"Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe" The Sea Hawk at wow way d0t com wrote in message
news:8cednaeev_mmpR3anZ2dnUVZ_hadnZ2d@wideopenwest .com...
wrote in message
...
...
I couldn't quite grasp that a human being actually FIT in the ball
turret. I sure couldn't have. I took a long stare out it's view plate.



I was on a tour of a museum at Flying Cloud MN (Ain't there any more) -
there was a bunch of people following the guide, so at one point they
turned right, I nudged my brother and we (and the kids) turned left...

They had a B-17 with a bunch of guys in it that had flown during WW-II and
since we had disconnected from the group we had time to sit and chat with
them while they waited for the next tour group to march through.

They ball turret gunner let us get in the ball- I was able to get in and
get the back closed behind me (with help) but at 6' there was no way I
could get down enough enough to look through the sights - you had to be
small.

I commented on how hard it would be to get out and he told us that when he
had to bail out once he made it out the door before the waist gunners -
said it helped to be motivated.

The radio operator (and I think top gunner) talked about the cold and how
they wore electric suits - when they got near the target and started into
the flack he said you could see the electric demand go down on the meters
as everyone got nervous and turned down the heat in their suits.

The bombader talked about having to arm the bombs - he had to step off the
catwalk and climb down on the bomb rack (you would straddle the space
between the rows of bombs) to remove the safety pins - he said the bomb
bay doors wouldn't hold your weight, so you couldn't fall. He said he had
to being the safety pins back to prove that he had climbed out there to
arm them. Apparently some guys wouldn't do it and the bombs would be
dropped with the safety's still in.

The waist gunner talked about the 1000 bomber raids and watching the
streams of bombers flying back as they were on their way into the target.

We missed the "official" tour. I just hope the kids got half as much out
of it as I did.

--
Geoff
The Sea Hawk at Wow Way d0t Com
remove spaces and make the obvious substitutions to reply by mail
When immigration is outlawed, only outlaws will immigrate.


One of my father's jobs as engineer was to free up bombs that were "hung up"
in the bomb bay. Sometimes the bombs dropped far enough to clear the arming
wires and the little arming propellers started spinning off of the bombs
while they were still stuck in the bomb bay. He mentioned that he fashioned
a tool to facilitate releasing a stuck bomb so he wouldn't have to climb
down with bombs to free them. He said that participating in the bombing of a
designated target didn't bother him too much but he always wondered and
worried about where the hung bombs went when they finally did come loose and
fell to who-knows-where. I'll have to get more details about the "tool" and
the procedure he used to free the bombs with it.

Tony P.