![]() We had fresh eggs, served to anyone who was flying. Breakfast at five, briefing at six, takeoff at seven.’ Then they picked us up in a truck and took us to the Mess Hall. Radio operator Don Hammond, who flew 28 missions with the 100th Bomb Group, recalls, “The Charge of Quarters came in and said, ‘Hey, you’re flying. ![]() Long before dawn reached the cold sky of East Anglia, a lone man entered the barracks where the aircrews rested in uneasy slumber. Kids then, old men now, they tell their stories of life and death inside b-17s over Germany. Very few of them knew one another during the war, but they are forever bonded in blood and duty. The B-24 and B-17 bombers are the only aircraft to have ball turrets. US Army Air Forces gunners defended B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator bombers against fighter attacks with machine guns aimed by hand (flexible. the air temperature was far below freezing even when it was woven with red-hot shrapnel and exploding cannon shells. Finally, the crew took their positions for take-off: navigator, bombardier and. they came from factories and farms, small towns and big cities, and ended up in a narrow aluminum tube with four roaring cyclone engines, a dozen machine guns and four tons of high explosives. bombardiers and navigators, pilots and copilots, radio operators, flight engineers, ball, waist and tail gunners. they have little in common but their memories and that they once flew high in the deadly skies over Hitler's Germany to deliver destruction to the nazi war machine. ANTIQUE REPRO WW 11 REPRO 8X10 PHOTO B 17 BOMBER SPERRY BALL TURRET GUNNER. this article relates missions over Germany through the personal accounts of men no longer young. Moving on to the waist gunner and ball turret positions, I will attempt to do. but on their shoulders rested the hopes of a nation, a world at war. Same faces, same names, same youthful vigor and sense of invincibility. The majority of three thousand officers and enlisted men in Eight Air Force heavy bomber crews tallied between 28 May and 5 June 1944 said their aircraft be they B-17s or B-24s were the best for the job. outwardly, they were no different from any late-teen or early-twenties boy you’d meet anywhere in America. Mark CarlsonĪboard each of the thousands of b-17 Flying Fortresses that left the soil of England bound for targets in Europe were 10 young men. Bomber Crew: A Day In Their Lives Flight Journal | 2019 Special Issue: WWII Air Warī-17 Crewmen Remember the German Missions.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |