At 18:04 8/3/01, Mark Hammons wrote:
Doug,
My dad was also a ball turret gunner in a Liberator
but he was in the European theater. On his first mission
the plane right next to him took a direct flak hit,
turned upside down and exploded -- none of the crew
survived. Sometimes it makes me feel guilty as I never
chose to serve a stint in the U.S. Military.
Mark Hammons
Plano,TX USA
Mark: Don't feel guilty; military service is not for everyone. Some of my
experiences I would not care to repeat, ever, nor would I ever wish
anything remotely similar for anyone. Terrifying doesn't come close to
describing them. Oddly, it's the retrospect afterward that's terrifying;
at the time it was only deciding what had to be done and doing it.
I've seen the photographs of aircraft breaking up in mid-flight. AFIK crew
members in other aircraft would attempt to photograph these events in hopes
of identifying any crew members that managed to get out, or at least the
number of them. My boss' father was a B-17 ball turret gunner. It's the
reason I had zero problem taking a day off for the planes'
arrival. Indeed, he asked me if I had any plans to make some photographs
of them while they were here. He asked me yesterday morning when the
photographs would be processed. Had to tell him next week because I used
K-chrome 64.
When the B-24 landed and parked the first thing I noticed was the ball
turret missing. Then I toured (crawled through) the inside of the
plane. The B-24 ball turret is retractable and is retracted for take-off
and landing. The B-17 ball turret is not. This feature on the B-24 gave
the ball turret gunner a possibility of surviving a belly landing in a
badly crippled B-24 than the zero probability in a B-17 if he could not get
out of the turret (which had to be oriented correctly for its hatch to
open). Even so, it's *not* the crew position I would volunteer for on
either plane!
OM Content:
The shoot really gave a workout to the 35/2, 24/2 and 18/3.5 because of how
tightly they were cordoned off on the ramp. The airport is a very small
one for general aviation; perhaps no bigger than a square mile total area.
-- John
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|