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The ball turret, like this one on a B-17 in England in 1943, was designed small to reduce drag, so its gunner usually was the shortest man in the crew. Gunners on World War II bombers had only a ...
Suspended beneath the bomber in a cramped, glass sphere—ball turret gunners faced death with every mission.
Once the B-17 was in the air, the gunner would enter the turret by placing his feet in the heel rests on the front wall, hunker down in a fetal position, and then close the hatch.
Frank Mazikowski completed 62 missions with a B-24 crew before going on to a career as an Air Force translator involved in intelligence work.
After takeoff, the ball turret gunner—who was typically one of the smallest crew members—would crouch into a fetal position while entering the turret to operate a pair of machine guns.
Flying a B-17 was a very risky job since they were huge, slow and therefore easy targets for enemy aircraft and anti-aircraft defences, who always marked them as primary targets. Out of the entire ...
The turret in question could be found at the bottom of a B-17 bomber — a plexiglass ball containing two .50-caliber machine guns and a very short gunner. The sphere could pivot to fend off attacking ...
Pop! was 24-year-old Staff Sergeant Alan Magee in the position of ball turret gunner. Magee was on his seventh and last combat mission during which he was sucked out of the B-17 at an altitude of ...
There was sufficient clearance with the B-17 for the turret to be in the lowered position when the plane landed. When a B-24 landed a lowered ball turret was scraped off taking the gunner with it.
This Plexiglas ball hanging from the bottom of the B-17 or B-24 was a heavily armed bubble just big enough to hold a small man and two 50-caliber machine guns. He sat between the guns with feet in ...
B-17 Flying Fortress ball turret gunner veteran Fred Piper explains on May 17, 2014, how he used twin .50-caliber machine guns to survive 36 missions as part of US Army Air Forces’ 8th Air Force over ...
(Later, they would receive a second B-17, "Pretty Baby II.") Their first combat mission, in the spring of 1944, was a bone-chilling experience, which Stanley-in his capacity as his plane's ball turret ...