Lastly, please remember that the photos used in this gallery update are all official U.S. Government property and can not be sold, copyrighted, or used for commercial purpose.   Any display of these pictures should credit them as "Official Air Force photograph, courtesy of Air Force Weather History Office". 

For perspective, the following information came from Robert A. Mann¹, a respected maintainer at the 514th and 54th at Guam from 1949-51.   Bob recalls:  "The Tech Order said to change an engine when it reached 600 hours.  In actuality the average engine lasted only about 400 hours.  One major exception was the 54th's 44-86267.  When the 19th Bomb Group left Andersen for Okinawa on June 27th, 1950, to start flying combat missions (in Korea), in the dark of night (the 19th BG) stole all four engines off of 267.  It was October before four new engines arrived on Guam and 267 started flying again.  To make a long story short, the 54th got over 600 hours on ALL FOUR!!!.  Unless you were there you cannot appreciate the combination of luck and good maintenance that brought that about.  There was a big write-up in the Air Force Times."

1.  For those who don't know about  Bob Mann, he authored a self published book about the 514th and 54th from 1948-1954 called The Fireballs.  He recently released The B-29 Superfortress, which is a detailed compilation of all B-29 tails with known nose artwork, information from the Aircraft Record Cards and Combat reports, as well as details of some of the more common variants -- like the 105, or so, WB-29s.