The new Boeing B-29 Superfortress entered combat less than two years after its first flight in 1942. It was the largest bomber to go into production during the war and had the longest range. In February 1942, the Army Air Forces ordered the B-29 built at factories around the country, including Bell Aircraft Co. at Marietta, Ga., North American Aviation at its Kansas City, Kan., plant, and the Glenn Martin Co. in Omaha, Neb. This ordering of a pre-production airplane industrywide was unprecedented in aviation history.

Boeing produced the B-29 in Wichita, Kan., where farmhands, housewives and shopkeepers built Superfortresses on 10-hour-shifts, day and night. During March and April 1944, the intensive effort to get the first B-29s ready for overseas service became known as the "Battle of Kansas."

Boeing built a total of 2,766 B-29s at plants in Wichita, Kan., and in Renton, Wash. The Bell Aircraft Co. built 668 of the giant bombers in Georgia, and the Glenn L. Martin Co. built 536 in Nebraska. Production ended in 1946.