I disagree with the author's comment, "After all, attaching a name to a killing machine is merely an attempt to humanize the brutality of war, isn't it?"
My Dad was a B-29 pilot on Tinian. His crew named their airplane to give a personality to the craft upon which their lives depended. There was no "brutality of war" issue here. A crew of 11 men, climbing aboard a machine that was truly still in development, to fly 1500 miles across open ocean, defeat enemy fighters, avoid flak and make a 1500 mile trip home with minimum fuel needed all the help they could get. These crews gave their aircraft names to make the plane a member of the crew; to encourage the aircraft into the air with an overgrossed load of bombs and fuel, to coax the unpredictable R-3350 engines to hold together for the duration of flights that lasted over 15 hours, and to bring them home where ground crews would toil countless hours to prep the aircraft for the next mission.
The B-29 was a great plane that struggled with development problems due to hasty deployment demanded by the Pacific campaign. It's success was the result of a team of flight crew members and maintainers who developed tactics and maintenance SOPs on the go. Giving aircraft names made the plane a member of this team.
