The Rear Gunner

DWalt

DWalt

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Just by accident this morning, I was scanning through the TV cable channels and spotted something on TCM that looked interesting. It was a half-hour short from 1943 called "The Rear Gunner." It starred Ronald Reagan, Dane Clark, and Burgess Meredith (the Penguin). It tracked Meredith as a young recruit going through an AAF aerial gunnery school, and it was a fairly complete treatment of every phase of the AAF gunnery training program, from shooting clay pigeons with shotguns and using BB MGs, through aerial shooting with .30 and .50 Brownings, concluding with a combat sequence with Meredith, by now a full-fledged tail gunner, shooting down some Zeros from his rear position in a B-24 and winning a medal. Obvious homefront propaganda, but worthwhile watching for anyone interested in WWII aerial gunnery. It may reappear sometime, but I wouldn't bet on it. TCM often uses such shorts as time fillers.

From my archive, Bob Hope and Jerry Colonna at an AAF gunnery school. I'll guarantee you have never seen these before.
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My Old Buddy Lou was a Tail Gunner.
He flew training flights somewhere during thunderstorms and got air sick on every flight.
He said he would puke in the Left side ammo box, then later puke in the right one.
 
jeffsmith said:
I caught it too
it was interesting

Its available now on "WatchTCM"
either the app or the webpage

https://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/titles/400268
Click to expand...

So there you go.

I got a kick from one sequence where the recruits were learning night firing using tracer bullets. The narrator is talking about it and says something like "the bullets are chemically treated so they can be seen at night." I guess in a strange way, that is sort of correct.
 
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Gonna look into that.


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The tail gunner protected the aircraft's most vulnerable approach path. An interceptor aircraft getting into position directly behind a tactical or strategic bomber could pump machinegun and automatic cannon fire into the airframe until it was unable to continue flying.

Tail gun positions were tiny compartments usually accessed by crawling through a tunnel-like passageway. The gunner's position was generally prone, lying belly down in a claustrophobic compartment, relying on supplemental oxygen for breathing, and subject to extremely cold temperatures while flying at high altitude.

In the event of any need to evacuate the aircraft the tail gunner was probably in a hopeless position. Even assuming that flight control was maintained, the gunner would have to crawl backward through the access tunnel before regaining a position within the main fuselage, from which parachute escape might be possible. If the aircraft was not in control, spiraling downward or breaking up in flight, escape was not an option for the tail gunner.

Two uncles and a cousin served on bombers during WW2. I grew up at their knees.
 
It's been said that flying thru the falling shell cases took out more enemy fighters than actually hitting one during WWII. :rolleyes:

The B52 Gunnery sim shop was a great place to meet/train the Gunners at Castle with the 4017th.

I spent a year, 1976, studying flute with a Juilliard graduate after playing reeds for 17 years.
He got steady work playing with Colonna and others after graduating in the late 40's.
One of the best.
Those at that level found Hendrix to be a head turner and worth a listen.
I told them to listen to Zappa as well.
 
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It was alluded to in “The Rear Gunner” that gunners should be smaller men. Owing to the tight quarters for some gunners on bombers, AAF imposed an upper height and weight limit for gunnery school candidates of 5’10” and 170 pounds. No lower limits were mentioned. I have read that it has often been said that during WWII, belly turret and tail gunners had the highest fatality rate among bomber flight crews. But in fact their actual fatality rate is the same as for all other bomber flight crew members.

Back in the 1940s and 1950s, Jerry Colonna was a fairly big name in the entertainment world as being an actor, musician, singer, and comedian. But he was probably best known as Bob Hope’s buddy and sidekick. They often traveled and appeared together. Most people under 60 probably have never heard of him.
 
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Tail gun turret on B-24s had the gunner sitting in an upright position. Entry to the turret was thru a hatch on the aircraft side of the turret. In an emergency, the turret could be turned via power, if available or by hand , 90* till the entry hatch was rotated clear of the aircraft, allowing the gunner to escape. The RAF Avro Lancaster bomber had a similar system for their tail gun position. B-17s were much as Lobo described except of later models, the gunner sat upright.
 
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My father-in-law was a ball turret gunner on a B-17. There were both B-24 and B-17 bombers on his base. The B-17 is a beautiful and graceful looking plane. The B-24 was so ugly it looked like something a 6-year-old drew in art class. The B-17 guys call the 24's "the crate the B-17 came in". The German's called it the flying furniture van and the crews called it a flying coffin because it was so difficult to fly after being damaged. Now the 17's seemed to come home with whole sections of their planes blown away. My F-I-L tells of a true incident that happened with the 15th where a 17 was blown in half and went down over Italy. With no hope for escape, the tailgunner rode the tail all the way to the ground and survived because it was doing a slow spin as it descended. Broke a few bones but lived. My F-I-L was a small man humble man that seldom spoke of his 51 missions hanging from a plexiglass bubble beneath a huge plane flying over hostile sky's. We miss you dad.
 
Thanks for the link Jeffsmith. It worked. Corny but interesting. Surprised some of it was not classified unless the technical bits were dis-information.
 
Years ago received a call in response to a wanted ad in newspaper. Guy was a tail gunner on a B-24 that flew off my Dads airfields in Italy. This Gentleman was a remarkable guy, was shot down 3 times, captured the last as he had been partially paralyzed by a flak wound. Captured, taken to German hospital where he said he received good care and surgery. POW camp stories were remarkable. After the camp he was in was liberated, he and another former POW “ went into local town”, found a bakery with few loaves of bread which they ate. Went in another store and found some nazi sterling silver ware, he got a complete table setting of 12. He and other POWs were sent to a hospital in England, he kept 1 set of silver ware with him, rest went in his duffle bag. Well as happened many times he got ripped off but still had the 1 set which he showed me. I asked him if he had a Caterpillar Pin, he was amazed I knew what they were, he showed me his with red eyes. I bought a few items he had for sale, still have the really nice M-3.
They were truly the Greatest Generation.
 
My Dad joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 at the age of 17. He said he figured he wouldn’t have to sleep in a hole in the ground, and he was right. He drove a truck and said his greatest military accomplishment was being 5’4” and never being press-ganged into aerial gunnery school.
 
When I was in grad school at Ohio State, my thesis advisor had been a B-24 pilot in the ETO, I don’t remember where, but several locations. He made it through his 25 missions or whatever the number was. He had a lot of good war stories but I don’t remember any of them. His only injury, if you can call it that, was he became nearly stone deaf from the engine noise. He had to wear a powerful hearing aid to understand anything, and also had an amplifier with earphones on his office telephone. I guess many bomber crew members returned home with the same hearing loss condition.
 
sigp220.45 said:
My Dad joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 at the age of 17. He said he figured he wouldn’t have to sleep in a hole in the ground, and he was right. He drove a truck and said his greatest military accomplishment was being 5’4” and never being press-ganged into aerial gunnery school.
Click to expand...

My grandson never got to meet his great grandfather. He did his ariel gunnery training in Kingman Arizona. His great grandson now wears a necklace made from a spent 50 BMG bullet recovered from the training grounds at Kingman. Though he is only 11 years old he likes the idea his great grandpa may have fired the bullet.
 
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