List of Boeing B-29 Superfortress operators
[4] 21872 was converted to a WB-29; being destroyed in a crash on 25 September 1953 near Eielson AFB, Alaska, when assigned to the 58th Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (Medium), Weather.
[5][6] Army Air Forces B-29 groups and squadrons assigned to operations as part of the Pacific War against the Japanese Empire, 1944–1945.
Also includes groups and squadrons deployed to Okinawa assigned to Eighth Air Force, in July/August 1945 but did not engage in combat operations.
The 5th BG was a prewar bomb group assigned to Hawaii at the time of the Pearl Harbor Attack; its B-17s largely destroyed on the ground at Hickam Field.
The unit was reformed into a B-24 Liberator heavy bomb group after the attack and was assigned to Thirteenth AF during the war; the 32d Composite Wing flew RB-29s for Far East Air Forces in the late 1940s, primarily as photo-mapping aircraft over China, Formosa, Indochina and Korea.
These units were retained on active service after the Japanese Capitulation in August 1945 and were assigned to Continental Air Forces (CAF).
Up until the end of the Korean War, SAC used tail markings that consisted of a combination of geometric shapes and letters.
SAC deployed non nuclear-capable B-29 groups to Far East Air Forces in 1950 to conduct strategic bombardment missions over the skies of North Korea, however the aircraft was made obsolete by the development of Soviet jet-powered interceptors such as the MiG-15.
As part of the equipment used by the Air Resupply And Communications Service (ARCS) were B-29s modified for special operations missions.
WB-29s soldiered on through the mid-1950s, providing critical data on tropical storms, nuclear tests, and many other routine but important reconnaissance tasks.
On October 14, 1947, Capt Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager was dropped in his X-1 from the B-29 and was credited as the first human to pilot an aircraft faster than the speed of sound.
The last B-29 (a TB-29 radar evaluation aircraft, B-29-15-MO serial number 42-65234) was retired from the USAF inventory at 2010 hours on June 21, 1960, when Major Clarence C. Rarick of the 6023d Radar Evaluation Squadron landed at Naha Air Base, Okinawa, bringing the era of B-29 Superfortress military service to an end.
Two of these aircraft were in standard configuration (P2B-1S), two another were equipped with test radar and additional fuel tank in bomb bay (P2B-2S).
During the early 1950s, the Royal Air Force urgently needed interim aircraft for its bomber units, as a "stop gap" replacement for the Avro Lincoln, until British-designed and manufactured jets like the English Electric Canberra and, in the longer term, the so-called "V bombers", became operational.
From the RAF's point of view the B-29, was a heavy bomber comparable to the Lincoln, albeit with distinct performance and capacity advantages and, as a type that had already been proven operationally, did not detract from the development of the British jets.
A formal agreement with the USA was signed on January 27, 1950 and the USAF loaned the RAF seventy B-29 bombers which received the serials WF434-WF448, WF490-WF-514 and WF545-WF574.
Most of the airframes were taken out of USAF storage and were virtually new, having been delivered at the end of the Pacific War, although a small number came from operational units.
