You might have recognized a ball turret under a World War II bomber before, but if you're like me, you only found what they were all about from the Steven Spielberg story "The Mission." Ball turret gunners had one of the most dangerous jobs in the U.S. Army Air Force, more from being shot than by getting trapped. And it was quite uncomfortable. Most ball turrets were far too small to allow drawing, as in the TV show, and gunners spent their flight rolled up in a fetal position while spotting enemy fire and firing two machine guns.
Even with functional landing gear, ball turrets landed perilously close to the ground when a mission was over. They could be retracted on the B-17 bomber, but not the B-24. See plenty of images that give you an uncomfortable feeling and sympathy for these war heroes at Vintage Everyday. -via Nag on the Lake
(Image credit: the Imperial War Museums)
Newest 2 Comments
I am reminded of a poem about this station:
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)
It's interesting that, while it's almost always described as being the most dangerous position in the bomber, the 8th AF statistics show that, for American heavy bombers, the most dangerous positions for being killed or wounded were, in order, the waist gunners, the bombardier, the navigator, and the tail gunner, with the ball turret gunner being the second safest position after the copilot.
Abusive comment hidden.
(Show it anyway.)