1 min read

Season 4, Episode 235

The creation of the B-29 Bomber, from production to World War II

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Event History America's Work Force Union Podcast AWF IAMAW

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Guest Name:

Tom Buffenbarger

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https://awf.labortools.com/

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An independent labor voice, Tom Buffenbarger, joined the America’s Workforce Union Podcast to talk about the B-29 Bomber and the work the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers did to get the plane from the blueprints to operating in World War II.

During Buffenbarger’s time as a rep for the Machinists in the Aerospace Industry, he got to know many members who were workers at the Boeing facility in Wichita, Kansas. These workers built smaller planes for the government, including spy planes used in covert operations, he said. After the events of Pearl Harbor, these same members became part of the workforce that created the B-29 Bombers used in World War II.

To find a workforce capable of producing the planes and meeting the needs of the government, workers were brought to Wichita from surrounding states and educated on the processes involved. Buffenbarger discussed the plant's efforts to supply the military with the planes needed for the war.

The historical importance of the B-29 is most related to the bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, the planes barely made it off the sketches due to engineering questions in the blueprints. Buffenbarger discussed the ability of the Machinists members at the facility to take the blueprints and turn them into a functional plane that eventually ended the war in the Eastern Theater and saved about a million soldiers' lives.

To hear more from Buffenbarger and the B-29 Bomber, listen to the show above.

America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.

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