Bockscar dropped the Nagasaki atomic bomb on August 9, 1945, with a broken fuel pump, a 45-minute detour, and fuel remaining for exactly one final bomb run.
TaildraggerRichard Bong scored 40 aerial kills in a P-38 Lightning during WWII - a record no American pilot has matched in any conflict since.
TaildraggerHow a crashed Japanese Zero in an Alaskan bog gave American engineers the intelligence to build the F6F Hellcat - the Pacific War's most lethal carrier fighter with a 19-to-1 kill ratio.
TaildraggerThe Lockheed P-38 Lightning's twin-engine range made it America's deadliest Pacific fighter and carried Richard Bong to 40 aerial victories.
TaildraggerThe Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment flew over 23,000 combat sorties in fabric biplanes against Nazi Germany, haunting the Eastern Front from 1942 to 1945.
TaildraggerThe Douglas DC-3 made commercial aviation profitable for the first time in 1935, defined Allied air transport in WWII, and still flies revenue cargo routes on every inhabited continent today.
TaildraggerOn August 1, 1943, 164 B-24 Liberators flew a low-level strike on Romania's Ploesti oil refineries, producing five Medals of Honor in a single mission - a record never equaled in U.S. military history.
TaildraggerThe Hawker Hurricane shot down 55% of Luftwaffe losses in the Battle of Britain, outnumbered the Spitfire two to one, and saved England - then history forgot it.
TaildraggerOn April 18, 1943, eighteen P-38 Lightnings flew 435 miles at wave-top height in radio silence to intercept and kill Japan's top naval commander using decoded communications.
TaildraggerOn June 4, 1942, the Douglas SBD Dauntless destroyed three Japanese fleet carriers in roughly five minutes at Midway, ending Japan's naval dominance in the Pacific.
TaildraggerThe Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was WWII's heaviest single-engine fighter - renowned not for elegance but for absorbing punishment that should have killed it.
TaildraggerThe Soviet 588th Night Bomber Regiment - all-female crews in open-cockpit biplanes - flew over 23,000 combat sorties against Nazi Germany, earning the name 'Night Witches.'
TaildraggerOn the night of May 16, 1943, 617 Squadron flew Lancasters at 60 feet over Germany to deliver Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb and breach the dams of the Ruhr Valley.
TaildraggerRichard Bong flew 40 aerial victories over the Pacific in a P-38 Lightning, becoming America's greatest fighter ace - and died in a California test flight on August 6, 1945.
TaildraggerOn June 4, 1942, Lt. Cdr. Wade McClusky's decision to keep searching over empty Pacific waters led to a five-minute attack that sank three Japanese carriers and turned the tide of the war.
TaildraggerOn October 24, 1944, Commander David McCampbell and one wingman intercepted 60 Japanese aircraft over the Philippine Sea, producing the most lethal single aerial mission in U.S. naval history.
TaildraggerOn August 7, 1942, Japanese ace Saburo Sakai flew 560 miles home from Guadalcanal alone - one eye destroyed, barely conscious, no radio.
TaildraggerThe Hughes H-4 Hercules flew just once in 1947, but its single minute over Long Beach Harbor silenced Senate critics and left an enduring mark on aviation engineering.
TaildraggerIn December 1943, a Luftwaffe pilot chose mercy over victory over the North Sea - and the two men who lived it didn't find each other again for 46 years.
TaildraggerDouglas Bader lost both legs in a 1931 crash, proved he could still fly to operational standards, was discharged on a technicality, then returned in WWII to lead RAF fighter squadrons.
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