The story begins 19 39, when the far sighted army air forces said, we want a plane for our defence that can fly a bomb load thousands of miles out to sea and return. No one had any appetite for a land invasion. So was there a way to bring about japan's surrender through the air? Yes, the bomber mafia said, we can do it. It was a bomber mafia fantasy, until the arrival midway through the war, of the b 29 bomber, the super fortress,. The most expensive project of the war, forty three billion in to day's dollars.