Bob served two years, four months and 10 days as part of a B-17 bomber crew in World War II, and his son, Robert, served with the 1st Cavalry in Vietnam. Lines 1-2. The ball turret gunner was one of the most dangerous assignments in World War II. When this gunner tracked with his machine guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below, he revolved with the turret; hunched upside-down in his little sphere, he looked like the fetus in the womb. B-17 Ball Turret Gunner (Dangerous Jobs in History) Simple History 4.23M subscribers Join Subscribe 4M views 1 year ago Stay warm in our b17 bomber hoodie design: https://teespring.com/SH-b17. Kush is at the left end of the front row. Rolling the aircraft into a flaming ball on the runway isn't going to help the ball gunner. These were removed in the B-17C and replaced with flush windows. Permanently fixed and unable to be retracted, there was no hiding from enemy attack. They had talked to him. My uncle, Frederick Raymond Restle Jr., was a ball turret gunner on a B-24 Liberator, who served in the 13th Army Air Force in the Pacific.His death is probably due to the design flaw, and inexperience of pilots with the B24. Pintrest. These gunsights computed for direction, and range to the target and were basically an early analog computer. Armed with two .50-caliber machine guns and capable of rotating 360 degrees, the ball turret's gunner was responsible for protecting the otherwise-exposed underbelly of the flying fortress. It was the job of the ball turret gunner, armed with a pair of .50-caliber machine guns, to defend the aircraft from attacks below. I knew we had lost an engine and I thought we were going down. Made of Plexiglas and about four feet in diameter, the ball turret was a sphere attached to the bottom of the airplane. The landing gear was stuck also, and being after a mission the aircraft probably low on fuel. Somewhere in my boxes of family photos I have a picture of Dad standing next to a B-17 and the ball turret at an air show in the 1990s, but of course I couldn't find it for this blog. Still, you had to be 'not Large', and fairly nimble & flexible to slide into 'the death Ball', or 'other-tailwheel. Frank returned to California and earned a Degree in Agriculture from California Polytechnic University. I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. To get inside the ball turret, the gunner had to enter through the door located on the floor of the aircraft, positioning the ball so the guns were pointed toward the ground. The B-17 to our left went down with one engine on fire. Your turn. Nothing my father had related to us over the years prepared us for the terrifying reality of his position. It moved horizontally by a ring gear on the turret. Change). [I] had my whole life flash before me from the time I was a little kid to that moment. It lost two engines and couldn't keep up. The bomber is flying at a very high altitude and the speaker's life before war (even life itself), left far below, feels like an illusion. Because of this surprise attacks from 12 oclock were not uncommon. He is retired and lives in Grantville, MD. The poem was written later in Jarrell's service career. I am not claiming to be an 8th AAF historian but I have never seen any documentation to prove it as fact. renfield, The B-17 landed at a B-24 base in England. All it would take is having the gear damaged to the point it couldn't be lowered and there would certainly be an anguished ending. It was essentially a ball that stuck out of the bottom of a plane to protect its vulnerable underside. From here, the gunner could protect the rear section below the plane. Ball Turret Gunners on B-17 bombers were protected only by a glass bubble jutting out from the bowels of the plane. The last aircraft shot down by a defensive gunner was in 1972, where a B-52 tail gunner shot down a MIG-21 over Vietnam. Frank sailed home to the United States (US) after completing his required combat missions. We lost our number three engine and were forced to drop out of the formation because we couldnt keep up. "Airmen badly wounded from flak would die without immediate medical attention at that altitude due to shock. Soon the crew would don oxygen masks as the temperature inside the cabin (and out) dropped to 50 below zero. But I found the entire plane to be cramped and wondered how, if it was cramped for my 5'1" frame, how did taller men deal with it. In 1945, towards the end of the war, a newspaper article told of planes flying over a tulip field in Holland on their way back from a mission. Needless to say, my Dad made it through the war. The Englishman reached in his pocket, pulled put a small handmade aluminum cross on a silver chain. The worst position by far was held by the ball turret gunners. It was the best sight in the world -- second only to spotting the famous White Cliffs of Dover late in the afternoon after completing yet another harrowing mission.". I hope he is well and I want to let him know how much I enjoyed reading his story.. 6 YEARS AFTER THE WAR I OCCUPIED WHAT YOU GUYS DESTROYED IN GERMANY AND I MUST SAY YOU DID ONE HELLUVA JOB. The turret held the gunner, two heavy machine guns, ammunition, and sights. Unfortunately, this was not a very good place for the parachute, as the gunner needed to open the turret door, enter the fuselage and strap themselves in all before the plane crashed. Whoops! The Sperry ball turret was very small[clarification needed] in order to reduce drag, and was typically operated by the smallest man of the crew. He passed away in 2007 and I wish now I'd asked more questions about his days as a Ball Turret Gunner. But, when it came to American bomber planes, the risk was far greater for some than for others. For defence, two Browning AN/M2 .50 calibre machine guns were squeezed into the turret either side of the gunner. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. He flew with the Lt Albert L. Hanson crew. ' The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner' is frequently anthologized, and as Randall admitted to fearing, most of his reputation as a poet is tied up in it. At their height, the schools were pumping out 3,500 graduates a week, producing approximately 300,000 by the end of the war. Twenty-six thousand never returned. Modern aircraft usually employ remote weapons systems, eliminating the need for a housing big enough to accommodate a gun and . The Sperry-designed ventral system saw widespread use and production, including much sub-contracting. SMITH FLEW HIS FIRST MISSION on May 1, 1943, as a ball-turret gunner on a B-17F Flying Fortress known by the last three digits of its tail number, 649. Nothanks for the heads-up JS! On the ends of the grips were the buttons to fire the guns. ball turret 2 [ ] B-17 2008 It was equipped with two Browning AN/M2 .50-caliber machine guns, a Sperry optical gunsight and two ammo cans with 250 rounds for each weapon. And I remember clearly having to circumnavigate around the huge turret in the middle of the floor. Here's what he wrote: There was quite a dscussion about this story on the armyairforces forum. Once we were out of the target area the crew got the track of my ball turret unjammed, cranked it around by hand until my trap door could be opened and pulled me out.. Expecting to be assigned to a B-24 crew but due to the needs of the service, Frank was assigned to the Lieutenant (Lt) John J. Connolly crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress. They say your life flashes in front of you when youre about to die. The B-17 crew already had a flight engineer, so Frank was selected for the ball turret gunner position. He prayed, Well, God, if this is the way it has to be, let it be. Frank said, I was under tension and wanted to live. Had they bellied in, he'd have had it. If the power system and hydraulics were knocked out an emergency hand crank could be inserted into the gearing mechanism of the turret and it could be returned to the neutral position to allow the crewman to exit the turret. [2][3] The turret held the gunner, two heavy machine guns, ammunition, and sights. A ball turret comes back to life! "He was very easy to get along with very cheerful, very talkative and a very, very sweet guy," Jenkins said. Bobgee. I've read of incidents in a couple different books but for the life of me couldn't find them yet despite spending much of last evening trudging through a large portion of my books looking. It was a manned turret, as distinct from remote-controlled turrets also in use. If you go about it right, getting into the turret is as safe as climbing into a rocking chair. During the oral history interview Frank asked for a moment to collect his thoughts. The conventional landing gear of the B-17 allowed for a non-retractable mount, but if the plane was required to do a belly landing (such as in the case of landing gear system failure), the ball turret would likely be destroyed due to the lack of clearance, meaning anyone occupying the turret would be in a precarious position if unable to escape. More War Movie Content: https://www.youtube.com/johnnyjohnso. Two of the engines of the B-17 were stopped, about 3,000 pounds of dead weight hanging from the wings. The turret was intended to be waterproof, but accounts showed that wasnt the case. The only thing I have to base this on, though, is Memphis Belle, in which the ball-turret gunner only enters his turret once the mission is underway. No answer. To remedy that, the front end of the cover was "slotted". The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner (dt. Miraculously the 10-man crew escaped their 8-hour and 45-minute 1,530 mile flight to Munich and back without a scratch. The Ball Turret was protected by only a thin sheet of metal and glass. I had "heard" this story even before the tv show. Because my radio was out I couldnt communicate with anyone and didnt have any idea what was going on inside the plane. The nose cone was painted yellow. Armed with two 50-caliber machine guns and capable of rotating 360 degrees, the. Rank: Staff Sergeant My dad was never in the war because of his health history and being 4F. "I was feeling pretty good by this time - like "three-martinis good" -- from lack of oxygen," my Dad reminisces. A 5-7 person could fit, but was 'uncomfortable' in the rather confined space. They could be raised or lowered with hand cranks. He wrote, When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.. I dont know what happened to the one on our right, he said. There is an episode of Amazing Stories about a ball turret gunner trapped in his turret and the plane has no more landing gear. All but a handful have been consigned to the wrecking yard. The silent wing warriors.". Wearing flak jackets and electrically heated flight suits, the gunners were ready to enter the uninsulated sphere that, if they did not react quick enough, would make them vulnerable to enemy fire. By the first sign of daylight, the flying fortresses were on their way. Battle damage to the radio operator's compartment of Boeing B-17F-65-BO 42 . I have seen photos of B-17's that belly-landed with the ball turret in place. 77 years after the crash he still remembers his part of World War II. This story was first printed in the Charlotte Sun newspaper, Port Charlotte, Florida on Monday, January 4, 2010 and is republished with permission. Location of the Ball Turret in a B-17. Ball turret gunner's tale It was their second mission in "Berlin Special," a B-17 "Flying Fortress." Their four-engine bomber was part of the 92nd Bomb Group, 407th Squadron of the 8th Air Force flying out of an airbase near Podington, a tiny farm village some 40-miles northwest of London during World War II. Jarrell, who served in the Army Air Forces, provided the following explanatory note: A ball turret was a Plexiglas sphere set into the belly of a B-17 or B-24, and inhabited by two .50 caliber machine guns and one man, a short small man. Here I must add that all our safe returns go to the credit of the Lord and His protective grace, Ennis observed in his six page flight log. It would take equal damage on both sides to jam the gear. D.O.B: 3 February 1922 The gunner looked through a central window between the guns to aim. As you get in, take these steps carefully and in proper order. For 1941 this was cutting edge technology. Frank died January 16, 2015, two days after his 91st birthday. He flew 31 combat missions as a ball turret gunner in a B-17 Flying Fortress over Nazi-occupied Europe. $0.99 + $1.09 shipping. Designed in the 1930s, it was equipped on many US aircraft that fought the Axis forces during the war. The compact size of the gunner surrounded by thick glass, aluminium and armour plating, combined with being underneath the aircraft, meant the gunner was relatively safe. The Ball Turret Gunner from B17 42-31377 Pot OGold crashed on 22 FEB 1944, tells in BALL TURRET about his job. The design was mainly deployed on the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-24 Liberator, as well as the United States Navy's Liberator, the PB4Y-1. Arguably one of the worst was as a ball turret gunner. He thought he was going to be killed and started to pray. This guy couldn't get out til they got on the ground. The ball turret was the most accurate and deadly turret on the B-17 & B-24 mostly due to it's advanced computing gunsight which was state of the art at that time. From this position a gunner could cover virtually the entire underside of the aircraft with his machine guns. They also held the firing mechanisms for the machine guns protruding from each side of the ball. They were fully aware of how susceptible to death they were, nevertheless, they would continue to fight time after time. The turret on the B-24, however was retractable, as it hung much lower down. The legendary stamina of this incredible aircraft became a well documented fact. US MILITARIA FORUM - COLLECTORS PRESERVING HISTORY. With this information, the sites reticule would automatically adjust to the lead required to hit the target. 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