Ask anyone, what won the war against Japan during the Second World War, and the answer would invariably be the ‘atomic bomb’, but truth be told, it was the Boeing B-29 Superfortress that broke Japan’s back. Months before Bockscar delivered the final payload of the war, hundreds of American B-29s had flown across the Pacific in thousands of sorties to destroy Japanese cities as well as their ability to fight.

The Boeing B-29 Superfortress was every nation’s envy. It was the most advanced aircraft of the time, with state-of-the-art technology, such as remote controlled guns, pressurized compartments, dual-wheeled, tricycle landing gear, and extraordinarily powerful engines. It could carry up to 20,000 pounds of bomb and drop them on targets 3,000 miles away. It could fly at 350 mph at an altitude of over 30,000 feet—comfortably out of reach of most Japanese planes and guns. The B-29 was a generation ahead of the Luftwaffe's Junkers Ju 290, and even Boeing’s own B-17 and B-24. Japan did not even have a heavy bomber, and the most advanced bomber in the Soviet inventory used fabric-covered ailerons, compared to the B-29’s all-aluminum marvel.