At the end of World War II, the U.S. Navy began a design competition on 13 August 1945 for a carrier-based bomber which could carry a 10,000-pound (4,536 kg) bomb that was won by North American Aviation.

[1] That same year the US Navy began an interim capability program employing the Lockheed P-2 Neptune carrying a crash-program reproduction of the smaller, simpler all-uranium 'gun' design Little Boy nuclear bomb as its first carrier-launched nuclear bomber aircraft until the Savage was in service.

[4] The jet engine was only intended for takeoff and maximum speed near the target,[5] and was fed by an air inlet on top of the fuselage that was normally kept closed to reduce drag.

[4] Two of the three prototypes crashed during testing, but their loss did not materially affect the development of the aircraft as the first batch of Savages had been ordered on 6 October 1947.

[8] The first carrier takeoff and landing made by the bomber took place from the USS Coral Sea on 21 April and 31 August 1950, respectively.

It had improved R-2800-48 piston engines and the tail was redesigned to add 1 foot (30 cm) of height to the tailfin.

Early AJ-2Ps retained the three-man crew, but late-model aircraft added a fourth aft-facing crewman to the upper cockpit.

[11] Around 1954, NATC modified the sole surviving XAJ-1 to conduct inflight refueling tests using the probe and drogue configuration.

Aircraft in service retained the turbojet and had their bomb bay doors modified to accommodate the hose and drogue.

"[8] One problem was that the wings had to be folded one at a time by a crewman on top of the fuselage with a portable hydraulic pump, a time-consuming process, so that the bomber could be moved out of the way to allow other aircraft to land or take off.

[16] Fleet Composite Squadron 5 (VC-5) made the first of its three deployments from Naval Air Station Norfolk, Virginia to NAS Port Lyautey in February 1951.

Detachment Queen was formed by VJ-61 during the Korean War at Naval Station Sangley Point, in the Philippines, to fly reconnaissance missions over the People's Republic of China and North Korea.

The two surviving aircraft were fully modified for the role after delivery and could carry 2,000 US gallons (7,600 L; 1,700 imp gal) of fire retardant.

Another aircraft crashed on takeoff in September 1967 when an engine failed and the sole survivor only made a few more flights before it was scrapped in 1968–69.

The J33 turbojet had to be reinstalled and the aircraft required almost a year of maintenance before it could be flown to Avco Lycoming's home airfield at Stratford, Connecticut.

The YF102, too fat to fully fit in the bomb bay, was mounted on a retractable mechanism that could be lowered below the aircraft for tests.

This damage was too uneconomical to repair so Avco Lycoming decided to donate the last surviving Savage to the National Museum of Naval Aviation.