The only WWII airplane I know using this configuration is the Pe-8.

A few of the early Pe-8s (Soviet bomber) used a 5th engine, located in the fuselage above the bomb bay, which was feeding the 4 wing engines with compressed air, acting like a sort of centralized supercharger.

This outfit was not retained, and 4 diesel supercharged engines were favored in the production series, even if the performance was worse, because it allowed for more range.

I think this was a viable and smart solution, as long as you had issue with producing good high altitude supercharged engines, which was the case for the USSR.

As soon as you had good supercharged high alt engines, adding an additional engine to the design would just mean more weight and more fuel to lift and haul.

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