Patton’s personal pilot earlier in the war. Tibbets was assigned to Wichita to help get the airplane back on track.Īlthough he doesn’t mention it in this video, by early 1943, Tibbets had already accumulated 25 combat missions in Europe and had been Gen. The airplane represented the most expensive development program during World War II-yes, more expensive than the Manhattan project-and Boeing was having such difficulty completing it for volume manufacture that it wanted out of the program. As he describes in this video produced by aviation historian and collector Kermit Weeks, even as late as 1943, the B-29 program was in serious trouble. Most of us do not know that in addition to overseeing the Hiroshima mission, Tibbets, then a 28-year-old colonel, was also instrumental in saving the B-29 program.
