What WWII bomber did the most to end WWII?

Question: What WWII bomber did the most to end WWII!?

and which was the most influential during the warWww@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

This is perhaps two questions, involving two different aircraft!. Being influential during the war is not necessarily the same as ending it!. One could make a good case that the Fairey Swordfish torpedo bomber was the most influential bomber of the war, because it delivered the highly successful Taranto raid, which sank or disabled three Italian battleships using only 21 aircraft, and gave the Japanese the blueprint for their Pearl Harbour attack (which sank or disabled six battleships using 353 aircraft)!.

If Japan had not felt able to cripple the US Pacific Fleet, it might hypothetically have fought shy of entering the war and thus not brought in the USA!. That would have had a fairly significant influence on the course of the war!. (This is hypothetical: Tojo's regime were determined to fight the USA rather than withdraw from China; what would have differed would have been the course of the war in the Pacific!.)

The bomber that did most to end World War 2 would be the bomber that did most to knock out Germany, because while Japan lingered on after Germany's surrender, its capitulation was really only a matter of time!. (The Soviet invasion of Manchuria in August 1945 pushed the Japanese into surrender: the A-bomb accelerated the timing!. The Japs had been hanging on in the hope they could negotiate peace on terms via the Sovs - the invasion of Manchuria ended that hope!.)

In the campaign against Germany, honours seem relatively evenly divided between the American B-17 by day and the British Lancaster at night!. (The Mosquito was used primarily as a pathfinder, night-fighter and deceptive jammer, but had the potential to be a more effective strategic bomber than the Lanc!. It just was not available in sufficient numbers to fulfil its potential!.) In assessing the contribution of both aircraft, one should bear in mind that the Lancaster was in operation against Germany for over a year longer than the B-17!.

The Russians would probably claim that the IL-2 Sturmovik ground attack aircraft did most to end the war, because it was produced in vast numbers and destroyed numerous German tanks and other vehicles!. Western powers could make similar claims about the American Thunderbolt and British Typhoon!. One could even claim that the German JU87 ('Stuka') was most influential, as it set the pattern for ground support followed by every major power by the end of the war!. General consensus seems to be, however, that the bombers which smashed factories and razed cities did more to end the war than the tactical aircraft over the battlefields!.

The RAF soon discovered that precision bombing, particularly if attempted in daylight, led to high losses for minimal results!. The USAAF learned this lesson the hard way during 1943, eventually being withdrawn from operations near the year's end pending the introduction of the P-51 Mustang (designed to a British specification in 1940) as an escort fighter (when fitted with a British Merlin engine)!. The RAF continued to follow its chosen course of area-bombing at night (a course adopted by the US B-29 forces in the Pacific, without acknowledegment, in 1945 when their daylight precision campaign was obviously failing)!. Several German factories were hit by the USAAF during 1943, and several German cities gutted by the RAF (and occasionally the RAF and USAAF together, e!.g!. Hamburg)!. None of this had a measurable impact on German production, which continued to rise throughout 1943 (and continued to do so until October 1944, when it declined at least as much because of loss of raw material-bearing territories as because of Allied bombing)!.

In 1944, the USAF won the day air battle over Germany and the RAF, after a bad start, gained ascendancy at night!. Both air forces struck frequently at a variety of shifting targets (factory complexes, transport and, finally, oil)!. The shift to attacking oil (mainly Germany's synthetic oil plants) proved decisive: coupled with the loss of Rumania's oil production in August-September 1944, it starved the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe of fuel, crippling their operations to the extent that even the arrival in service of the Me 262 jet made no real difference!.

The principal contenders are thus the Lancaster and the B-17: it would not be easy to decide between them!. The Lancaster, in addition to its standard city-hammering (aiming principally at industrial areas where possible), carried out special raids like the daylight attack on the MAN diesel works at Augsburg, the famous Dambuster raid and the sinking of the Tirpitz!. The B-17 was also active in the Mediterranean (although this was mainly a B-24 theatre) and the Pacific; in both theatres, after an introductory period of embarrassing ineffectuality, it proved quite effective at hitting Axis shipping (it helped if the shipping was in port or at anchor)!. The Lancaster dropped 608, 612 tons of bombs on Germany, the B-17 'over 500,000 tons'!.

For the most influential during the warWww@QuestionHome@Com

That would HAVE TO BE the DeHaveland Mosquito bomber!. Of course the AmeriKans on here, who know very little about WW2 bombers will say it was the B-29!.!. but the Molquito was one of the most versitile bombers of WW2 AND IT WAS BRITISH!. It was used as a daylight and night bomber, for photo recon, for dropping troops and intelligence officers behind enemy lines and IT SERVED THE WHOLE WAR, unlike the B-29 that only came along rather late in the war!.

The B-17 was a workhorse of a medium bomber and had so much redundancy built into it, the aircrews knew they would probably make it home, even with the plane shot to pieces!.!.!. and the B-24 and B-25 were well designed for flying low over the countryside to deliver their bomb loads when they made a sudden, almost vertical climb to bombing altitude over the target!. Both the B-24 and B-25 had a structual flaw that caused them to break in half on a hard landing!.

The Lancaster was also a very versitile light to medium bomber!. The B-29 filled the need for a HEAVY bomber and served in the role from the time it was first introduced until after the end of the war!. Of course it was the B-29 that dropped the bombs on Japan!.!.!. the Anola Gay dropped 1st bomb, little boy on Heroshima and BOCKS CAR dropped the second bomb, FAT MAN, the Plutonium bomb, on Nagasaki!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

probably the lancaster or the american b-17 ,one of those two!.!.!.the B-29 got the fame,but her contribution was in the PTO and really mostly limitted to fighting japan (she did drop THE BOMBS tho) !.!.but the real war (for most of the world was europe and that was brit lancasters and US b-17's along with a lot of B-24's and 25's ) !.!.from a differnt perspective,the bomber that had the most to do with ending WWII, was a japanese Betty,with a special significant paintjob!.!.she transported the japanese to the negotiations and surrender!.so the bomber that ended WWII was a japanese plane!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

The Enola Gay!. It is at the Smithsonian now!. There is another B29 in Midland, Texas at the Commemorative Air Force called Fifi that is just like the Enola Gay!. Paul Tibbits was the pilot of the Enola Gay on the first attack with an atomic bomb!. He got down in the bomb bay and armed "Little Man" enroute to Hiroshima from Tinan Island in the South Pacific!. About a week later Nagasaki was also attacked with a plutomium bomb nick named "Fat Boy"!. The death,destruction and suffering of the Japanese people was horrendous!. May this never happen again to anyone!.
Shortly after the atomic attacks, Japanese officials met in Tokyo Bay aboard the USS Missouri to sign an unconditional surrender instrument!.
If the Japanese hadn't surrendered, a invasion of Japan would have started about one month later!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Definately the Lancaster Bomber!. One of the greatest Bombing escapades of WW2 was the famous DAM BUSTERS!. No other aircraft could of accomplished this!. Plus it suffered battle damage and still flew a feat very few aircraft could accomplish!. The B17 Flying Fortress was one and the F4 Phantom in Vietnam the other!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Probably the B-17!. There were later bombers that flew higher and faster and carried more payload, but the B-17 was the workhorse of the army air corp!.
They got back to their home airstrip missing tail parts and with huge holes in the wings, but they still made it home!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

The B-17 carried the war to Berlin,and all points between!. It was the best bomber at the time!.

dagamelo: Fat Man and Little Boy were the code names of the bombs dropped by the B-29s Enola Gay and Boxcar!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

The B-29 for dropping the a-bomb on Japan!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

The one that nuked Japan!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

I think it was the Spitfires!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

fat man bombed hiroshima then little boy bombed someother place in japan and then they surenderedWww@QuestionHome@Com