Donald Putt’s role in American heavy-bomber development gives this history an unusually effective starting point. After surviving the 1935 B-17 prototype crash, Putt is credited here with helping demonstrate that the accident resulted from pre-flight error rather than a fundamental design flaw, contributing to the adoption of the pre-flight checklist. His later proposal for a bomber with unprecedented range and payload then provides a natural bridge from the B-17 era to the far more ambitious aircraft programs that produced both the B-29 Superfortress and the largely forgotten B-32.
The explanation of the B-32’s origins is particularly useful because it establishes that the aircraft was never really competing with the B-29 on equal terms. Boeing’s technologically ambitious design was already the preferred project, while Consolidated’s more conservative aircraft effectively became insurance against the possibility that the difficult B-29 program might fail. That distinction makes sense of the B-32’s strange development history, including its cancellation in February 1943 and resurrection just 18 days later after a fatal B-29 prototype crash demonstrated how uncertain the favored program still was.
Technical development is handled with enough specificity to show why the B-32 never became merely a straightforward backup. Pressurization and remote-controlled defensive weapons were abandoned, conventional manned turrets were substituted, and stability problems led to replacement of the B-24-style twin tail with a large single vertical stabilizer. Performance figures, bomb capacity, armament and radar equipment give viewers a useful picture of the finished aircraft without allowing specifications to overwhelm the narrative. The account also avoids portraying the B-29 as uniquely troubled: prototype crashes, mechanical problems and continuing modifications affected the B-32 as well.
The transition into combat service demonstrates just how thoroughly timing determined the Dominator’s fate. By the time testing was complete, the B-29 was already operating in the Pacific, leaving the B-32 to find a secondary opportunity through General George Kenney’s request for heavier bombers. Its May 1945 combat evaluation was successful enough for approval despite complaints about cockpit noise and instrument arrangement, but only a handful of additional combat missions remained before the August ceasefire. The presentation makes the resulting irony clear without excessive dramatization: an aircraft conceived years earlier as protection against failure of the B-29 finally became operational when the war was almost finished.
The most memorable section concerns the post-ceasefire reconnaissance flights over Japan. The account carefully establishes that Japan had agreed to surrender but that some Japanese personnel remained defiant, then describes attacks on B-32 reconnaissance aircraft on August 17 and 18. The second encounter resulted in the death of 20-year-old Sergeant Anthony Marchione while he was assisting wounded photographer Joseph Lacharite, making Marchione, as presented here, the last American killed in aerial combat during the Second World War. The reported destruction of two Japanese fighters during the engagement gives the B-32 an extraordinary historical footnote despite its extremely short operational career.
Where the presentation becomes less convincing is in its final assessment of the aircraft’s unrealized potential. The suggestion, attributed to historian William P. Head, that the B-32 might have become the most effective strategic bomber of the war is intriguing but necessarily counterfactual. Its lighter weight, range, speed and substantial bomb load provide reasons to wonder what a mature version might have achieved, yet the aircraft also suffered crashes, mechanical difficulties, stability problems, abandoned technologies and such limited combat exposure that there is little operational evidence here from which to make that larger judgment. The stronger conclusion is the one the history itself supports: the B-32 was a potentially capable bomber whose development schedule and historical circumstances prevented any meaningful test of its long-term value.
Pros
- Donald Putt’s story provides a strong historical thread connecting early B-17 development with the later very-long-range bomber program.
- The relationship between the B-29 and B-32 is clearly explained, particularly the Dominator’s intended role as insurance against problems with the more ambitious Boeing design.
- Technical changes and performance characteristics are detailed without overwhelming the broader historical narrative.
- The late-war combat evaluation and post-ceasefire reconnaissance missions give the aircraft’s brief operational career considerable human and historical significance.
- The account acknowledges serious development problems with both bomber programs rather than presenting the B-32 simply as an overlooked superior aircraft.
Cons
- The claim that the B-32 might have become the war’s most effective strategic bomber is inherently speculative and receives little operational evidence to support it.
- Numerous dates, specifications, contracts and development milestones arrive in rapid succession, making portions of the early history unusually dense.
- The B-32’s extremely limited combat service makes meaningful evaluation of its actual effectiveness difficult, particularly compared with the extensively deployed B-29.
The Dominator emerges as much more than an obscure alternative to the B-29, with its repeated cancellations, technical compromises, late combat debut and tragic post-ceasefire mission forming a compelling aviation history. The presentation is strongest when explaining why the aircraft existed and how circumstances repeatedly reshaped its purpose, while claims about what it might have achieved remain necessarily speculative. It is a detailed and memorable account of a bomber whose historical significance ultimately came less from what it accomplished than from when it arrived.
