Then What Happened?

Jun 19, 2026 | World War II

AI generated image of a Tu 4 and a B 29.

Last month I published Triumph and Tragedy, the sixth book in my Breaking Point series. As my readers know, there’s a book for each year of World War II, beginning in 1940. Triumph and Tragedy takes place as the war ends in 1945. So what is a writer to do? Continue writing, of course, and I am therefore beginning to carry the story forward into the Cold War era.

This blog, and some more to come, will focus on events that took place in the later 1940s in the aftermath of the war. It’s a period often overlooked by historians but it’s a period with a decisive impact on shaping the world we live in today.

My theme is an often-used reformulation of von Clausewitz’s famous dictum that ‘war is a continuation of policy by other means.’ In our case we can say that, in 1945 and beyond, ‘peace was a continuation of war by other means.’

Let’s dive in.

The B29 and Tu 4 Story

My first cold war story concerns two bomber aircraft, the Boeing B29 Super Fortress and the Tupolev Tu 4. World War II saw the introduction of massive ‘strategic’ bombing, particularly in Europe—strategic meaning intense repetitive raids designed to destroy production centers and dislocate civilian populations.

The RAF and the USAAF employed four-engined bombers that could carry, in extreme cases, up to ten tons of bombs. The Luftwaffe used smaller twin-engined aircraft known as Schnellbombers. The nearby table shows the approximate tonnage dropped by aircraft type in Europe in World War II. B29s were not deployed in Europe but I included their tonnage against Japan for comparative purposes. You will see that Russia had only the aging Pe8 bomber, which was too vulnerable to fly against Germany; the Japanese, fighting a fundamentally maritime island-by-island war, did not use large bombers.

When the war ended in Europe and descended rapidly into the Cold War, Russia had no practical strategic bombing capability at all, whereas the US and the UK had very large, battle-hardened forces capable of reaching Moscow. The newest of the Allied bombers was the ‘next generation’ B-29, which delivered the atomic bombs against Japan.

AI generated image showing, from left to right, a B17, a Pe8, a B29, and a Lancaster further back.

Stalin was alarmed at Russia’s disadvantage and was determined to close it. Several of Russia’s successful air force generals disappeared into the Gulag for unspecified failures. He demanded that Russia’s bomber fleet leapfrog from the 1930s technology of the Pe8 to a state-of-the-art equivalent of a B29. Under normal circumstances it would take as much as ten years to get from a first design to an aircraft in production, but the circumstances were not normal.

Manna from Heaven

In 1944 the USAAF had been flying B29s against Japan from bases in mainland Nationalist China, in a campaign codenamed Operation Matterhorn. The campaign was a logistical nightmare. Everything had to be flown into China from India over the Himalayas, over the Hump, as they said, and the campaign itself did little damage. During the campaign a total of three B29s experienced difficulties and had to make emergency landings in Vladivostok in Russia and a fourth crash-landed.

The US demanded the aircraft back, but Stalin refused. For him the B29s constituted a supreme stroke of luck, like manna from heaven. He instructed Andrei Tupolev, the head of the Tupolev OKB aircraft design studio, to clone these aircraft. The three serviceable aircraft were flown to Moscow. One was taken apart, piece by piece, down to the screws, and analyzed, resulting in over 100,000 drawings and specifications. Another B29 was used for test flying and crew training, and the third was left untouched as a reference. The fourth crashed B29 was used for materials analysis.

The B29 was the most sophisticated and complex aircraft then flying. It had pressurized crew compartments, fully automated remote fire control systems and the most advanced navigation and bomb-aiming equipment. It had by far the longest range and was much faster than the other bombers. Stalin wanted an exact copy within two years but agreed to allow Russian engines instead of the American R3350s, and Russian guns in order to meet the deadline.

Cloning the aircraft was a nightmare because the B29 was built using imperial measures and all Russian machine tools were calibrated in metric. Many of the materials had slightly different composition. But both Stalin and Tupolev were ruthless taskmasters and the project was driven by fear.

Miraculously the project succeeded and the first successful Tu 4 test flight took place on May 19^th, 1847, almost exactly two years after the end of the war in Europe.

Tu 4 Unveiled

The Tu 4 was displayed at the Tushino Aviation Day airshow on August 3^rd, 1947, almost exactly two years after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan.

First, western observers saw three familiar-looking aircraft fly across the airfield and assumed that they were the three B29s that Stalin had refused to return. And then, to their astonishment, came a fourth aircraft and a fifth. Not only had Tupolev successfully cloned the B29, but it was already in production. The fifth aircraft was, in fact, a double shock: it was a Tu 70, a civilian passenger adaptation of the Tu 4, comparable to the B29-derived Boeing Stratocruiser, which had only just had its first flight.

In a single air display the US realized it had lost its intercontinental strategic superiority. Here was an aircraft capable of reaching New York on a one-way trip and capable of carrying an atomic bomb—if and when Stalin developed one.

The Cold War had suddenly grown colder.

Afterword

Although Andrei Tupolev died in 1972 one of his designs is still in frontline use. The Tu 95 turbojet long range bomber, first flown in 1952, still flies and has been used against Ukraine. In a way the Tu 85 parallels the B52, also first flown in 1952 and still in frontline service.

It is astonishing to realize these aircraft first flew 70 years ago.