My Uncle was a waist gunner on a B-17. He survived the war, but after he got home, he slept in a small insulated room in the basement of his house because he would scream out in his dreams. He never got over the nightmares, even during the last days of his life. He use to quote Smedley Butler, "war is a racket", and never supported any of us boys going into the military. He'd just say, " I love you guys, I wish you were doing something else".
My Uncle Willis Aigner was a combat ball turret gunner in the 8th air force in 1944. All who climbed into that tiny space were very courageous. RIP Uncle Willy and thank you.
The space for the gunner in a Lancaster top turret was even tighter. The leather seat strap between the guns could only accomdate a very shiny teenager. Which is off course who manned these war machines.
sad to know Nine O Nine is gone... i got to walk through her a couple years back at a local air show and it gave me a new perspective on a part of the war i've studied since i was a child. amazing what everyone in that conflict went through, and the challenges they rose to meet.
To all of the Ball Turret gunners out there. I take my hat off to you. Even though scared, you were brave enough to crouch down into a tiny space suspended below a lumbering 4 engine bomber for several hours per mission having enemy fighters swarming you & flack gun shells exploding all around you. A big salute to all of you & we thank you for your service.
ah man, this 1 really got me...broke me down like a shotgun at cleaning time...im going to need a beach towel to dry my eyes after this... the 909 and me go back some 25-years, still got the VHS videos....R.I.P. and condolences for the Nine-O-Nine crew, passengers and loved ones... and for Collings and their families too....carry-on and keep your feet dry...forever.
@@inund8 Incredible isn't it, that Duty they endured and accomplished. That Ball Gunner had to get in there. And prepare each and every day to die in there with a sense of significant dignity and respect for his own resolve and dedication to his job. He knew he was counted on, and counted, as One who would carry out that job.
It was also designed for one wearing insulated heated gear. So that isn't it. Probably got freaked out that it was pointing straight down and you have to "stand" over a piece of glass between you and nothing, until the back is buttoned up and then you can rotate it into a seated position. I don't blame him.
I have been thru this aircraft many times. It was not designed for old men with a gut. Getting thru the bomb bay catwalk can be difficult if not impossible. Bravery with no limits is what these guys possessed in huge quantities.
This guy ain't fat, he ain't old ---------------- and still he has trouble getting in. Imagine the HORROR the ABSOLUTE HORROR of trying to get out of this contraption when your aircraft aflame and is in a downward spin. IMPOSSIBLE !!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm definitely not man enough for that gig! Hanging underneath that beast, isolated miles above hostile territory with a perfect view of flak exploding all around you! Nope! My biggest question is how did those guys manage to squeeze their giant steel balls into that tiny turret?!
Greetings from New Jersey, USA, and Happy New Years! Your comment is welcome - because to many of my countrymen take for granted, or complain about what we have
Once the ball turret gunner was in there he was virtually trapped. If the plane was hit and started to go down, he was F**K*D. Imagine the courage it took to do that for mission after mission, knowing the odds of completing 25 missions was virtually nil.
That is so awsome to see that .50 being fired out the side of this 17. I didnt know that was legal to have live guns on a plane shooting blanks or not unless it was active military. The way it sounds and looks is amazing its like its in battle again over Europe.
That was great to watch. I flew on the 909 on 14Aug15, when she was at the Maps Museum near the Akron-Canton Airport in Ohio. Well worth the money to go up in a B17. Hopefully going to ride in the B24 Liberator next if all goes well in 2018.
I salute all from ww2 but America was very underestimated and they thought the same thing back then I have no doubt that Americans would answer the call again if needed .
Most American women today are bigger than the men of the Greatest Generation. I've seen some A2 jackets worn by aces, and I couldn't have fit into them when I was 12 years old.
The food scarcity of the preceding Great Depression stunted the growth of the majority of that generation. The farm boys came through OK, but the majority were in cities and towns and suffered malnutrition during critical puberty years. Sad to say but Hitler did a better job of keeping his peeps well fed than sleazy FDR did for Americans.
Not really, humans during ww2 really weren't any shorter than we are today. The average height for a U.S. soldier during that era was supposedly 5'8". Not much smaller than today's average of 5'9".
My wife’s grandad was one of the only few ball turret gunners that actually survived having bail of of a flak-damaged b17 near the Frisian islands. Acording to the story I found a US rescue plane spotted them and dropped rubber rafts to them. Right after the rescue plane began a dogfight with a Nazi float plane over their heads and the Nazi plane destroyed the US plane and then landed near them and took them in as POW. As one of the Stalag camps we’re close to being surrendered they marched/paraded them as criminals for bombing Germany great distances in the freezing snowy conditions. They lived off local handouts, and at one point a little local girl gave him wooden clogs (he had size 6 or 7 feet) without them he could have suffered frostbite or died. He survived the war and was rescued by the Russians at stalag 1 near Barth Germany. Afterwords, apparently the russian pow’s went through the local town and killed all the German citizens in sight and stole everything. Soviets we’re cruel.
he isnt trained to get in and out in under 2 seconds nor is he the height recommendation i think. also the ball turret gunner would have to go down only when the plane just got to altitude so he has time.
This 17 is equipped with a pressurized cabin and heated facilities, two things that weren't available on that plane in the forties, mainly because of the side blisters for the waist guns. And imagine cramping in there with your flight jacket on, your soft helmet and your gloves on. Remember, you were flying at 20,000 feet at a temperature of -40F out there. And sometimes the bullet casings would fall on you because the waist guns had no shell case recuperators so they would slide down into the ball. Sometimes it got so cold up there that even when the bomb bay doors would open, you had to kick the bombs out because they had frozen solid in place. And that's if the trap hadn't frozen in place itself. And holding bombing runs in mid-daylight because the government believes that their aircraft are invincible only made things worst even if you had an aerial tactic to divert from the flak and the intercepting squadrons of the Luftwaffe. There guys were valiant, least to say defiant. And don't forget that they were kids of 19-20-21 and 22 years old manning these babies. And there were much more casualties in training than in bombing runs, mainly because the boys had to learn on the fly.And that's not counting every soldiers and aircrafts that got hit by friendly fire or by hitting one another in the sky, especially if you were crossing through with a sworm of dog fighting planes going around you. Sometimes, the Luftwaffe pilots would smash their ill-fated plane straight in a bomber to get a kill. So seeing a bomber lose a wing or getting a head-on collision with a Me-109, an He-110 or 113, or having a wing clipped by a downed He-111 wasn't an uncommon practice. I salute the bravery of these airmen.
This plane is a B-24, not a 17; and the B-17 was not pressurized either. You may have meant the B-29 which was pressurized. As for heat, all heat for the crew was from heater wires in their flight suits. Shell casings would not fall into the ball because there was a cover that closed, sealing it from the inside of the plane and the outside air. Bombs don't freeze in place; they may hang up due to defects in the releases
dhy5342 ...this plane is definitely a B17. At the end of the video, when the cameraman is looking out of the top of the fuselage, looking aft you can see the single large vertical stabilizer/rudder. The B24 and B25 had twin vertical stabilizers while the B17 and B29 used the large single unit.
Me110. Not He110. It was a twin engine heavy fighter with a lot of guns in its nose. I don't know the 113 and the He111 was a bomber, it was not used to attack bomber formations. It is not nice to sit in a B-17, and it is not nice to sit in a tiny Me109, when they are in combat, i think.
Amazing to witness the interior of one of these bombers! So confined, and I have to say , not designed very well for freezing conditions! Open sided machine gun positions? Really? Over Europe in winter? Great fun in summer during the day, but in cold weather? I salute all of the guys who endured these tough times. Too many didn't make it back to share their stories.
... and now think of that plane having 88mm flak rounds fired at it, as well as fighter planes coming at you wanting you all dead, planes in bits, on fire, going down, youve got no chute on (cause you simply couldnt in there) and you have to get out! What the hell!? No wonder so many aircrew from bomber command were killed.
Well, strictly speaking, no one aft of the cockpit is wearing a parachute. They all are wearing a harness, but the parachutes are racked nearby, and should be clipped on before exiting the plane. Even with the later staggered gun positions there isn't room for the waist gunners to be wearing chutes either. I did talk to one ball gunner who said he 'acquired' a paratrooper reserve chute. There was room to snap one clip on his harness and lay it along his leg. It would be tight, but doable.
***** Dont know why but Im still sad for them :( ..... wish it could stop! But it gives me some weird sort of "acceptance" .. hard to explain, sorry :( :( Please guys RIP ! !
Mark Becht so, why didn't the USAAF adopt a similar chute to the RAF known as the "Parasuit" or Rhino suit? This suit was worn like a thick lined boiler suit and enabled gunners who flew in the Boulton Paul Defiant much more room in their cramped 4 gun turrets and no need to worry about stowage or strapping a chute on when bailing out.
The Parasuit had a built in flotation device and parachute harness, but it was still necessary for the wearer to attach a separate chest pack parachute.
Mark Becht, hmm, I have a good contact on Defiant operation whom I'll ask about the separate float you mentioned. As far as I'm aware Defiant gunners carried no extra gear into their turrets as there simply wasn't any room- even after the seat backs were removed which gave an extra 4 inches space. Possibly the floatation gear was "sewn" into the Rhino suit which already had a full parachute built into it.
Sadly as of 10-2-2019 Nine 0 Nine crashed at Bradley Int Airport with the loss of 7 as the Collings Foundation has another B-17 they got in 2015 from Evergreen not sure they will use this one for Bombercamp as 909 is lost. currently being investigated by the NTSB.
LOL, the older guy kept trying to put the cover latch on while the other one was getting in and finally said, screw it, threw it to the side and walked away. I have been in one of those as well and there definitely is a weight restriction along with a height restriction too. This is one of my favorite bombers of all nations and always wanted to ride in one in flight.
Imagine trying to get into that thing with the heavy clothing they had to wear for high altitude flying plus the flak jacket, then be able to fight in it.
+Mark Bower II One of the coordinators of Bomber Camp is 6ft 4 and weighs 280+. He fits in and can rotate and operate the ball turret, and is not uncomfortable, although I would expect he would be if he was active in the ball turret for hours on a mission!
It's a yoke of sorts above your head. "Memphis Bell" notwithstanding, the pedals are (left) range adjustment on the gun sight and (right) Push To Talk for the intercomm
+Mark Becht , Dad said one pedal rotates,other elevates. grip triggers above his head. It had a holographic sight that conpensated aiming. Dad was 5"5'.
Raymond Jokerst I'm afraid he mis-remembers. All of the movement is controlled by the grips above your head (as well as the triggers being there) There is a computing sight that takes inputs from the gearboxes to calculate the elevation and azimuth of the guns, as well a speed input and the range input from the pedal. We've pulled the sight out to allow a little more room and ease of entry
+Mark Becht thanks for the update, Mark. More likely I misrmbtrs it. 30 odd yrs ago we saw Sentimental Journey at SAC near Omaha.He is gone 23 yrs now.
Only a cutaway will truly show you how much room they didn't have. Once the hatch is closed it's impossible to get a camera more than 3 feet from anything.
Yes!! especially if the whole aircraft was shot up and the hydraulic motor couldn’t get back into the guns pointing down position to get out of the hatch!!
How much would you guys pay to sit in the ball,be allowed to work it AND fire a few shots (hypothetical question) Am not a rich man but ad go 5 grand (sterling)
Hard (and scary) to imagine, but on the earlier models of this (essentially) same Sperry ball turret, a slightly smaller version of those ammo cans were *inside* the ball turret, further decreasing the already-limited knee-room. =:O
I looked at the window and saw it was open and it gave me anxiety, then I saw you look out the open top of the plane without any wires or belting to connect yourself to the plane as safety and I freaked out
Here’s a video I took: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5_spvhznUcg.html from the same position on 909. I’m not tall enough to get a good view of the tail. I know what you mean. The waist-gun ports are wide-open too. I was totally freaking out, but it was worth it. Very sad that 909 and her crew were lost.
The turret would be rotated downward once the airman was inside, to enable the use of the machine guns. It would be rotated again so the hatch would be open inside the fuselage when the mission was over. If you couldn't rotate it, you were done.
...and all this with no windows in -20 and you had to be alert and do ur job whilst all around were being shredded to bits.......truly a different generation, none of us can comprehend it.
A friend of mine had a B-17 ball turret complete with twin dummy Browning 50's, the original intercom, servo motors, sights, etc. We built a display stand for it. It was quite heavy. I tried to get into it, but I was too big. Must have been a lonely job up there at 30,000 feet at -30 F.
I'm somewhat claustrophobic and don't like heights. A ball turret would be the ride from He'll to me. I can enjoy the marvel of engineering from a distance as I exceed the height limit.
I feel like ball turret gunners and tunnel rats should have their own holidays being just how dangerous those jobs were. Double salute to those soldiers. Blessing!
Wouldn't it be a much nicer world if we didn't need these , and sent young men and women to war. Thanks to all those that sevred and are serving keeping us safe. I only wish they had no war to fight
Its using blanks so the only thing that gets actually fired out of it is paper, the casing stays in the plane ergo its completely harmless, unless you were standing directly in front of the gun when it fired in which case the paper could actually hurt you as it is travelling supersonic for a couple seconds.
@@cripinboombopbamcuz2231 The ball on a B-24 retracts into the fuselage due to how low the plane sits on the tarmac. But the ball on a B-17 like in the video does not retract. Either way, if the controls or the hydraulic system for the ball are shot to hell, and you can't rotate to align the door with the fuselage to get out, and the plane has to make a gear up landing, your dead.
..at 5'7" and 180lb I could not fit into the ball turret at the Chino airport...the nice lady that yanked me out told me..."you are too fat to be a ball turret gunner...go home!
There is NO WAY on God's earth you would ever get me into a ball turret, and also there is NO WAY you would ever be able to let "passengers" fire machine guns from a plane here in Britain, a shame really, because being able to do so would be taking part in living history.
