Four hundred sixty-two B-29 Superfortress bombers joined the flypast over Japan’s surrender ceremony in 1945.
The aircraft formed part of a large Allied display over USS Missouri and Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. The ceremony account describes a flypast of more than 800 American aircraft, including carrier aircraft and 462 land-based B-29 Superfortresses.
The B-29 had been the principal American heavy bomber in the Pacific. It had the range to operate from bases in the Mariana Islands against the Japanese home islands and was used in both conventional bombing and the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The figure 462 applies specifically to the B-29s, not to every aircraft in the flypast. The larger figure of more than 800 includes other American aircraft, so the two numbers describe different parts of the same aerial display.