Dumbest thing I’ve seen on the Military History Channel this weekend:
“No other Boeing-built bomber aircraft has had the same impact on a city as the B-29 has had on Wichita.”
Yeah, because when thinking “what city has been most impacted by the B-29?” Wichita, Kansas leaps to mind.
Talk about a provincial mindset…
That’s a good one.
I also heard a “good one” about a year ago, and I still recall (I am reminded daily… you’ll see why, as below).
Not sure if it was History or Discovery channel, but a docu on invasive species covered the snakehead fish invasion of the Great Lakes area. It covered how the fish are displacing native species in lakes, rivers, etc… that’s all fine.
But then the narrator had to add something to the effect, “…and to make matters worse, the fish is inedible.”
What?
Where I live (SE Asia), these fish are eaten daily… probably make up a respectable % of all fish consumption…usually BBQed whole (head-on, with lemongrass, herbs, scallion stuffed down the throat) or salt-encrusted and BBQed… either preparation served with a spicy dipping sauce.
It is served by street vendors as well as restaurants. Seems every downtown of every village has a street vendor selling these - the BBQ smoke and wonderful aroma permeate the air. It’s actually a rather tasty firm-fleshed fish. It does have tiny bones down the spine, but if you know how to pull the flesh away, its not a problem.
I don’t get it - it was built there, so of course that had a big effect on the local economy. Wichita has historically been a major city for aircraft construction - Cessna and I believe one or two other general aviation manufacturers are based there.
I think one could construct a solid argument that Hiroshima and/or Nagasaki were affected more by the B-29 than Wichita.
I believe the OP was inferring that the choice of words, particularly “bomber” and “impact”, could convey the connotation of being “bombed by” the aircraft.
Obviously the narration meant “positive economic impact” with reference to Wichita. But, again, what kind of economic impact (negative, in this case) would being bombed by the B-29 have on a city? Which is greater in absolute value? No matter the answer, it seems a provocative observation by the OP, IMO.
Put me down as agreeing that the quote about Wichita is disgustingly ignorant.
Tokyo. And, IIRC, the British were flying B-29’s against German cities. B-29s were specially modified to carry heavier incendiary loads.
On the topic of “dense comment” I’d include any implication that Hiroshima-Nagaski cost lives. According to Wikipedia
The Japanese hoped U.S. would have difficulty repeating such mass raids. They gave up when U.S. found a way to destroy with a single bomber.
Like Septimus said, that was a different model. But yeah, “impact” and “bomber” doesn’t bring to mind “place where they were assembled” to most people’s minds, more like “places where they were used”. But, as the OP pointed out, those places are in the parts of the map formerly marked “here be dragons”. Provincial is indeed the right description.
You remember incorrectly; B-29s were never flown against Germany.
Beech and Lear were there when I worked at Boeing, but that’s nearly 20 years ago now.
How I am reading this, and I don’t know anything about the Boeing company is that Boeing built a lot of bomber aircraft in Wichita. But of all the bombers built in Wichita, the B-29 bomber had the greatest impact
Well, the man’s point eventually turned out to be that Boeing built a B-29 plant in Wichita that subsequently was used for the civilian aircraft industry, establishing Wichita as a major city for aircraft manufacture.
But Boeing was founded in Seattle. He didn’t address Seattle, but surely Boeing had a major impact there. And I still maintain that numerous Japanese cities have claim to greater impact – in every sense, economics, history, military.
It’s kind of like saying “the important thing about World War II is that my uncle learned to fix cars, and became a mechanic when he got home.”
Instead of this: “No other Boeing-built bomber aircraft has had the same impact on a city as the B-29 has had on Wichita.”
their intent was probably to say this: “No other Boeing-built bomber aircraft has had the same impact on on Wichita as the B-29 has had.”
My favorite B-29 fact: The first-line Soviet heavy bomber during the 1950s was a reverse-engineered copy of a captured B-29.