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Started By
Message
re: It’s 1943, you’ve been assigned to the 8th Air Force…
Posted on 3/20/25 at 8:27 am to BobABooey
Posted on 3/20/25 at 8:27 am to BobABooey
quote:As realistic as this image may seem to the casual viewer, it has recently been found to have been generated from an experimental AI lab located in BogalUSA, LA.
Amazing clarity and depth of field.
0
Posted on 3/20/25 at 8:58 am to Darth_Vader
Radio man. Like radio man in the tower next to the runway. My father was a pilot, but the war ended, and he never saw service overseas. He did crash once somewhere around Pensacola.
Posted on 3/20/25 at 9:42 am to Darth_Vader
Waist gunner. Easier to bail out. I think.
Posted on 3/20/25 at 9:54 am to Shiftyplus1
A friend of mine’s father was a pilot on a B17 that was shot down over Germany. He baled out and landed in a field and injured his leg on landing. As he tried limping toward a tree line, he was accosted by several German civilians carrying axes and pitchforks that were going to execute him. He was saved by several German soldiers that appeared and held off the civilians at gunpoint. One of the German soldiers spoke English and told him that the civilians wanted to kill him for bombing their country. He was interred at a POW camp until the end of the war.
Posted on 3/20/25 at 9:56 am to Darth_Vader
I’m wondering if some of those positions could have been replaced with extra armor.
Posted on 3/20/25 at 9:59 am to doublecutter
quote:
he was accosted by several German civilians carrying axes and pitchforks that were going to execute him. He was saved by several German soldiers that appeared and held off the civilians at gunpoint. One of the German soldiers spoke English and told him that the civilians wanted to kill him for bombing their country.
I do a lot with Vietnam ex-POW functions and have many friends among that group, this is a very common experience that they relate, once they hit the ground it was the civilians that wanted a piece of their arse and the grunts had to intervene
Posted on 3/20/25 at 10:04 am to Darth_Vader
Sadly, I would have had little choice but the ball turret. I was pretty small until I hit my late 30s.
Posted on 3/20/25 at 10:54 am to mtntiger
quote:
Sadly, I would have had little choice but the ball turret. I was pretty small until I hit my late 30s.
Imagine being in a four engine, radial piston engines in fact, aircraft flying between 25,000 and 35,000’ and you’re suspended from the belly of the plane in this…
All while other aircraft that are far faster and more maneuverable than your own, which you have to fly pretty much straight ahead anyway, and these other planes are trying to shoot your plane out of the air. And that’s on top of the hundreds of 8.8 and 12.8 cm guns on the ground sending up thousands of explosive rounds, each one spreading numerous jagged chunks of steel the size of your forearm, along your flight path.
These guys had gargantuan balls of pure titanium.
ETA: while the other guys on the bomber could wear their parachute while doing their job, the poor ball turret guy didn’t have that option. He had to get out of his ball turret, hoping it could even still move to where the door is lined up to allow him back into the plane, then get his chute on, all in time to still have enough altitude to safely jump.
This post was edited on 3/20/25 at 10:57 am
Posted on 3/20/25 at 10:54 am to HoboDickCheese
quote:
I’d go with any position with the Eager Beaver and on the 666
This is fascinating. I consider myself pretty well versed in WW2 aerial warfare and I have never heard this story.
Posted on 3/20/25 at 11:33 am to Fun Bunch
quote:
Quite obviously the radio operator. The rest as I recall had a higher mortality rate especially the ball turret.
The amount of guys that died doing these runs is staggering however. That’s an absolutely frick no job
Is it true that they only "had" to make X amount of runs and when they made the last one they were reassigned to other duties? That is something that even the military recognized how dangerous it was if so....
Posted on 3/20/25 at 11:35 am to AwgustaDawg
quote:
the radio operator
manned a machine gun during combat
Posted on 3/20/25 at 11:38 am to Darth_Vader
Not ball turret or tail.
Posted on 3/20/25 at 1:08 pm to AwgustaDawg
quote:
Is it true that they only "had" to make X amount of runs and when they made the last one they were reassigned to other duties? That is something that even the military recognized how dangerous it was if so....
In the 15th air force you needed 35 combat missions and you were rotated home. My Dad flew his 35 and since the war was nearly over he volunteered to keep flying hoping he'd get enough points to be discharged. He flew 38 before VE day and that wasn't enough.
He ended up in South Dakota training on B-29"s when Japan surrendered.
Posted on 3/20/25 at 1:13 pm to bigjoe1
quote:
In the 15th air force you needed 35 combat missions and you were rotated home. My Dad flew his 35 and since the war was nearly over he volunteered to keep flying hoping he'd get enough points to be discharged. He flew 38 before VE day and that wasn't enough.
He ended up in South Dakota training on B-29"s when Japan surrendered.
It'd be interesting to know how short the ride was to 35 missions....most probably never came close.....
Good lord imagine doing 35 and volunteering to do more. I guess once you have stared into that abyss you get to feeling pretty immortal. I bet a pile of pretty brave men lost their nerve LONG before reaching anything close to 35....I can't even begin to imagine.....
Posted on 3/20/25 at 1:18 pm to VABuckeye
Ok. My point being is that no matter the situation I would do whatever it took to help this country to kick some enemy arse.there are to manny soft people in this day and age that would say hell no. And not because of some cramped spaces and possible danger.
Posted on 3/20/25 at 1:24 pm to bigjoe1
quote:
In the 15th air force you needed 35 combat missions and you were rotated home. My Dad flew his 35 and since the war was nearly over he volunteered to keep flying hoping he'd get enough points to be discharged. He flew 38 before VE day and that wasn't enough.
He ended up in South Dakota training on B-29"s when Japan surrendered.
Apparently at the beginning of the war it was 25, then 30, then 35. I found an account of 2 different planes (differing crew members at times though) which did 25 missions in under 7 months......
I also found an account of planes and crews bombing Japan and Asia and at 35 missions the average distance equaled flying around the world nearly 5 times or about 1/3 the distance to the moon....in an airplane loaded to the gills with heavy assed bombs and at least part of the time folks shooting at you.
Men were just different back then. Military folks today are more willing to die for their country than the average American is but they are also volunteers....a pile of those men in WW2 were conscripted. If you conscripted about 80% of men in America today and they had to fly one of these missions when they got back to the airport, if they made it back, they would curl up in a fetal position and you couldn't beat them with a stick and get them back in that damned plane.....
Posted on 3/20/25 at 1:28 pm to johnnydrama
My Great Uncle, Peter was shot down and KIA over the Bay of Bengal in one of these during WWII. He was a Radio Operator and Gunner.
SAVICH, PETER -- S SGT ARMY AIR FORCES 33168476 22 BOMBARDMENT SQUADRON 341
BOMBARDMENT GROUP (MEDIUM) 7/25/1943 NON RECOVERABLE INDIA
SAVICH, PETER -- S SGT ARMY AIR FORCES 33168476 22 BOMBARDMENT SQUADRON 341
BOMBARDMENT GROUP (MEDIUM) 7/25/1943 NON RECOVERABLE INDIA
This post was edited on 3/20/25 at 1:32 pm
Posted on 3/20/25 at 1:32 pm to AwgustaDawg
You are so right and the danger wasn't over once the bomb run was finished.
This from aa journal of a flight engineer that his daughter shared.
This from aa journal of a flight engineer that his daughter shared.
quote:
Moe Shapiro's diary entry to March 15, 1945:
I got up late for briefing today but I was in time for everything else, including my fifteenth sortie and Oak Leaf Cluster. It was a pretty smooth bomb run, with just moderate flak, but before the mission was over, I was to realize that I was never any closer to deaths doorstep. We had mechanical trouble with #1 engine all the way up to the target. Several times Lt. Bissell wanted to turn back but he didn't deem it too wise a move because of the danger of enemy fighters on a long straggler. Thus, we went on through only pulling 32" M.P. to the target and back. All went well until we approached our landing strip. Our fuel sight gages began to read rather low. They seemed to drop all at once. I began to wonder if we'd have enough to land with. Anyway, in we came after peeling off. The peel off was very close, and we had full flaps, one close to the other. At about 200 feet, we got caught in the prop wash of the plane in front and our plane started banking into the ground. Only the Will of God and Bissell's clear head plus Schoenfeld's quick actions pulled us up and out of the fate which I didn't think we could possibly avoid. We had to go around the field again. I looked at the sight gages again and told Bissell we'd be lucky to get around the field once more on the gas we had. I wasn't kidding either. I advised him not to bank the ship in either direction for fear of an engine cutting out. He heeded my advice and came in for a sweet landing. But no sooner did he hit the runway, #1 and 4 enginesgave out. That's how close it was. We have only God to thank for riding with us on that mission.
So we made our Oak Leaf Cluster on a missionto Graz, Austria in 8 hours and 10 minutes. My total flight time isnow 309 hours and 10 minut
I got few letters from home tonight but was too tired to answer them.
We had a substitute bombardier for Seirer who is grounded for four days with a cold. Bahnsen's crew didn't come back from their mission and reports have it that they may have landdd in Russia. In the first meantime, they're M.I.A.
I was up to Bissell's tent in the evening and had a little chat. Then, back to the tent and to sleep. We're scheduled again tomorrow in Black Baker. Dear God, please deliver us safely to and fromour target. Thank you. Amen.
Posted on 3/20/25 at 4:07 pm to Darth_Vader
A deceased older friend was a captain and pilot of a B-17. When there was all the hubub about Don't Ask Don't Tell in the early 90's I asked him about his opinion. He answer was a roar of laughter and then he said, "We had gays in WWII, in the 8th. No one cared."
Posted on 3/20/25 at 4:30 pm to Darth_Vader
True. The bombsight was very high tech for the time.
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