Aviation History
Boeing History: The War Years of 1939-1945To an airman the Pacific Northwest is the home of the long-range heavy bomber, which has changed the character of war and the meaning of peace.
General Carl Spaatz, Commanding General, U.S. Air Force, 1947
Only 16 months after the Stratoliner's introduction, war clouds darkened the European horizon. Phil Johnson returned from Canada and took over as Boeing company president, in charge of wartime production. He died of a stroke Sept. 14, 1944, while overseeing operations at the Boeing Wichita plant.
By the 1940s Boeing workers were building B-17s at a rapidly increasing rate. Burlap houses and chicken-wire lawns camouflaged the rooftops of Boeing Plant 2 in Seattle so that, from the air, the bomber manufacturing center looked like a quiet suburb.
As American men went to war, women built airplanes. Thousands of women, symbolized by "Rosie the Riveter," took up the slack in the workforce and helped boost production from 60 planes per month in 1942 to an astounding 362 planes per month by March 1944 — at one point the Seattle plant rolled out 16 planes in 24 hours.
The Boeing Renton plant near Seattle was built for production of the XPBB-1 long-range patrol bomber for the Navy, but in wartime strategy changed in favor of land-based bombers. Boeing started producing the B-29 bomber in 1942 at the Renton plant and in Wichita, Kansas. The new "Superfortress" entered combat less than two years after its first flight. In Wichita, farmhands, housewives and shopkeepers built B-29s on 10-hour-shifts, day and night, during what later became know as the "Battle of Kansas."
Companies around the country coordinated their war efforts. B-17s were built at Boeing, Douglas Aircraft Co. and Lockheed Aircraft Corp. factories. B-29s were built at Boeing, Bell Aircraft Co. and Glenn L. Martin Co.
In addition, between 1936 and 1944, Boeing built 240 Douglas DB-7B attack bombers for France, 750 Waco-designed cargo and troop gliders and 8,585 Kaydet trainers, first introduced at the Stearman Aircraft Co. in Wichita in 1933. Boeing Aircraft of Canada built 362 PBY flying boats and amphibians designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego and 16 British-designed Blackburn Shark torpedo aircraft for the Royal Canadian Air Force. Boeing also built three XF8B-1 fighter-bombers.
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