Meting with a Lancaster rear gunner

Dave Eadsforth wrote:


Finally, I had wondered whether the sounds in the rear turret of a Lanc
would include the hammering of the gun breeches (re. recording of WVT's
flight on a bomber raid), but he put that one to rest - the business end
of the Brownings drowned out anything else.

What did your pair of Brownings on the front turret sound like, Gord?

Cheers,

Dave

Surprisingly quiet Dave, mind you the ambient noise level was
pretty high anyway. I was pretty nervous the first time that I
fired them being very familiar with a .303 rifle. My dad owned a
..303 Ross that I had put a slew of ammo through while growing up.

Then a helluva lot more after I started flying and stealing
hundreds of belted .303 rounds (oops - don't tell please).

What was very noticeable was the smell of cordite, very strong,
as one would expect from the front turret. We always had 1000
rounds to fire on each 'bombing and gunnery' ops.

Was lots of fun firing tracer from Dad's rifle at a big open
hillside on his farm.
--

-Gord.