEAF helped convince him to overlook an inconvenient reality: the reason Dominators were available when B-29s were not was simply that, in the competition to produce a long-range American superbomber, the B-32 had come in a distant second.
BY THE EARLY 1930S it had become an article of faith for U.S. Army Air Corps planners that an American victory in any future war—especially one fought against Japan in the Pacific and Far East—would largely depend on the nation’s ability to project its airpower over vast distances.11 And, given the prevailing doctrine at the time, the projection of airpower specifically referred to strategic bombardment; the ability to defeat an enemy almost solely through the systematic aerial destruction of his industrial centers and military infrastructure. Throughout the decade the Air Corps Materiel Division at Wright Field continually refined the performance and capability requirements for large, long-range aircraft capable of carrying significant bomb loads to distant targets. The Boeing B-17 and the Consolidated B-24—and, to a greater extent, the innovative but ultimately impractical Boeing XB-15 and Douglas XB-19—were important steps toward developing what the Air Corps called the Very Long Range (VLR), or, occasionally, the Very Heavy, bomber.12
Yet by the end of the decade no suitable VLR bomber had reached the production stage. The XB-15 and XB-19 had not evolved past the experimental stage and the B-17 and B-24, though excellent aircraft in many respects, simply could not be economically upgraded enough to meet the VLR requirements. The Air Corps needed longer-ranged machines capable of bombing from altitudes between 5,000 and 30,000 feet and of being fitted with enough machine guns to defend themselves adequately during the journey to and from their distant targets.
The September 1939 outbreak of war in Europe provided just the shock needed to transform the VLR project from theory into practice. On November 10 Air Corps chief Arnold asked the War Department for permission to initiate the development of a long-range, four-engine heavy bomber that would surpass in all respects the then-current models of the B-17 and B-24. His request was granted with what passed for speediness in Washington, and on January 29, 1940, the nation’s top aircraft manufacturers began receiving “Request for Data R-40B,” the document that laid out the Army’s specifications for the new bomber.
The requirements were ambitious: the aircraft would have to carry 2,000 pounds of bombs some 5,300 miles at 400 miles per hour, would have to be mechanically reliable under virtually all weather and operational conditions, and—in keeping with the Air Corps’ dedication to the concept of high-altitude precision bombing—would have to be pressurized. On April 8, 1940, Boeing, Lockheed, Douglas, and Consolidated-Vultee submitted preliminary design studies. An Air Corps evaluation board designated the proposed aircraft in order of preference as, respectively, the XB-29, XB-30, XB-31, and XB-32,13 and signed contracts with each firm to provide preliminary engineering data. Lockheed and Douglas subsequently withdrew from the competition, leaving the XB-29 and XB-32 as the only viable contenders.
San Diego–based Consolidated’s entry was known within the company as the Model 33. The design featured a shoulder-mounted high-lift/low-drag Davis wing with a span of 135 feet, twin endplate fin and rudder assemblies, an eighty-three-foot-long cylindrical fuselage, tricycle landing gear, and dual “roll-up” bomb bays. Each of the XB-32’s four planned turbo-supercharged Wright R-3350–5 Cyclone engines would produce 2,200 horsepower and the two inboard power plants would be fitted with reversible-pitch propellers.14 The new aircraft would be pressurized, and its defensive armament would be housed in remotely operated and retractable gun turrets. All these new features were expected to give the XB-32 a gross weight of just over 100,000 pounds.
The Air Corps approved Consolidated’s design proposal on September 6, 1940, and ultimately awarded the firm a contract for three prototype aircraft, with the first to be delivered within eighteen months of the contract date and the second and third at ninety-day intervals after the initial example. Wind-tunnel testing of a scale model of the XB-32 indicated that the aircraft’s directional stability would be insufficient, so Consolidated’s wooden XB-32 mockups were modified to reflect minor changes intended to correct the issue—but kept their twin tails. Army inspectors approved the revised control surface mockups in early January 1941 and the power plant mockups in April, and in June the Army ordered thirteen YB-32 service test machines in addition to the XB-32s.
The flight testing of the XB-32s was a long and difficult process. From the time the XB-32 first flew, on September 7, 1942, the aircraft was plagued by problems with its various subsystems and continued to have stability issues stemming from the twin-tail arrangement. The second prototype crashed, killing Consolidated’s senior test pilot, and the flight-test program got so far behind schedule that it seriously jeopardized the Army Air Force’s long-range contingency plan for America’s eventual entry into the war. Completed by the Air War Plans Division in August 1941 and designated AWPD/1, the plan laid out a program of precision strategic bombing of Nazi Germany and required 6,834 bombers organized into ninety-eight groups, sixty-eight of which were to be “Very Heavy” groups built around B-29s and B-32s. Because the XB-29 was also encountering delays, it was imperative that the Consolidated aircraft reach full-scale production as soon as possible if AWPD/1 were to proceed on schedule.
Timely production of the B-32 was never in the cards, however. Myriad mechanical problems continued to dog the aircraft, and in February 1943 the Army cancelled the order for the thirteen YB-32s. By that time the B-29 had largely overcome its own teething troubles and some influential Army Air Forces officers were beginning to advocate the outright cancellation of the B-32 in favor of the Boeing bomber. Consolidated wasn’t ready to throw in the towel, though, and went to great lengths to modify the aircraft’s design in response to service recommendations. These changes included replacing the remotely operated defensive weapon system with ten .50-caliber machine guns mounted two each in five manned turrets; eliminating pressurization; improving the power plants and flight-control systems; and, perhaps most important, replacing the trouble-plagued twin tails by a single vertical stabilizer.
The virtual redesign of the XB-32, coupled with the continuing need to meet the requirements of AWPD/1, ultimately led the Army Air Forces to place orders for some 1,200 B-32 bombers, including TB-32 trainer versions. This number was intended to allow the Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces in the Mediterranean and England, respectively, to convert their B-17 and B-24 heavy bomb groups to B-32s, though by the spring of 1944 it was all too obvious that continuing delays in testing the aircraft coming off Consolidated’s Fort Worth, Texas, line15 would make it impossible to achieve that goal. Indeed, the Army Air Forces directive concerning the comprehensive testing of production B-32s wasn’t even issued until mid-August 1944, the same month that the aircraft’s name was officially changed from the original “Terminator” to “Dominator.”16 That directive called for a 200-flying-hour test program to be conducted by three different Army Air Forces agencies spread across five states, as well as for an overseas combat test. But, again, production delays derailed the best-laid plans, and by mid-December 1944 the entire Dominator program was on the verge of cancellation.
The B-32 won a stay of execution almost solely because of an evaluation of the aircraft undertaken by Brigadier General Donald Wilson, the chief of the Army Air Forces’ Proving Ground Command and, perhaps not coincidentally, George Kenney’s former chief of staff at SWPA’s Allied Air Forces and Fifth Air Force. Although his report acknowledged the Dominator’s troubled gestation and continuing difficulties, Wilson pointed out that it would be financially and militarily irresponsible to kill off the B-32 before it had been thoroughly tested. He therefore recommended that both the service test program and the training of B-32 crews proceed, and suggested that the Dominator might yet evolve into a capable and dependable bomber. Hap Arnold, likely still hoping to supplan
t some of his overworked B-17s and B-24s with B-32s, accepted Wilson’s recommendations and ordered the testing and crew-training programs to proceed.
Conducted between June and September 1945, the B-32 service test program confirmed that the Dominator had several less-than-sterling qualities. Among them were high interior noise levels that were wearying for the crew, especially on the flight deck; many instruments and controls were poorly positioned; the electrically operated manned gun turrets were prone to jamming during rapid traverse; and, most alarming, serious design flaws in the engine nacelles contributed to an unusually high number of power plant fires. But the B-32 also proved to have good points—it was surprisingly nimble for an aircraft of its size, with especially impressive directional control at low speeds; its gun turrets provided better than adequate protection (when they worked); it was relatively easy to maintain; and, of particular importance, it was a solid and stable bombing platform.
Although these data would certainly help Consolidated’s engineers improve the performance and capability of later Dominator variants—should there be any—Kenney’s lunch with Arnold in Florida had already ensured that the B-32 would undertake its most challenging evaluation even before the service tests began. On March 27 Arnold disregarded the advice of several of his most senior advisers—many of whom argued that to put any further effort into the troubled aircraft would be a prodigious waste of time, money, and manpower—and authorized a Dominator combat test.
Despite its reputation as the Army Air Forces’ problem-child superbomber, the B-32 was going to war.
A FOUR-STAR GENERAL’S DIRECT and unequivocal order tends to have a galvanizing effect on subordinate officers, even those who may for whatever reason disagree with their commander’s reasoning or intent. So it was that Arnold’s desire that the B-32 undergo a comprehensive combat test was swiftly translated into action. Military personnel from several Army Air Forces agencies and civilian representatives from Consolidated were assembled into a thirty-two-member test detachment led by Colonel Frank R. Cook of the Air Technical Service Command (ATSC).
The highly experienced thirty-five-year-old was a good choice to head up the combat test, which had been given the purposely obscure designation Special Project 98269-S but which was widely referred to as the “Cook Project.” During his time with ATSC Cook had flown every bomber type in the Army Air Forces and was something of a proponent of the B-32, believing it to be both easier to fly and more docile on takeoff and landing than the B-29. He also judged the Dominator’s locally controlled turrets to be a better defensive arrangement than the Superfortress’s remotely operated system. Cook believed that the combat test was the one way in which the B-32 could prove itself a worthy stablemate of the B-29, and he was anxious to get his men and aircraft to the Philippines for testing.17
That journey originated in Fort Worth. Cook and his assigned personnel gathered at Consolidated’s Texas production facility on May 1 for processing and to pick up the three Dominators selected for the combat test: aircraft 42-108529, 42-108531, and 42-108532. In addition to their serial numbers, two of the big bombers bore the sort of semi-risqué nose art popular with aviators apparently since the dawn of manned flight—a buxom blond in a two-piece, striped bathing suit identified 529 as The Lady is Fresh, while 532 bore an equally well-endowed and similarly scantily clad young woman with a kerchief tied to a stick and the name Hobo Queen II. A main-gear collapse on landing after a pre-deployment test flight led to 531’s replacement by 42-108528, a factory-based B-32 that had seen hard test use and that harbored chronic mechanical issues as a result.
The first leg of the flight to the Philippines—a 1,400-mile hop across the desert Southwest to Mather Army Air Field in Sacramento, California—began as scheduled on May 12, but only for The Lady is Fresh and Hobo Queen II. Mechanical problems kept 528 in Texas for two additional days, and when all three B-32s were preparing to leave Mather on May 16 further problems delayed 528 yet again. Nor did the troubled aircraft’s performance improve as time went on; it was at least two days behind the other Dominators as they made their way to Luzon via Hawaii’s Hickam Field, the recently lengthened Japanese-built runway on Kwajalein Atoll, and Harmon Field on Guam.
Despite the challenges presented by the trans-Pacific ferry flight, all three B-32s had gathered at Clark Field, some forty miles northwest of Manila, by May 25. There they were met by a party of dignitaries that included Whitehead, who had replaced Kenney as Fifth Air Force commander; Colonel Merritt Burnside, the B-32 project officer for V Bomber Command; Lieutenant Colonel Selmon W. Wells, the twenty-nine-year-old leader of the 312th Bombardment Group; and Captain Ferdinand L. Svore, commander of the 312th’s 386th Bombardment Squadron. The 386th had been tapped as the parent unit for the three Dominators, and Svore was to join Cook and Wells in the triumvirate that would lead B-32 operations during the combat test.
That evaluation was to consist of eleven missions flown in varying weather conditions, with differing ordnance and against as wide a variety of targets as possible. The test was scheduled for completion by July 11, and its successful conclusion would trigger the 386th’s complete conversion to B-32s. Wells’s other three squadrons—the 387th, 388th, and 389th—would ultimately follow suit, eventually making the 312th the first of three planned Dominator-equipped combat groups in the Pacific.
Wells’s unit seems, at first glance, to be a rather odd choice for conversion into a B-32 group. Activated in Kentucky in March 1942 with single-engine dive bombers, the 312th had received the twin-engine Douglas A-20 Havoc light bomber soon after arriving in New Guinea in December 1943. The nimble Havocs flew almost daily low-level parafrag and strafing missions against Japanese airfields, railroads, harbors, ships, troop concentrations, artillery positions, and targets of opportunity, and carried out similar missions after moving to the Philippines in the fall of 1944.18 It was a highly specialized form of attack aviation, and one whose skill-set differed radically from that required for four-engine heavy bombers like the B-32.
Yet the 312th’s selection as the likely first Dominator group was not as illogical as it first appears. Although the A-20 had done yeoman service supporting the hard-slogging Allied advance from Australia northward through New Guinea and into the Philippines, Army Air Forces planners foresaw a lessening need for relatively short-range light bombers as the air war against Japan moved into its final phase—the sustained strategic bombing of the Home Islands. Rather than have the B-32 combat test interrupt the ongoing operations of one of FEAF’s long-range B-24 groups, Arnold determined that it made operational sense instead to take an A-20 unit offline. He did, however, decree that in order to help speed the 386th’s transition to the larger aircraft, Svore would additionally be provided with experienced Luzon-based B-24 pilots for whom the conversion to the four-engine B-32 would presumably be smoother and less time-consuming. Nearby Liberator units would also be tasked to provide the other specialized crewmembers that the B-32s would need and that the A-20-equipped 312th could not provide—navigators, bombardiers, gunners, and electronic warfare officers to operate the Dominator’s sophisticated radar and countermeasures systems.
As it happened, the B-32’s combat debut was to take place even before the 386th’s conversion had formally begun.
THE TIMELINE FOR THE B-32 combat test was nothing if not ambitious, and in order to stay on track for the program’s scheduled July 1 completion the triumvirate of Cook, Wells, and Svore scheduled the first mission for May 29, just days after the three Dominators had all finally assembled at Clark Field and before their planned move to the 312th’s home base in Floridablanca, forty miles northwest of Manila. Because the trouble-plagued 528 was the only aircraft that had arrived in the Philippines with a complete ten-man combat crew, two B-24 crews—minus pilots and copilots—were dragooned from a Clark-based Liberator unit.
The first mission was purposely planned to be a shakedown cruise for the Dominators rather than the type of very long range, high-altitude s
trike for which the aircraft had been designed. Each of the three B-32s was loaded with nine 1,000-pound general purpose bombs,19 3,000 gallons of fuel, and thirteen men—ten crew and three observers. The target, as briefed by the 386th’s intelligence officer, Captain William Barnes, was a Japanese supply depot at Antatet, in Luzon’s Cagayan Valley. Although the enemy position was not expected to be defended by anti-aircraft weapons, it would offer a different sort of challenge, Barnes said: it was within 2,000 yards of an area held by friendly Filipino guerrillas.20
The three Dominators were ready to go by 10:30 A.M. local time, but problems with the manifold pressure on two engines forced 528 to abort. The other two aircraft carried on as briefed, Hobo Queen II in the lead with Cook as pilot in command and Wells along as an observer. After forming up above Clark Field the B-32s set out on the 190-mile trip to the target, arriving over the Cagayan Valley some forty-five minutes later. The bombers circled Antatet to positively identify the Japanese depot, then each made a run at 10,000 feet. With perfect visibility and absolutely no enemy anti-aircraft fire or interceptors to worry about, both B-32s were able to blanket the target and, after taking post-strike bomb-damage assessment photos, they returned to Clark Field without incident.
Last to Die Page 5
