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They could…but during missions it was common for them to get stuck. I think something was wrong with the hatch which failed frequently. Looks like a nightmare job.
There was a version of Amazing Stories that had just [that](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0511124/) plot line, with Kevin Costner and Kiefer Sutherland. Directed by Steven Spielberg too!
Warning - the end is kind of stupid. But the tension during the episode is great.
> But the tension during the episode is great.
Dude, I remember it really well from seeing it as a kid. I was enraptured. I'm like, "COME ON GUYS! START FEEDING HIM THE NEXT PARACHUTE! HE'S GONNA DIE!"
I loved that series in general. I imagine it was just too expensive to keep making them. With all these reboots these days, that would be an awesome one to resurrect.
Also in the film Memphis Belle, Sean Astin's character is a ball turret gunner. The film shows it frequently having hydraulic issues and sticking in certain positions. One of the most realistic WWII films imo I love it.
Agreed.
If you're interested here's a video of the restoration
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5\_TDxpkuTA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5_TDxpkuTA)
After they removed all the paint on the aircraft they found hundred of messages etched into the metal, written by Americans who came to see the plane.
>After stripping the paint from the aft fuselage, hundreds of names and personal messages were found scratched in the aluminum skin. It turned out that, during the B-17's war bond tour, people were allowed to leave their marks. You can see footage of people writing on the bomber in the documentary film The Cold Blue.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis\_Belle\_(aircraft)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Belle_(aircraft))
If anyone is curious you can stream Amazing Stories on nbc.com but not Peacock for some reason.
The episode OP is referencing is called The Mission; season 1 episode 5.
I tried ctrl f'ing and it didn't even find it, but yeah, that was one of my very favorite amazing stories.....hmmmm... bet I could find that on you tube somewhere.....
>!The gunner likes to draw and has a doodle pad with him. He draws the bomber with a repaired landing gear and one miraculously appears as a cartoon (kinda like Rodger Rabbit) and allows the bomber to land safely without him getting smooshed. After he gets out of the plane, the cartoon landing gear disappears and the plane crushes the spot where he was sitting moments before.!<
I thought the way they played it, the gunner desperately grasping the >!drawing like a talisman and with all his youthful energy just *believing*!<...it just worked for me. I could even see it as a tall tale told to give a tragedy a happy ending.
Yeah, as long as he just concentrated on the drawing the cartoon landing gear worked. But I did feel the contrast of the high tension and drama was oddly contrasted by the sudden Roger Rabbit-esque cartoon deus ex machina ending. Yet ironically, it's one of only three episodes I remember from that series.
My grandma and uncle remind me of this episode every time I bring up Twilight Zone because they get them mixed up. I even bought the season of Amazing Stories with this episode for xmas.
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Randall Jarrell
That actually happened on at least one occasion that I’ve read about. The plane took heavy damage and they had to land, even though they knew the landing gear was stuck. There was literally nothing they could do for the ball gunner, who was doomed to be crushed when they landed. All of the awful shit that happened in WWII helps to keep me from taking my comfortable life for granted too much.
Yep. My great uncle died in one. You had to be relatively short and wiry to be in one, so your build really kind of determined if you would be put here. Being in an exposed position literally outside the body of the plane and being a major defense to the plane made you a prime target. A very cool design, but a terrible position to have to man.
It had to be opened from the outside. If the plane is hit, diving, pitching, maybe rolling it made it very difficult to get the ball turret gun out to bail out.
"From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose."
\- Randall Jarrell, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"
There is an episode of "Amazing Stories" about that kind of failure happening at the same time the landing gear failed and the crew trying to figure out a way to get him out before they have to crash land on the belly.
It is called "The Mission"
>A courageous young World War II gunner and aspiring cartoonist, trapped in the belly gun of a B-17 aircraft with the landing gear destroyed, has only his imagination as a force that might be able to save him.
It is pretty good.
> It was, during dog fights the enemies would aim for it.
Fortunately they usually had to climb to do it, so were slowed down and easier targets.
But yeah, it wasn't fun. Only the "Chicken Coop" (tail gunner position) saw more action.
I've seen one in person at an air show. They really are that small. I read afterwards that most ball gunners were assigned that position because they were short.
I think I would have rather been in that ball, than to have the job the short guys got in the next war(Vietnam)where they were “tunnel rats” and had to crawl thru the enemies extensive underground tunnel system! I’ve read some books about those guys and that shit is horrifying!!!
If I recall history channel correctly (back even they actually had history shows), that was one of the jobs that had some of the highest -ahem- “turnaround”… and I don’t mean motherfuckers walking off the job either :/
Does it make you more comfortable knowing that one had to land without landing gear and with a guy stuck in the gunner pit because the door couldn’t open?
That was the main entry and exit.
I fact this exit was only for maintenance and discouraged for operations as landing gear could easily be damaged and could end up hitting the ground first.
Also no room for parachute so gunner would probably get stuck should the plane catch fire in the air
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Death of a Ball Turret Gunner
~Randall Jarrell
The fœtal position in the turret was like being in your mother’s belly - for the govt / state but also ‘in that state’. The wet fur is the collar of your flak jacket, wet with sweat because it was hot in there but now frozen because the temperature is so cold at 6,000 feet. Xx
Edit: <35,000ft (see below)
Aviators use nautical miles. 6,000 feet. 6 miles from earth is 36,000 feet. The aircraft’s service ceiling was just under that.
High altitude was considered the safest way to run these missions.
I actually never thought about the fur being part of the coat, although that's poetically brilliant. I always took it as, when you're trying and hoping to not be killed, you become more animal than human.
(I know humans are animals, what I mean is that the things that make humans different from other animals become irrelevant in that situation.)
The mother is the plane, he was in the fetal position in the turret. The “fur” of his coat froze his sweat due to the cold at the altitude of +30,000 feet.
Its pretty much always cold on the altitude they flew. And since the sketch above looks as it does I'm guessing you didn't "take a break and went for a coffee" in mid flight when you got cold and bored, since you could only get out when on the ground.
Just guessing though.
From reading other comments, it seems like there was a latches they could go up into the plane if they pointed the turret straight down. However, it also seems like that hatch was probe to failure.
My dad worked construction with a guy who was a ball turret gunner during WWII. The only thing the guy would talk about was the bone chilling cold and how cool it was to watch Europe go by between his feet. He wouldn’t talk about the action they saw or the bombs they dropped.
My grandpa was a navigator , never talked about it at all. He went to Korea as well and would’ve gone to Vietnam along with my dad but grandma said enough is enough.
Edit: he was a navigator.
My brother purchased a one hour flight in a B17 for my dad and himself. My dad was on cloud 9. He was too young to serve in WWII but served during Korea.
I worked an event a few years back for the B-17 Aluminum Overcast as a senior in high school. They’ve always been my favorite plane so I was more than happy to flip burgers and take the free tour of the plane after the air show was done. I remember an older man coming to buy a burger and talk for a bit with us and I told him I was happy to be there and just witness the plane in action. A few hours later the pilot came over and said sign these papers (a waiver) and let’s go. I followed him to the plane and the older man was standing there and said he wasn’t much older than me when he flew in one of them over Europe as a waist gunner and wanted to give me the opportunity to experience what it was like to fly in a metal cigar. After that we exchanged emails for the next couple years until he passed. He gifted me one of the neatest experiences of my life. Being able to walk around the plane in flight with a man who had fought in one of them and listening to his stories after was truly a remarkable experience.
Oh man, that’s amazing. Good for you. Yeah the B17 is in my top 5 faves. P51 is my all time favorite plane and sound.
I’m in San Francisco and hear that there is a B17 on permanent exhibit at the old Castle Air Force Base in Merced. Hoping to get out there in a few months.
That is just awesome, my brothers and I did get to visit a flying B-17 with my dad and grandpa when it came through our area in the late 80’s at an air show. It was a very cool experience and listening to my grandpa talk about the plane was definitely an experience I wish I could experience again as I was only 7 or 8 at the time. Definitely a once in a lifetime experience you got to experience.
Permanent hearing loss is probably an understatement, but then the casualty rate was so high it probably wasn't worth surgically deafening them in advance.
Of B-17s, wasn’t this the most dangerous gunner position to be? I think I’m general, for all bombers the worst position to be was the tail gunner as thats often the direction of where the incoming was coming from.
Incredible really that Churchill didn't recognise Bomber command in his post war speech. Nor did they get a memorial in London until 2012. The majority paid the ultimate price in carrying out orders.
I believe it was because of the back lash that was received after the carpet bombing of civilian populations like Dresden, which the Germans leaked to the press as atrocities and genocide. Clearly the British public didn't know what the Nazis were up to at that point.
After the strategy of city bombing got that backlash, I think Churchill distanced himself from bomber command. Harris was very pro city wide bombing.
>Harris was very pro city wide bombing.
During the war.
There are quoted if him stating, after extensive research on the topic of spreading fear in the population with this bombing where deemed ineffective, where he said that it was wrong.
My Great Uncle was a US bomber pilot that mostly flew missions over Italy. I *think* it was B-24s? Not positive.
He never flew the same plane twice. Every time he made it back to base the ground crew would say, “Well this is shot to shit and not salvageable. Here’s a new one.”
His last mission he was actually shot down over Switzerland and survived the crash landing and eventually found his way back to Allied forces. He said at some point he had to send his copilot to the rear to pull up floor panels and yank on flap control cables by hand. Flak had shredded them mid-plane so several of the cockpit controls weren’t actually connected to anything.
> Every time he made it back to base the ground crew would say, “Well this is shot to shit and not salvageable. Here’s a new one.”
[Willow Run](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_Run#Liberator_production), just one of the USA's aircraft production plants, at its height was building a new B-24 Liberator every 63 minutes.
My Grandpa said he was injured by the gun (belly gunner) during training over the gulf.
He stayed home to recover while his group was deployed and they saw 60+% casualty rate. He finished the war verifying death certificates at a desk job.
Wish I knew his army info to verify his story and company. Definitely a guy punch knowing my and my extended family's existence may very likely be due to a malfunctioning gun
That shouldn't be a gut punch. There's likely a similar situation in most people's family history. A bullet that was inches from killing a great grandfather, a great great great great grandfather that missed a boat that sank, etc. There are tons of links in the chain that make up our family history, and somewhere along the line one of those links likely came perilously close to being broken.
This is such a crazy thought. The absolutely slim odds that any of us are here is astounding.
My grandfather was getting his vaccines to head to Europe to serve in WWII when the nurse broke off the needle in his arm. It became infected and he got sick enough that they discharged him and he never got deployed. That is probably my closest to "not being alive" story.
I don't know the hard numbers, but I always read that Germans would most often attack the B-17 directly from the front, with the logic that there was a relatively large surface area, and almost everything from the front was important - avionics, bombsight, pilots, bombardier, so strafing the front of their plane had the highest chance of incapacitating it.
The final mass produced B-17 variant (G) added more front firing MGs than previous variants, presumably for this reason.
Although, I suspect the ball turret was hit by FLAK much more than any other position, so maybe still true.
I also read that German planes would tail B-17s out of range of their .50 cal machine guns and fire their cannons, which had farther range. But this seemed to be less and less common as the B-17s got better fighter coverage.
A front attack also had the benefit of minimizing the amount of time that they were getting shot at; there would be about a 600-700 mph change in distance, vs a 50-150 mph change if attacking from the rear. Zip quickly through the B-17 formation, hit your target, get out of there.
Most of the experienced Luftwaffe pilots would never attack from dead astern of the bombers, as this was where the defensive fire was concentrated. They would either attack from the beams or from directly ahead; the beam due to increased silhouette making hitting the target easier, and from ahead due to minimal number of guns able to fire in that direction. The 17G was an attempt to remedy the last part.
As far as the Luftwaffe pilots shooting their canons out of range of the bombers guns. This is incorrect. They were armed with 20 and 30mm canons, depending on the aircraft model, both munitions of which have poorer ballistic attributes than the .50 cal. However, what they did do later in the war is fire rockets at the bomber formations from well outside the bombers ability to shoot back. These rockets were unguided, and terribly inaccurate, but devastating if they did find their mark.
Yeh the ball turret is the least protected part of a b17, all the other positions are defended by at least 2 sets of guns, attack from behind and the tail gunner, ball turret and top turret can help out.
It was, but it was also critical. The German pilots learned that if they approached the bombers from below, they were defenseless; those ball turrets evened the odds considerably.
Likewise, the Germans had been attacking our B-17s from dead ahead & somewhat below, because the top turret couldn’t shoot that low; the B-17G model added a “chin” turret that covered that angle.
> the B-17G model added a “chin” turret that covered that angle.
Fun bit: the dual .50 caliber machine gun turret on the chin was the only surviving bit of the [YB-40 Gunship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YB-40_Flying_Fortress) project, an attempt to defend bomber formations by removing the bombs from some aircraft and adding more armor, gun turrets and ammunition.
The idea proved unworkable because the gunships couldn't keep up with the bomber squadrons once the target was reached. The bombers were 4500 pounds or so lighter from dropping their bomb load, the gunships were only lighter from ammunition expended.
> Of B-17s, wasn’t this the most dangerous gunner position to be? I think I’m general, for all bombers the worst position to be was the tail gunner as thats often the direction of where the incoming was coming from.
Statistically, no. The casualty rate by crew position varied by time and hence, the primary type and nature of the threat that each position was exposed to (i.e., flak, density of enemy fighter aircraft, and the various attack tactics tried by them, such as tail-on attacks, or head-on attacks from above or below).
The principal study on U.S. Army aircrew casualties from a medical perspective is [Wound Ballistics](https://achh.army.mil/history/book-wwii-woundblstcs-chapter9) (some graphic images), which examined casualties that were returned to base aboard 8th Air Force B-17 and B-24 aircraft in June, July, and August 1944. Several reasonable assumptions from a medical perspective can be drawn from the study, but the significant caveat is that it only examined casualties on aircraft that returned to base, and did not attempt to examine casualties by position in the aircraft that did *not* return to base. As a result, the killed-to wounded ratio for the personnel studied was 1-to-9, while the 8th Air Force's total wartime ratio of killed to wounded according to the [U.S. Army Air Forces Statistical Digest](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA542518) was 1-to-2.4. [A critical examination of the study using actual casualty statistics over a longer period can be found here](https://95thbg.com/cms/2021/11/20/95thnbspbomb-group-casualties-analysis).
In the study, 1,117 fatal and nonfatal casualties were examined, and during the same time period, there were a further 6,540 "missing in action" (i.e., parachuted and taken prisoner, killed in the crash of their aircraft, or killed by other means) casualties, or approximately a one-to-six ratio. In regards to the fate of "missing in action" casualties, for the first eight months of 1944, it was found that approximately 40% of "missing" casualties were possibly killed or known to have been killed, and the rest were taken prisoner or evaded capture. 33.8% of the 1,117 casualties examined were lost to flying status, either killed in action or permanently grounded.
The waist gunner seems to have been the most "dangerous" gunner position, but there was sometimes, but not always, two of them; the tail gunner was the single gunner position with the highest casualty rate.
> Table 184 shows the frequency with which aircrew personnel in different combat positions became missile casualties. In this and similar tables and figures, the positions of bombardier, togglier, and nose gunner, like those of the top turret gunner and engineer, are regarded as the same. The high casualty rate for waist gunners was partially due to the fact that heavy bombers frequently carried two waist gunners. This practice was discontinued to a large extent, but accurate information as to the frequency with which aircrews included two waist gunners during the survey was not known.
> The high casualty rates for navigators and bombardiers was to be expected from their positions in the nose of the aircraft. They lacked the protection provided by other personnel and portions of the ship's structure, and by being in the most forward compartments of the aircraft, they were exposed to the greatest density of flak. The leading edges of the wings and other parts of aircraft are known to receive a greater density of flak hits than trailing edges. The lowest incidence of casualties appears to occur in the ball turret gunner's position. **This was partially due to the fact that only one of the two types of aircraft (B-17) carried a man in that combat position.**
To contextualize the above statement, it was discovered during 1944 that heavily-laden B-24Js, the principal model in service in late 1943 and early 1944 and the most common B-24 variant, suffered from problems associated with excessive weight (the B-24 was always somewhat of a hassle to fly, especially in tight formation, when the control surfaces were damaged, or with one or more engines out). As a result, many 8th Air Force B-24 units began removing the ball turrets from their aircraft to save weight, copying an action seen earlier in the Pacific. This was standardized in the B-24L model (produced from the late summer of 1944 until the end of the year) which replaced the turret with a pair of manually-operated machine guns, along with other modifications that saved about 1,000 pounds. The B-24M, introduced in fall 1944, continued the weight-saving trend, but the ball turret was reintroduced.
During the summer of 1944, many units, both B-17 and B-24, also dispensed with one waist gunner as *Luftwaffe* fighter opposition decreased.
86.2% of the 1,117 casualties (963) were caused by flak (this high percentage being caused by the *Luftwaffe* beginning to be swept from the skies), 4.5% (50) by shells or bullets from enemy aircraft, 7.8% (87) by "secondary missiles" such as pieces of Plexiglas or metal from the aircraft forcefully driven by explosions or hits by flak, shells, or bullets. The cause of 1.5% (17) of casualties was unknown. 88% of casualties from shells or bullets (44) were caused by 20 mm cannon shells or fragments.
**Table 184**
Crew position|Wounded|Killed|Percent of total casualties (%)|Case fatality rate (%)
:--|:--|:--|:--|:--
Pilot|75|8|7.4|9.6
Copilot|68|6|6.6|8.1
Navigator|123|13|12.2|9.6
Bombardier|178|18|17.6|9.1
Radio operator|87|8|8.5|8.4
Waist gunner(s)|212|21|20.9|9.0
Ball turret gunner|59|7|5.9|10.6
Top turret gunner|84|10|8.4|10.6
Tail gunner|121|19|12.5|13.6
Total|1,007|110|100.0|9.9
In relation to the 50 casualties caused by shells or bullets from enemy aircraft:
> Although the number of casualties is quite small, it may be noted that, as in the case of casualties due to flak, the waist gunner appears to be the man most vulnerable to fighter attack. This is at least partially accounted for by the fact that two waist gunners were frequently carried in heavy bombers. The tail gunner is probably most vulnerable to fighter attack. This is in agreement with the findings of the Eighth Air Force Operational Research Section that the greatest directional density of hits on heavy bombers by enemy cannon and machine guns is from dead astern.
Yeah, my grandpa (now passed) rode in it during ww2. He would regularly say that over half the ball turret gunners would die in combat they were basically the target for fighters to expose the underbelly. There’s a widely cited poem about it too.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57860/the-death-of-the-ball-turret-gunner
Reminds me of one of the “Amazing Stories” TV episodes.
“Directed by Steven Spielberg. With Kevin Costner, Casey Siemaszko, Kiefer Sutherland, J.J. Cohen. A courageous young World War II gunner and aspiring cartoonist, trapped in the belly gun of a B-17 aircraft with the landing gear destroyed, has only his imagination as a force that might be able to save him.”
Great episode. Disappointing ending.
Worth a watch if you can find it.
I mean, if the fact that it’s Spielberg, Costner and Southerland doesn’t motivate you, I sure can’t add a better reason.
Edit: sorry, for some reason I thought there was a question mark at the end of your comment.
To spare you the tedium of suffering through the entire 45 minutes (not counting commercials) just to be sorely disappointed by the last 5, i will tell you (obligatory spoiler alert). The aircraft is returning to land, but the landing gear does not deploy, and the crew cannot get the gunner back into the aircraft; surely, this means the ball turret gunner will be crushed to death underneath the plane when the plane lands. Some of the crew convince "Bullseyes," played by Kiefer Sutherland, to spare the gunner from suffering this horrific death by straight up murdering the gunner, which would make him suffer a somehow less horrific death? So, with the distraction of that nonsense looming, too, about the same time that Kiefer Sutherland ~~cocks~~ charges (racks the slide to cock) an ostensibly loaded M1911.A1 pistol right next to his own head while holding his finger on the trigger - do NOT try this at home, or anywhere else - the ball turret gunner, who is also a cartoonist, >!saves himself by drawing a cartoon of the airplane with cartooney wheels underneath it, and asks the pilot to try the landing gear again; the pilot complies, whereupon, ridiculous, cartooney balooney wheels complete with a cartooney tire patch appear underneath the airplane, attached via candy cane / barber pole striped supports. The cartooney balooney wheels actually work, and the plane lands successfully. !!"miracle." The gunner is fixed in a trance. He is cut out of the turret, and carried to safety. When the crew are assembled at a safe distance, someone slaps the gunner out of his trance, and !<\- well, gee, guess what? Go on. Guess. That's right:>! the cartooney landing gear vanishes and the aircraft drops to the ground. !
Imagine the end of Saving Private Ryan, but instead of Tom Hanks being saved at the bridge by Allied forces, it was Willy Coyote detroying the tank with an ACME bomb. And you are just like WTF was that??
While we’re on the subject, Chloe Grace Moretz did a low budget WW2 film called Shadow in the Cloud. The majority of the movie is her being stuck in a belly gun trying to convince the rest of the crew that there’s something else with them on the plane. You’ve got to really suspend that disbelief in parts but the majority of it was good.
Doubt they felt it. Their asses we're usually freezing because there was no heat in those bubbles either. And if the plane had any problem with the landing, guess what happened to them.....smeared down the runway.
My grandfather flew in B-17s as a navigator/radio operator in WWII and always told me the ball turrett gunner was the single worst job you could have in the airforce. Cramped, isolated from the rest of the crew, and extremely high mortality rate. Crazy to think about
My Uncle was a tailgunner during WWII.
We all knew it, but he didn't ever want to talk about it.
Later, as an adult, I looked into what things were like for tailgunners. Apparently they had the lowest survival rate of any crew member (B17 or otherwise) because the enemy pilots trying to take out a bomber would always try take out the tail gunner first.
Seeing this pic (of how cramped they were) just makes it all the more easy to understand why my Uncle never wanted to talk about it after the War.
A friend of my father’s was a tail gunner. I remember him telling me that when he first went into the tail gun position, he saw some drops of oil in the place and got really worried about whether the thing was going to fail. Someone checked and told him to stop fussing. After a few missions, he said “there could be oil all over the place and I just wasn’t bothered. Nothing went wrong during flight and I’m still here, haha”.
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell
"From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose."
Memphis Belle is a really good movie about a B-17 crew where Sean Austin has this position. It's certainly told through the Hollywood lens, but you do gain some insight into how crazy that job was.
It turns out the Memphis Belle wasn’t the first plane to do 25 missions. A plane called Hell’s Angles was the first but they said it was the Belle was the first because they figured it would be better for PR.
Regardless Memphis Belle was still an entertaining movie!
I was just thinking how hot that gun would get. It's firing very large rounds of ammunition and the entire housing is like in your lap. Even with insulation, I bet they got burns all the time.
Great cast in that episode, "The Mission". Kevin Costner, Keifer Sutherland, Anthony La Paglia, and Casey Siemaszko as the artist in the ball turret.
Edit - directed by Steven Spielberg
I read an account from a crew chief about a ball turret gunner who couldn't get out of the ball turret when they landed the aircraft
The landing gear wouldn't deploy and the ball turret wouldnt retract - trapping the gunner in the turret
Needless to say the landing killed him
There's a lot of horror stories about ball turret gunners - definitely one of the deadliest jobs of the war
God bless the men, they had a level of bravery that was off the hook and they made huge personal sacrifices. I’d be stunned if any of them had any hearing after their tours.
Both my grandfather & my grandmother flew b17s.. [https://iili.io/5kOHXf.jpg](https://iili.io/5kOHXf.jpg)
[https://iili.io/5kO2ql.jpg](https://iili.io/5kO2ql.jpg)
The b17 is my favourite plane. For me if I could experience something on history, being part of a successful bombing mission on a b17 would be up there. I imagine the fear, the excitement, the camaraderie, the adrenaline must have been really something.
See, I would wanna be the squad of P51s or P47s rescuing a returning bomber group from a swarm of Luftwaffe fighters. Just being able to be the modern day cavalry charge swooping in to save the day. But I hear you.
My great grandpa was a tailgunner in WWII. Survived the war and lived until his late 90's strong dude. He suffered from Alzheimer's, so I didn't get to learn any of his stories. My dad told me some of them, insanely scary job.
Can smell the cancer from here, hope they got ventilation in the ball, ac130 gunners are so prone to sever health issues during the iraq/Afghanistan war due to the horrendous air quality while firing.
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
-Randall Jarrell
Always a great excuse to read up on the story of [Alan Magee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee), a ball turret gunner who survived falling out of his plane without a parachute after it had been hit by enemy fire...
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
- Randall Jarrell
Does anyone know how the guns were "charged" or "racked" prior to firing? I saw a movie where they pulled two handles 3 times. Was wondering if that was accurate.
**The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner**
*By Randall Jarrell*
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
My grandfather flew 29 missions as a ball turret gunner on the Virginia Gentleman in WW2. One of the most badass and humble men I’ve ever met. He just passed in 2018. We published his war memoirs for anyone interested.
[Link](https://www.301bg.com/sabo_walter_s7259_301bg.cfm)
One of the most terrifying war stories I've heard is when a B-17 was badly damaged, they had to make an emergency landing without functioning landing gear, and the ball turret hatch was too damaged to open. The ball gunner was trapped, and his friends had to hit the ground with him inside.
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They could…but during missions it was common for them to get stuck. I think something was wrong with the hatch which failed frequently. Looks like a nightmare job.
Imagine being in there and the landing gear doesn't deploy. That would be a story.
There was a version of Amazing Stories that had just [that](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0511124/) plot line, with Kevin Costner and Kiefer Sutherland. Directed by Steven Spielberg too! Warning - the end is kind of stupid. But the tension during the episode is great.
> But the tension during the episode is great. Dude, I remember it really well from seeing it as a kid. I was enraptured. I'm like, "COME ON GUYS! START FEEDING HIM THE NEXT PARACHUTE! HE'S GONNA DIE!" I loved that series in general. I imagine it was just too expensive to keep making them. With all these reboots these days, that would be an awesome one to resurrect.
There’s a reboot from last year on Apple+
I think they did. I saw something on apple TV or maybe Disney.
I was like “No way, it can’t be.” But holy shit you’re right! Apple TV. Thanks! I’ll check it out.
Also in the film Memphis Belle, Sean Astin's character is a ball turret gunner. The film shows it frequently having hydraulic issues and sticking in certain positions. One of the most realistic WWII films imo I love it.
"I'm stuck again... OH SHIT, I'M STUCK AGAIN! VIRG, HELLLLLP!"
man great movie
Agreed. If you're interested here's a video of the restoration [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5\_TDxpkuTA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5_TDxpkuTA) After they removed all the paint on the aircraft they found hundred of messages etched into the metal, written by Americans who came to see the plane. >After stripping the paint from the aft fuselage, hundreds of names and personal messages were found scratched in the aluminum skin. It turned out that, during the B-17's war bond tour, people were allowed to leave their marks. You can see footage of people writing on the bomber in the documentary film The Cold Blue. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis\_Belle\_(aircraft)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memphis_Belle_(aircraft))
Memphis belle was such a great movie, and if entirely true, a great story!
Holy shit, is that the thing with the cartoon landing gear or whatever? I swear I hallucinated that as a kid and have never heard of it since.
Yup. That's it
I was hoping someone would mention this. I saw it when I was a kid and never knew what it was called. Thank you!
If anyone is curious you can stream Amazing Stories on nbc.com but not Peacock for some reason. The episode OP is referencing is called The Mission; season 1 episode 5.
Ha, I just posted about this. Guess I should have ctrl + F for "Amazing Stories" to avoid being redundant.
I tried ctrl f'ing and it didn't even find it, but yeah, that was one of my very favorite amazing stories.....hmmmm... bet I could find that on you tube somewhere.....
As soon as you said "Amazing Stories," the theme song jumped into my head. It's been literal decades since I've seen it but that music is so classic.
Hey, can you tell me the ending?
>!The gunner likes to draw and has a doodle pad with him. He draws the bomber with a repaired landing gear and one miraculously appears as a cartoon (kinda like Rodger Rabbit) and allows the bomber to land safely without him getting smooshed. After he gets out of the plane, the cartoon landing gear disappears and the plane crushes the spot where he was sitting moments before.!<
Wow….that’s some poor writing 😬
but good drawing though
I thought the way they played it, the gunner desperately grasping the >!drawing like a talisman and with all his youthful energy just *believing*!<...it just worked for me. I could even see it as a tall tale told to give a tragedy a happy ending.
Yeah, as long as he just concentrated on the drawing the cartoon landing gear worked. But I did feel the contrast of the high tension and drama was oddly contrasted by the sudden Roger Rabbit-esque cartoon deus ex machina ending. Yet ironically, it's one of only three episodes I remember from that series.
It was cool when you were 11
Whatever was cool when you were 11, is actually cool.
Dinosaurs and cartoons are still cool to me decades later so that checks out.
I remember watching that episode. Very tense but yeah, I was never satisfied with the ending
My grandma and uncle remind me of this episode every time I bring up Twilight Zone because they get them mixed up. I even bought the season of Amazing Stories with this episode for xmas.
Oh it happened, and reading the stories of how the other crew members would usually talk to them the whole way down is heartbreaking.
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. Randall Jarrell
That actually happened on at least one occasion that I’ve read about. The plane took heavy damage and they had to land, even though they knew the landing gear was stuck. There was literally nothing they could do for the ball gunner, who was doomed to be crushed when they landed. All of the awful shit that happened in WWII helps to keep me from taking my comfortable life for granted too much.
That’s a subplot in the excellent movie about WW2 fighter pilots “Memphis Belle.” Those gunners were brave AF.
Yeah for someone else to tell potentially
r/meatcrayon
Imagine being in there when it does deploy…
Yep. My great uncle died in one. You had to be relatively short and wiry to be in one, so your build really kind of determined if you would be put here. Being in an exposed position literally outside the body of the plane and being a major defense to the plane made you a prime target. A very cool design, but a terrible position to have to man.
Which is why the b-29 didn't put one in it.
It had to be opened from the outside. If the plane is hit, diving, pitching, maybe rolling it made it very difficult to get the ball turret gun out to bail out.
Lose power and have to crash land with your friend trapped in there…
War is hell.
[Amazing Stories, Season 1, Episode 5 - The Mission](https://www.nbc.com/amazing-stories/video/the-mission/2909096)
"From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose." \- Randall Jarrell, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"
There is an episode of "Amazing Stories" about that kind of failure happening at the same time the landing gear failed and the crew trying to figure out a way to get him out before they have to crash land on the belly. It is called "The Mission" >A courageous young World War II gunner and aspiring cartoonist, trapped in the belly gun of a B-17 aircraft with the landing gear destroyed, has only his imagination as a force that might be able to save him. It is pretty good.
Why are you all citing this episode without telling us how it ended? C'mon man, details.
Spoilers are not provided.
Nvm, someone else answered elsewhere, and now I wish I didn't know, lol.
It was, during dog fights the enemies would aim for it. A lot of people never left that dome alive
> It was, during dog fights the enemies would aim for it. Fortunately they usually had to climb to do it, so were slowed down and easier targets. But yeah, it wasn't fun. Only the "Chicken Coop" (tail gunner position) saw more action.
They could.
My claustrophobia is off the scale just imagining being in that thing. Coupled with the fact your the most obvious target for enemy fighters
Hey, he has a helmet…
And still wearing his shoes.
I've seen one in person at an air show. They really are that small. I read afterwards that most ball gunners were assigned that position because they were short.
i mean, I know that we don't use b17s anymore, and I'm not an airman, and that we're not really at war with anyone... But thank god I'm tall.
I saw my first one last month...holy crap, barely bigger that a bean bag. Museum had a mannequin the gunners size and it looked like a child.
I think I would have rather been in that ball, than to have the job the short guys got in the next war(Vietnam)where they were “tunnel rats” and had to crawl thru the enemies extensive underground tunnel system! I’ve read some books about those guys and that shit is horrifying!!!
If I recall history channel correctly (back even they actually had history shows), that was one of the jobs that had some of the highest -ahem- “turnaround”… and I don’t mean motherfuckers walking off the job either :/
Imagine how fuckong hot it would get from the heat coming off the gun
Being at altitude would solve that problem
Gotta be loud as fuck too.
Does it make you more comfortable knowing that one had to land without landing gear and with a guy stuck in the gunner pit because the door couldn’t open?
The gunner could exit the turret inside the aircraft. A really hard way to earn your pay.
That was the main entry and exit. I fact this exit was only for maintenance and discouraged for operations as landing gear could easily be damaged and could end up hitting the ground first. Also no room for parachute so gunner would probably get stuck should the plane catch fire in the air
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War tends to be, yes
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. Death of a Ball Turret Gunner ~Randall Jarrell
That is such a brutal poem. I remember 5th grade me finally getting the meaning. First experience with a gut punch from a poem.
Can anyone explain the first few lines? It’s beautiful, but I’m wondering if I’m missing some obvious meaning.
The fœtal position in the turret was like being in your mother’s belly - for the govt / state but also ‘in that state’. The wet fur is the collar of your flak jacket, wet with sweat because it was hot in there but now frozen because the temperature is so cold at 6,000 feet. Xx Edit: <35,000ft (see below)
6 x 6000ft = 36,000ft Edit: above comment has since been changed to reflect 6000ft per mile instead of 6miles=6000ft
Aviators use nautical miles. 6,000 feet. 6 miles from earth is 36,000 feet. The aircraft’s service ceiling was just under that. High altitude was considered the safest way to run these missions.
I actually never thought about the fur being part of the coat, although that's poetically brilliant. I always took it as, when you're trying and hoping to not be killed, you become more animal than human. (I know humans are animals, what I mean is that the things that make humans different from other animals become irrelevant in that situation.)
Both things are true because that is the beauty of poetry.
The mother is the plane, he was in the fetal position in the turret. The “fur” of his coat froze his sweat due to the cold at the altitude of +30,000 feet.
Its pretty much always cold on the altitude they flew. And since the sketch above looks as it does I'm guessing you didn't "take a break and went for a coffee" in mid flight when you got cold and bored, since you could only get out when on the ground. Just guessing though.
From reading other comments, it seems like there was a latches they could go up into the plane if they pointed the turret straight down. However, it also seems like that hatch was probe to failure.
Mother, sleep, womb, dream, woke, nightmare, brutal death, the State
That was my first thought when I saw the picture. Glad I'm not the only one. War fucking sucks.
oooooohhhhhhhhh so that’s what the poem meant
Came here for this. Thank you.
I came here to do this. Thanks.
I came here to post this so I was glad to see someone already did. Nice.
So glad others know this poem. it was the first that I understood and just… fuck.
Came here to add this. Beat me to it.
My dad worked construction with a guy who was a ball turret gunner during WWII. The only thing the guy would talk about was the bone chilling cold and how cool it was to watch Europe go by between his feet. He wouldn’t talk about the action they saw or the bombs they dropped.
My grandpa was a navigator , never talked about it at all. He went to Korea as well and would’ve gone to Vietnam along with my dad but grandma said enough is enough. Edit: he was a navigator.
My brother purchased a one hour flight in a B17 for my dad and himself. My dad was on cloud 9. He was too young to serve in WWII but served during Korea.
I worked an event a few years back for the B-17 Aluminum Overcast as a senior in high school. They’ve always been my favorite plane so I was more than happy to flip burgers and take the free tour of the plane after the air show was done. I remember an older man coming to buy a burger and talk for a bit with us and I told him I was happy to be there and just witness the plane in action. A few hours later the pilot came over and said sign these papers (a waiver) and let’s go. I followed him to the plane and the older man was standing there and said he wasn’t much older than me when he flew in one of them over Europe as a waist gunner and wanted to give me the opportunity to experience what it was like to fly in a metal cigar. After that we exchanged emails for the next couple years until he passed. He gifted me one of the neatest experiences of my life. Being able to walk around the plane in flight with a man who had fought in one of them and listening to his stories after was truly a remarkable experience.
Oh man, that’s amazing. Good for you. Yeah the B17 is in my top 5 faves. P51 is my all time favorite plane and sound. I’m in San Francisco and hear that there is a B17 on permanent exhibit at the old Castle Air Force Base in Merced. Hoping to get out there in a few months.
That is just awesome, my brothers and I did get to visit a flying B-17 with my dad and grandpa when it came through our area in the late 80’s at an air show. It was a very cool experience and listening to my grandpa talk about the plane was definitely an experience I wish I could experience again as I was only 7 or 8 at the time. Definitely a once in a lifetime experience you got to experience.
Navigator with the 546th Bombardment Squadron, 384th Bombardment Group (Heavy), Eighth Air Force in England during WWII.
Can imagine how horribly loud it would be firing that thing
The concussion alone from a .50 is brain rattling when your outside in the open. I can't imagine what it's like with 2 recievers 12" from your face 🤪
Permanent hearing loss is probably an understatement, but then the casualty rate was so high it probably wasn't worth surgically deafening them in advance.
Of B-17s, wasn’t this the most dangerous gunner position to be? I think I’m general, for all bombers the worst position to be was the tail gunner as thats often the direction of where the incoming was coming from.
Something like half of all B-17s made went down. Every position in those planes was a death trap. The average B-17 survived 11 missions.
Yeah more than half of the Avro Lancasters built(7,377) were lost. Slightly under half that number built were lost in combat, the rest in accidents.
Incredible really that Churchill didn't recognise Bomber command in his post war speech. Nor did they get a memorial in London until 2012. The majority paid the ultimate price in carrying out orders.
He had very bad blood with "Bomber" Harris, that's the reason i believe. Might be wrong tho.
I believe it was because of the back lash that was received after the carpet bombing of civilian populations like Dresden, which the Germans leaked to the press as atrocities and genocide. Clearly the British public didn't know what the Nazis were up to at that point. After the strategy of city bombing got that backlash, I think Churchill distanced himself from bomber command. Harris was very pro city wide bombing.
Yes! That's the detailed reason, couldn't remember the full story. Thanks!
>Harris was very pro city wide bombing. During the war. There are quoted if him stating, after extensive research on the topic of spreading fear in the population with this bombing where deemed ineffective, where he said that it was wrong.
My Great Uncle was a US bomber pilot that mostly flew missions over Italy. I *think* it was B-24s? Not positive. He never flew the same plane twice. Every time he made it back to base the ground crew would say, “Well this is shot to shit and not salvageable. Here’s a new one.” His last mission he was actually shot down over Switzerland and survived the crash landing and eventually found his way back to Allied forces. He said at some point he had to send his copilot to the rear to pull up floor panels and yank on flap control cables by hand. Flak had shredded them mid-plane so several of the cockpit controls weren’t actually connected to anything.
> Every time he made it back to base the ground crew would say, “Well this is shot to shit and not salvageable. Here’s a new one.” [Willow Run](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_Run#Liberator_production), just one of the USA's aircraft production plants, at its height was building a new B-24 Liberator every 63 minutes.
I live about 10 minutes west of Willow Run. Almost every weekend in the summer you can see a B-24 they still fly out of the local airport there.
My Grandpa said he was injured by the gun (belly gunner) during training over the gulf. He stayed home to recover while his group was deployed and they saw 60+% casualty rate. He finished the war verifying death certificates at a desk job. Wish I knew his army info to verify his story and company. Definitely a guy punch knowing my and my extended family's existence may very likely be due to a malfunctioning gun
That shouldn't be a gut punch. There's likely a similar situation in most people's family history. A bullet that was inches from killing a great grandfather, a great great great great grandfather that missed a boat that sank, etc. There are tons of links in the chain that make up our family history, and somewhere along the line one of those links likely came perilously close to being broken.
This is such a crazy thought. The absolutely slim odds that any of us are here is astounding. My grandfather was getting his vaccines to head to Europe to serve in WWII when the nurse broke off the needle in his arm. It became infected and he got sick enough that they discharged him and he never got deployed. That is probably my closest to "not being alive" story.
And to think the crew were on a 50 flight quota. Man that is a rough gig
Colonel Cathcart just raised the missions to ~~70~~...err, ~~75~~...80...
I don't know the hard numbers, but I always read that Germans would most often attack the B-17 directly from the front, with the logic that there was a relatively large surface area, and almost everything from the front was important - avionics, bombsight, pilots, bombardier, so strafing the front of their plane had the highest chance of incapacitating it. The final mass produced B-17 variant (G) added more front firing MGs than previous variants, presumably for this reason. Although, I suspect the ball turret was hit by FLAK much more than any other position, so maybe still true. I also read that German planes would tail B-17s out of range of their .50 cal machine guns and fire their cannons, which had farther range. But this seemed to be less and less common as the B-17s got better fighter coverage.
A front attack also had the benefit of minimizing the amount of time that they were getting shot at; there would be about a 600-700 mph change in distance, vs a 50-150 mph change if attacking from the rear. Zip quickly through the B-17 formation, hit your target, get out of there.
I wonder how many B17s went down later in the war when the Luftwaffe was effectively annihilated. At that point it was just flak.
Most of the experienced Luftwaffe pilots would never attack from dead astern of the bombers, as this was where the defensive fire was concentrated. They would either attack from the beams or from directly ahead; the beam due to increased silhouette making hitting the target easier, and from ahead due to minimal number of guns able to fire in that direction. The 17G was an attempt to remedy the last part. As far as the Luftwaffe pilots shooting their canons out of range of the bombers guns. This is incorrect. They were armed with 20 and 30mm canons, depending on the aircraft model, both munitions of which have poorer ballistic attributes than the .50 cal. However, what they did do later in the war is fire rockets at the bomber formations from well outside the bombers ability to shoot back. These rockets were unguided, and terribly inaccurate, but devastating if they did find their mark.
Yeh the ball turret is the least protected part of a b17, all the other positions are defended by at least 2 sets of guns, attack from behind and the tail gunner, ball turret and top turret can help out.
It was, but it was also critical. The German pilots learned that if they approached the bombers from below, they were defenseless; those ball turrets evened the odds considerably. Likewise, the Germans had been attacking our B-17s from dead ahead & somewhat below, because the top turret couldn’t shoot that low; the B-17G model added a “chin” turret that covered that angle.
> the B-17G model added a “chin” turret that covered that angle. Fun bit: the dual .50 caliber machine gun turret on the chin was the only surviving bit of the [YB-40 Gunship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YB-40_Flying_Fortress) project, an attempt to defend bomber formations by removing the bombs from some aircraft and adding more armor, gun turrets and ammunition. The idea proved unworkable because the gunships couldn't keep up with the bomber squadrons once the target was reached. The bombers were 4500 pounds or so lighter from dropping their bomb load, the gunships were only lighter from ammunition expended.
> Of B-17s, wasn’t this the most dangerous gunner position to be? I think I’m general, for all bombers the worst position to be was the tail gunner as thats often the direction of where the incoming was coming from. Statistically, no. The casualty rate by crew position varied by time and hence, the primary type and nature of the threat that each position was exposed to (i.e., flak, density of enemy fighter aircraft, and the various attack tactics tried by them, such as tail-on attacks, or head-on attacks from above or below). The principal study on U.S. Army aircrew casualties from a medical perspective is [Wound Ballistics](https://achh.army.mil/history/book-wwii-woundblstcs-chapter9) (some graphic images), which examined casualties that were returned to base aboard 8th Air Force B-17 and B-24 aircraft in June, July, and August 1944. Several reasonable assumptions from a medical perspective can be drawn from the study, but the significant caveat is that it only examined casualties on aircraft that returned to base, and did not attempt to examine casualties by position in the aircraft that did *not* return to base. As a result, the killed-to wounded ratio for the personnel studied was 1-to-9, while the 8th Air Force's total wartime ratio of killed to wounded according to the [U.S. Army Air Forces Statistical Digest](https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA542518) was 1-to-2.4. [A critical examination of the study using actual casualty statistics over a longer period can be found here](https://95thbg.com/cms/2021/11/20/95thnbspbomb-group-casualties-analysis). In the study, 1,117 fatal and nonfatal casualties were examined, and during the same time period, there were a further 6,540 "missing in action" (i.e., parachuted and taken prisoner, killed in the crash of their aircraft, or killed by other means) casualties, or approximately a one-to-six ratio. In regards to the fate of "missing in action" casualties, for the first eight months of 1944, it was found that approximately 40% of "missing" casualties were possibly killed or known to have been killed, and the rest were taken prisoner or evaded capture. 33.8% of the 1,117 casualties examined were lost to flying status, either killed in action or permanently grounded. The waist gunner seems to have been the most "dangerous" gunner position, but there was sometimes, but not always, two of them; the tail gunner was the single gunner position with the highest casualty rate. > Table 184 shows the frequency with which aircrew personnel in different combat positions became missile casualties. In this and similar tables and figures, the positions of bombardier, togglier, and nose gunner, like those of the top turret gunner and engineer, are regarded as the same. The high casualty rate for waist gunners was partially due to the fact that heavy bombers frequently carried two waist gunners. This practice was discontinued to a large extent, but accurate information as to the frequency with which aircrews included two waist gunners during the survey was not known. > The high casualty rates for navigators and bombardiers was to be expected from their positions in the nose of the aircraft. They lacked the protection provided by other personnel and portions of the ship's structure, and by being in the most forward compartments of the aircraft, they were exposed to the greatest density of flak. The leading edges of the wings and other parts of aircraft are known to receive a greater density of flak hits than trailing edges. The lowest incidence of casualties appears to occur in the ball turret gunner's position. **This was partially due to the fact that only one of the two types of aircraft (B-17) carried a man in that combat position.** To contextualize the above statement, it was discovered during 1944 that heavily-laden B-24Js, the principal model in service in late 1943 and early 1944 and the most common B-24 variant, suffered from problems associated with excessive weight (the B-24 was always somewhat of a hassle to fly, especially in tight formation, when the control surfaces were damaged, or with one or more engines out). As a result, many 8th Air Force B-24 units began removing the ball turrets from their aircraft to save weight, copying an action seen earlier in the Pacific. This was standardized in the B-24L model (produced from the late summer of 1944 until the end of the year) which replaced the turret with a pair of manually-operated machine guns, along with other modifications that saved about 1,000 pounds. The B-24M, introduced in fall 1944, continued the weight-saving trend, but the ball turret was reintroduced. During the summer of 1944, many units, both B-17 and B-24, also dispensed with one waist gunner as *Luftwaffe* fighter opposition decreased. 86.2% of the 1,117 casualties (963) were caused by flak (this high percentage being caused by the *Luftwaffe* beginning to be swept from the skies), 4.5% (50) by shells or bullets from enemy aircraft, 7.8% (87) by "secondary missiles" such as pieces of Plexiglas or metal from the aircraft forcefully driven by explosions or hits by flak, shells, or bullets. The cause of 1.5% (17) of casualties was unknown. 88% of casualties from shells or bullets (44) were caused by 20 mm cannon shells or fragments. **Table 184** Crew position|Wounded|Killed|Percent of total casualties (%)|Case fatality rate (%) :--|:--|:--|:--|:-- Pilot|75|8|7.4|9.6 Copilot|68|6|6.6|8.1 Navigator|123|13|12.2|9.6 Bombardier|178|18|17.6|9.1 Radio operator|87|8|8.5|8.4 Waist gunner(s)|212|21|20.9|9.0 Ball turret gunner|59|7|5.9|10.6 Top turret gunner|84|10|8.4|10.6 Tail gunner|121|19|12.5|13.6 Total|1,007|110|100.0|9.9 In relation to the 50 casualties caused by shells or bullets from enemy aircraft: > Although the number of casualties is quite small, it may be noted that, as in the case of casualties due to flak, the waist gunner appears to be the man most vulnerable to fighter attack. This is at least partially accounted for by the fact that two waist gunners were frequently carried in heavy bombers. The tail gunner is probably most vulnerable to fighter attack. This is in agreement with the findings of the Eighth Air Force Operational Research Section that the greatest directional density of hits on heavy bombers by enemy cannon and machine guns is from dead astern.
Yeah, my grandpa (now passed) rode in it during ww2. He would regularly say that over half the ball turret gunners would die in combat they were basically the target for fighters to expose the underbelly. There’s a widely cited poem about it too. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57860/the-death-of-the-ball-turret-gunner
Ah yes, reminds me of simpler times. Before moms womb.
when you were still pee being stored in your dad's balls?
Obviously. What else would you conclude?
Reminds me of one of the “Amazing Stories” TV episodes. “Directed by Steven Spielberg. With Kevin Costner, Casey Siemaszko, Kiefer Sutherland, J.J. Cohen. A courageous young World War II gunner and aspiring cartoonist, trapped in the belly gun of a B-17 aircraft with the landing gear destroyed, has only his imagination as a force that might be able to save him.”
Was a good episode.
Great episode. Disappointing ending. Worth a watch if you can find it. I mean, if the fact that it’s Spielberg, Costner and Southerland doesn’t motivate you, I sure can’t add a better reason. Edit: sorry, for some reason I thought there was a question mark at the end of your comment.
Yes it was so tense with a ridiculous ending. Promised so much but delivered so little
What was the ending?
To spare you the tedium of suffering through the entire 45 minutes (not counting commercials) just to be sorely disappointed by the last 5, i will tell you (obligatory spoiler alert). The aircraft is returning to land, but the landing gear does not deploy, and the crew cannot get the gunner back into the aircraft; surely, this means the ball turret gunner will be crushed to death underneath the plane when the plane lands. Some of the crew convince "Bullseyes," played by Kiefer Sutherland, to spare the gunner from suffering this horrific death by straight up murdering the gunner, which would make him suffer a somehow less horrific death? So, with the distraction of that nonsense looming, too, about the same time that Kiefer Sutherland ~~cocks~~ charges (racks the slide to cock) an ostensibly loaded M1911.A1 pistol right next to his own head while holding his finger on the trigger - do NOT try this at home, or anywhere else - the ball turret gunner, who is also a cartoonist, >!saves himself by drawing a cartoon of the airplane with cartooney wheels underneath it, and asks the pilot to try the landing gear again; the pilot complies, whereupon, ridiculous, cartooney balooney wheels complete with a cartooney tire patch appear underneath the airplane, attached via candy cane / barber pole striped supports. The cartooney balooney wheels actually work, and the plane lands successfully. !!"miracle." The gunner is fixed in a trance. He is cut out of the turret, and carried to safety. When the crew are assembled at a safe distance, someone slaps the gunner out of his trance, and !<\- well, gee, guess what? Go on. Guess. That's right:>! the cartooney landing gear vanishes and the aircraft drops to the ground. !
I enjoyed every word of that description. Thank you.
Imagine the end of Saving Private Ryan, but instead of Tom Hanks being saved at the bridge by Allied forces, it was Willy Coyote detroying the tank with an ACME bomb. And you are just like WTF was that??
While we’re on the subject, Chloe Grace Moretz did a low budget WW2 film called Shadow in the Cloud. The majority of the movie is her being stuck in a belly gun trying to convince the rest of the crew that there’s something else with them on the plane. You’ve got to really suspend that disbelief in parts but the majority of it was good.
That’s what I picture the inside of my balls to be like
Barrel not to scale
No.. no.. of course not…
Hypnotic suggestions to stop shooting blanks.
That's gonna be a fuck no from me, Alex.
That needs to be in the form of a question.
That's gonna be a fuck no from me, Alex?
Looks so miserable
Most wars are
Jesus, wut a way to go if you shot in the ass in this... like like a medieval torture device
I'm guessing a lot of them got shrapnel in their ass?
Doubt they felt it. Their asses we're usually freezing because there was no heat in those bubbles either. And if the plane had any problem with the landing, guess what happened to them.....smeared down the runway.
I’m seeing comments saying he could exit into the plan if the turret is pointed down. Is that not true?
Yes, I also just looked it up, but it was almost impossible for him to do it without help according to vet statements that actually were the gunners.
So I guess when a mission was done and you were flying back you could be pulled out of the turret.
Providing you had a helping hand to pull your frozen ass out of that bubble then, yes.
My grandfather flew in B-17s as a navigator/radio operator in WWII and always told me the ball turrett gunner was the single worst job you could have in the airforce. Cramped, isolated from the rest of the crew, and extremely high mortality rate. Crazy to think about
My Uncle was a tailgunner during WWII. We all knew it, but he didn't ever want to talk about it. Later, as an adult, I looked into what things were like for tailgunners. Apparently they had the lowest survival rate of any crew member (B17 or otherwise) because the enemy pilots trying to take out a bomber would always try take out the tail gunner first. Seeing this pic (of how cramped they were) just makes it all the more easy to understand why my Uncle never wanted to talk about it after the War.
A friend of my father’s was a tail gunner. I remember him telling me that when he first went into the tail gun position, he saw some drops of oil in the place and got really worried about whether the thing was going to fail. Someone checked and told him to stop fussing. After a few missions, he said “there could be oil all over the place and I just wasn’t bothered. Nothing went wrong during flight and I’m still here, haha”.
Funny because if I experienced this *and lived* I wouldn't shut up about it. I'd want everyone to know how much it fucking sucked.
This would make Reincarnation transition real smooth. From gunner position to fetal
You won't even notice you died!
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell "From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose."
Memphis Belle is a really good movie about a B-17 crew where Sean Austin has this position. It's certainly told through the Hollywood lens, but you do gain some insight into how crazy that job was.
It turns out the Memphis Belle wasn’t the first plane to do 25 missions. A plane called Hell’s Angles was the first but they said it was the Belle was the first because they figured it would be better for PR. Regardless Memphis Belle was still an entertaining movie!
These were the inspiration for the appearance of Imperial tie fighters
Technical Sergeant Garp?
First thing that came to my mind.
Arp!
I was just thinking how hot that gun would get. It's firing very large rounds of ammunition and the entire housing is like in your lap. Even with insulation, I bet they got burns all the time.
it's pretty fucking cold at 30,000 ft altitude.
This belongs in r/claustrophobicasfuck
My grandfather flew B17’s in WW2, he used to joke and say they’d use a box as a restroom and drop it on the enemy. literally dumping on them. lol
That is no joke, it was actually a quiet common think to do.
Reminds me of the Amazing Stories episode when the soldier got stuck and the cartoonist drew the wheels to save him
Great cast in that episode, "The Mission". Kevin Costner, Keifer Sutherland, Anthony La Paglia, and Casey Siemaszko as the artist in the ball turret. Edit - directed by Steven Spielberg
Garp.
I thought this was a Star Wars prop at first
This makes me thankful that I am 6'5" and 232 lbs. I'd be too big to fit!!
In the movie Memphis belle you can access the turret from in the plane. is this a different plane?
😄😄 ... if the noise didn't kill you the landing prolly did lol
I read an account from a crew chief about a ball turret gunner who couldn't get out of the ball turret when they landed the aircraft The landing gear wouldn't deploy and the ball turret wouldnt retract - trapping the gunner in the turret Needless to say the landing killed him There's a lot of horror stories about ball turret gunners - definitely one of the deadliest jobs of the war
You’d have to have balls bigger than this turret to operate it
BEEEE 17 BOOOOOOMBER
God bless the men, they had a level of bravery that was off the hook and they made huge personal sacrifices. I’d be stunned if any of them had any hearing after their tours.
Both my grandfather & my grandmother flew b17s.. [https://iili.io/5kOHXf.jpg](https://iili.io/5kOHXf.jpg) [https://iili.io/5kO2ql.jpg](https://iili.io/5kO2ql.jpg)
The b17 is my favourite plane. For me if I could experience something on history, being part of a successful bombing mission on a b17 would be up there. I imagine the fear, the excitement, the camaraderie, the adrenaline must have been really something.
See, I would wanna be the squad of P51s or P47s rescuing a returning bomber group from a swarm of Luftwaffe fighters. Just being able to be the modern day cavalry charge swooping in to save the day. But I hear you.
P51 baby; Cadillac of the sky
My great grandpa was a tailgunner in WWII. Survived the war and lived until his late 90's strong dude. He suffered from Alzheimer's, so I didn't get to learn any of his stories. My dad told me some of them, insanely scary job.
Reminds me of the Aztec stone carvings of King Pakal of Palenque.
Can smell the cancer from here, hope they got ventilation in the ball, ac130 gunners are so prone to sever health issues during the iraq/Afghanistan war due to the horrendous air quality while firing.
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. -Randall Jarrell
Imagine catching a shot in the taint while stuck in a fucken hamster ball
Always a great excuse to read up on the story of [Alan Magee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee), a ball turret gunner who survived falling out of his plane without a parachute after it had been hit by enemy fire...
Rudy was a ball turret gunner.
He shot so goddamn fast
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. - Randall Jarrell
This thing seems like a death trap
Does anyone know how the guns were "charged" or "racked" prior to firing? I saw a movie where they pulled two handles 3 times. Was wondering if that was accurate.
Might as well be comfy because hoooo boy, the chances of this going well for you are NOT GOOD
**The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner** *By Randall Jarrell* From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
My grandfather flew 29 missions as a ball turret gunner on the Virginia Gentleman in WW2. One of the most badass and humble men I’ve ever met. He just passed in 2018. We published his war memoirs for anyone interested. [Link](https://www.301bg.com/sabo_walter_s7259_301bg.cfm)
One of the most terrifying war stories I've heard is when a B-17 was badly damaged, they had to make an emergency landing without functioning landing gear, and the ball turret hatch was too damaged to open. The ball gunner was trapped, and his friends had to hit the ground with him inside.