Episodes

Every episode, with its sources

Each episode has its own page with the chapters, every source, and a credit for every picture, in the order it appears. Long episodes run 30 to 35 minutes; medium ones 12 to 15.

A B-29 with its nose raised beside the open hangar doors of the Martin bomber plant in Omaha, with workers on the apron. — The first Omaha B-29 rolls out, May 24, 1944. HAER NE-9-R photo 31 (copy from the base's Wing Historian's Office), Library of Congress.

Episode 1Built FastLong · 33 minComing soon

The Bomber That Cost More Than the Atomic Bomb

The B-29 program cost about $3 billion, more than the roughly $1.9 billion Manhattan Project. Where that money went: four factories, an engine that wasn't ready, and the winter the bombers were finished in Kansas.

Three men beside a jeep inside a tunnel lined with banks of infrared lamps. — A jeep in the infrared paint-drying tunnel, Ford River Rouge plant, May 1941. Alfred T. Palmer, Office of War Information. Library of Congress LC-USE6-D-000766.

Episode 2ConvertedMediumComing soon

Detroit, February 1942

The day the car lines stopped, and what came down them next.