I was just watching Worlds Deadliest Aircraft and some thing I’ve heard both ways popped into my head. Could the ball turret on the B-17 and B-24 be rotated to a position to remove the gunner into the aircraft in flight? Rick
Yes, That was the normal way of doing it. Landings, especially with battle damage, sometimes meant crushing the ball turret. It was extremely cramped in there and it was much better for the gunner to spend the beginning and end of the flight in the main cabin.
Darwin, O.F. [aln]
The ball gunner entered from inside the aircraft after take off and climbed back out before landings. Watch the movie remake of Memphis Belle…it shows the gunner crawling inside the turret. Also the B-24 belly turret retracted inside to increase clearance for landing and taxiing.
Not sure about the B-24, but the B-17 has the option to jettison the ball turrett to make belly landings a bit easier and cause less damage, so getting the gunner out before doing so would be the best thing to do.
Agree with above, my recollection from the Monogram B24 I built long ago was the B24 ball retracted flush with the fuse bottom, weapons pointed to the rear and fitting in faired cutouts.
I had the good fortune to take a flight on a beautifully restored B-17 (The Liberty Belle) a few years ago. One of the things that fascinated me the most was that ball turret. It looked impossibly small for anyone but a ten year old kid to fit into it. I’m 5’9" and certain I could never get into it, or if I did, they’d have to cut me out!
Unless there was another gunner in the crew that was 5’8" or shorter, you’re gonna be the ball gunner… In fact, that’s how ball gunners were assigned… Shortest gunner in the crew gets the ball. ‘Course, back then 5’8"–5’9’ was about average height…
The next shortest guy was then squeezed into the tail gunners position.
If you were claustrophobic, you could never crawl into that tail gunner’s position!! I have nothing but the highest admiration to the crewmen who flew the 12 hours long missions in those aircraft- I doubt that I could handle that, even at a young age as they were! Salute!!! And God bless them all!
I was actually surprised at the amount of room back there… Even though I’m 6’2", I was able to get into it and onto the seat ok… Of course, I wasn’t wearing a set of electrically-heated underwear, flightsuit, leathers, Mae West, helmet, and parachute harness… I didn’t weigh 215 pounds back then either, I was closer to 170-180, lol…
I read, somewhere, that the ball turret had to be retracted, or ditched, before landing, since otherwise the aircraft’s back would be broken by it, in the event of an u/c collapse. This meant that the gunner had to be recoverable during flight.
Edgar
Found some interesting things about the ball…
http://www.twinbeech.com/sperry_ball_turret.htm
A rather morbid poem by a ball-gunner:
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
by Randall Jarrell
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
The above shot is the hit that killed the ball-gunner on"Little Miss Mischief" and resulted in her entire aft fuselage being replaced with one from an OD B-17… Note that the flak burst exploded with such muderous force that it tore off the cooling jacket and bent the left gun-barrel
On another note, a post-war study done by the USAAF showed that ball-gunners had the lowest casualty-rate among B-17 and B-24 crewmen, with pilots having the highest . This makes sense, since Luftwaffe fighter pilots preferred to put their fire into the flightdeck and it doesn’t take many hits from 20 and 30mm cannons to make a sun-porch out of the cockpit and hamburger out of the pilots.
In the “For What It’s Worth” Department, I still play this old Flight Sim, “B-17-The Mighty 8th” and it allows you to man any of the positions in the airplane. The HARDEST position from which to engage enemy fighters is from the ball (Best is the tail, followed by the top turret, then the chin. The flex-guns with their ring & bead sights in the cheeks, waist, and radio compartment are next to useless). The ball’s visibility is SO limited that tracking a fighter is best accomplished by hoping the guy flies into your field of view rather than trying to find him from the call-outs of the other gunners, and even then, the fighters are breaking down & away from you…
Hans: I too still play that game, its a great game!
I saw a show on the History channel about ball turrett gunners a while back, and they where interviewing a ball turrett gunner, and he started to explain that the ball was the last place you want to be on a bomber. He recalled a story about this time he was on leave in London and ran into a private in the infantry. The private started rattling off about how the AAF personnel got to sleep in bunks every night, and how they where fighting the war the easy way, etc. The ball turret gunner, who like all the other enlisted personnel on bomber crews was at least a sgt, said OK fine, you want to trade jobs? The private then asked, “So the rank comes with it?” as the gunner started removing his jacket to hand to the private. “Yes the rank comes it.” “Great,” the private said, then he paused, “Wait,” he asked, “What position are you on the bomber?” The gunner proudly said, “Ball Turret” The private then promptly put his jacket back on and told the gunner, “You can go to hell!”
So to all the ball turret gunners, Thanks for your service!
From the B-17 on display at the Palm Springs Air Museum in California.