Masters of the Air Ball Turret drop- Why and How Explained 

I've been explaining this procedure to people for some time as a part of debunking the myth about ball turret gunners getting ground into hamburger during wheels up emergency landings back in England, it's part of the explanation I give to people as proof that it never happened despite Andy Rooney's famous article in Stars and Stripes magazine during WW2 when he was assigned to the 8th Air Force as a war correspondent. As I tell people in the first place there's manual cranks on the ball turret that enabled them to crank the turret to the "hatch up" position so the gunner could get out in the event power to the turret went out, afterwards if a wheels up landing was necessary the ball turret needed to be dropped because with it in place it'd break the B17's back causing it to break up making for a less than desirable belly landing, contrary to what people believe the ball turret was very sturdy and was actually stronger than the fuselage in that area, they wouldn't break apart or get ground down to nothing. Also if you watch at the beginning of the movie Twelve O'clock High when the great Paul Mantz belly lands the B17 when it's approaching the runway you'll see there's no ball turret sticking out of the bottom, this wasn't done for historical accuracy but for the same reason that ball turrets were dropped on B17's forced to belly land, it was removed to keep the plane from breaking apart during the stunt. Also it was standard procedure for the crews to drop the ball turrets while crossing the English Channel when possible, the USAAF didn't want eleven hundred pound bowling balls rolling across the English countryside at 100 MPH wiping out homes, cows, barns and everything else with "Property of 8th Air Force" written on them.

@@dukecraig2402 But you have to admit that using ball turrets as bowling balls with barns as the pins would be a much more awesome sport than bowling is.

Same here. I never heard of the ball turret having the ability to be jettisoned. Interesting. Definitely not a speedy process though.

​@@dukecraig2402 I would totally take the jettison risk for a free ball turret.

Forgot about battle damage

common thing, guys that saw and did didnt talk much about it later.

Understanding how precious life is, many did not piss it away staying drunk and being a victim.

It was a different breed of man in that era. The veterans in my hometown were the same, never talked about combat just the funny events they saw. No doubt they had PTSB, but they gritted their teeth and went on to live fulfilling lives.

Yep, my Dad fought in Patton's Third Army, 4th Armored Division. Loved watching war movies like Patton, Kelly's Heroes and the Battle of the Bulge - the later movie he said sucked because the scenery was all wrong. He also said that the movie Patton was as close to the real thing as we will get - except for the voice. Other than that, he talked about some funny stories but nothing about the real battles. I learned more about his time serving from my uncle and aunt, and sadly that was after he passed away.

Growing up we had a gentleman like this in the neighborhood. He would tell us endless exciting stories about his wartime experiences. Many years after his passing I googled him only to find that he never served and just made everything up.

Without the benefit of CGI, how expensive would it be to do a ball turret drop sequence for TV?

@@JinKee A good model could do it cheaply, but model work doesn't line up with live action an stock footage all that well.

there was an onboard tool kit and instruction by the flite engineer on how to do it,,most of the "facts " are hollywoods version,,like commo chatter,,most all plane to plane was morse code by the radio operator,,way less dramatic then the movies

@@richardsmith2684 I was in the AF in communications in analog networks, but I am also a HAM radio operator, which back when I started still required a fair amount of morse code. The AF got rid of the "radio operator" career field back in the '90s because the radios could basically operate themselves (altho thats not really true for shortwave, but that was phasing out as well). One night shift, early in the morning I was working in the headquarters unit, standing in as a station of opportunity for the field units to practice with (which still had radio operators), but the propagation was dropping and it was getting hard to communicate, so the (actual per se radio operator) at the other end said "well the path is dying we're either going to have to shut down or switch to morse code". You could tell he wanted to shut down so he could take a nap, but I said "OK, lets switch to morse code." (if I have to stay awake for your benefit, you can too!) He (you know - the bespoke radio operator who was required to know morse code for his job) was like "You... know... morse code??" "Yup, lets go". So we switched to morse code. He kept sending "QRS!" (send slower). LOL. Still tell that war story to this day (apparently).

Aluminum Overcast is a great aircraft - first plane I ever flew in. Can't wait for her repairs to be finished.

It's nice to know that I'm not the only person who thought he knew a lot about B-17s and had never heard about dropping the ball turret either! 😉

Seems we aren't as knowledgeable as we thought, I too never knew that ditching the ball turret was even a thing.

Pretty amazing channel

It’s a rarity on RU-vid!

Yeah... I wonder how many of them got saved, with it adding an ADDITIONAL 20 minutes to what must have been an already fraught and desperate process! Not many, I bet.

Two guys before a crash likely could do this in 2 minutes under adrenaline...lol😅

Remember, it's not being done in a crash when the plane is going down. It's being done when preparing for a belly landing because the landing gear is jammed, or some other structural reason. The time it takes for a plane to set up a belly landing is likely more than 20 mins.

They had 4 and 5 hour flights back after being attacked near the target.

Yeah, I'm guessing that none of the bomb sights ever got removed at the very least.

Sometimes the crew had the time.... sometimes.

That is correct, the B-24's Ball turret could be retracted into the fuselage.

Full respect for the people getting into that ball. I'll never be able. Also, the ball needs to be turned a specific way to get In-&-Out. And if it gets stuck, the person in there is stuck in there, His fate is either getting smooshed at landing or dropped. Kinda unsettling if you think about it.

​​@@johnhill2927 Guns must point straight down so the door is up for entry/exit. The gunner sits with his back on the door. He can bail out with the guns horizontal and facing forward..

@@hotrodray6802 There's no room in the ball turret for a parachute, though. He would have to reach back into the plane to grab his chute.

@@johnhill2927The smallest person on the crew was the one who crawled into the ball.

@@ogukuo97 No, there is room - especially for those who opted to wear a chest chute, it's more a matter that it made an already cramped space even more cramped - so most opted as it was to rely on the harness (in the event the turret was shot away from out under them) and being able to get back in the plane and grab it.

On the B17 the ball turret gunner could not get in it until after the plane took off. I believe the details are in another video

Could be the Liberator…

I've heard of instances when the plane took damage and the turret couldn't be rotated to align it with the hole in the fuselage, which meant he was stuck in there until after landing. It made for a nasty time if the wheels could not be extended.

There's a *lot* of bad lore about the ball turret on a B-17. A consistent favorite is a ball turret gunner being ground into a smear on the runway when a bomber had to do a belly landing. If you were somehow stuck in the turret (not impossible) it certainly wouldn't be a safe place to be when the bomber was skidding down a runway, however it's far from a death sentence either. The ball turret itself is quite strong and most likely will get shoved up into the B-17's fuselage, with the yoke and armature framing puncturing the top in the process. The true horror of the ball turret is if you need to evacuate quickly, like your aircraft is suddenly losing a lot of altitude. Most of the other crew members have a chance of getting out quickly, the ball turret gunner is going to need a minute.

​@malikcarr9872 That 'bad lore' you refer to came from an eyewitness account written by none other than Andy Rooney, war correspondent that flew with the Mighty 8th. He claims to have been present and watched it all happen, but there are doubters to his story.

Sounds like he wanted to make sure the piece of shit was written off so he could get a new one he could count on.

Well that's one way to decommission a faulty aircraft.

@@ronansmith9148 That ball turret should have been painted with a B-17 kill tally for destroying a hostile aircraft that was clearly trying to kill Allied aircrew on multiple occasions.

He's very exacting so I chalk it up to that but I do chuckle each time

After thug-shakers you never really know 😂

It wasn't common to take the time to jettison the turret, but it was authorized. Early in the war there are many film clips of B-17's landing wheels or one wheel up. The telltale of the turret still there is usually seen as the support box for the turret rammed through the top of the fuselage. The turret itself is rather fragile and most likely would crush in the landing, but the damage to the aircraft could be extensive. Saving repair man hours was critical during the war and as almost all maintenance had to be done in the evening or at night, time was a factor. Major repair could take up what little hanger space they had with a policy of standard blackout conditions prevailing. Even though the turret was expensive, many extra units were manufactured for possible use after a jettison event. This I believe is why the ball turret is the most common of surviving turrets today and it was more trouble to scrap than it was worth after the war. The correct B-17 top turrets are the very hard ones to find as well as the Bendix turrets used on B-25 aircraft. The Martin 250CE top turret seems to be the most common still found.

True Extra turrets sat in some government wharehouse for years Also had training turrets

It happened to my uncle.

Thanks for the comment!

Dad was a ball turret gunner. ETO. 8thAF, 487th bg,839th bs. Sheldon crew.

I believe the mountain range is called the Dinaric Alps. Much tougher to get home if a bomber was crippled and needed that all important altitude.

@@orcstr8d Thanks !

I'd be interested to see the calculations as to how big an impact the ball turret had on flight time. I suppose if the emergency was just, say, non fictional landing gear but fuel not an issue then they might have a go at the sight. But if they were low on fuel then that extra 20 mins of drag might be critical.

@@KravKernow I'm quite sure the issue was weight. The turbulence caused by that large hole in the fuselage created more drag than the ball turret did when in place.

@@enscroggs Ah right. That does make sense. I wonder how often this manoeuvre was performed. If not uncommon then you might have thought they could have provided some sort of hatch cover or baffle to put in place. Wouldn't have to be heavy. Aluminium, or even canvas, would probably do the trick. Come to think of it, how much did the sight weigh? They were pretty complex bits of kit.

@@KravKernow The Sperry K-4 gunsight was essentially an electro-mechanical computer. I found the manual in PDF that explains everything but the weight! hangarthirteen.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/11-35A-1-Operation-Service-Instructions-for-K-3-K-4.pdf Two models were functionally identical, The K-3 computing sight was used in the top current (typically operated by the flight engineer). The K-4 was used in the ball. Both appear to be very compact and very rugged. If asked to wager I'd put my money on 37 pounds +/- 3, but that's an educated guess. Nearly anything from that era was heftier than you'd guess. You should read the manual, it's fascinating.

TV show. Amazing stories

Sounds like one of those stories guys make up that take a life of their own. Something that unique and viewed by so many would surely have official records or other witnesses?

Your opinion . That's ok. Father being flight engineer /technical Sgt. Responsible for all armaments and operations on plane flew all his missions .survived . His last mission was the last time he set foot on a plane never flew again would only drive. Nightmares until the day he died. Greatest Generation. rarely if ever spoke of his experiences .only to say he did his job

@@jbl8541 Without any records, it's just a tall tale. That's not an opinion, that's a fact. You have added no information to your story. That's OK. Just be a man and say you don't know for sure.

Guess that's why you are LoserinChief.. do you have supporting stats to you claim?

Apple TV+

Probably more risk of being hit by enemy fire, and if you haven't got 20 minutes to detach it manually, then 20 minutes of extra drag and weight doesn't matter.

Even the first 20 minutes is a bit problamatic if a gear problem is discovered as they close in on landing back at base, which would also lead to it being likely that fuel is critical, and that those 20 minutes may not be available. Also, shouldn't forget that is 20 minutes after they decide to drop the ball, which would likely not be the first thing thety looked toward doing.

@@billthacet Good points.

Geometry might also have figured in to the TBF/TBM having just the one turret gun. That meaning both the geometry of supplying ammunition to 2 guns in the turret instead of 1, and, the horizontal spacing of the 2 guns creating a larger blind zone where you could not fire because of risk of hitting your own vertical stabilizer with bullets from one or other of the two guns. Probably other factors involved in the thing along with those production contracts.

@@scottfw7169 Piston engine aircraft never had "too much" power. So the turret being too much weight at the wrong place or just too much all together with 2 guns & ammo, would not be surprising. Every plane has it's flaws. I don't think it made much of a difference in the over all war effort one way or another at that point in the fight. With 150 carriers built by the US alone, the USN could have used Devastators or even Swordfish for the duration and it would not have changed the outcome.

Reminds me of the instructions on how to use the toilet that were placed on the door of the lunar transfer space craft in “2001: A Space Odyssey”!

They remove the gunner before dropping the turret