What It Was Like to Fight as a B-17 Waist Gunner at 25,000 Feet

Two men, standing up for eight to ten hours at an open window, at 25,000 feet and 40 below zero. This is what the waist gunner position of a B-17 Flying Fortress did to the men who held it: the cold, the frozen oxygen masks, the 60-pound gun aimed by hand in a 150 mph wind, the flak, and the odds of ever finishing 25 missions. And the story of Ye Olde Pub, the shot-up B-17 a German pilot chose not to shoot down on 20 December 1943. Subscribe to Rivet & Iron for more WW1 and WW2 machines, and the men inside them. CHAPTERS 0:00 December 20, 1943: the bomber that should not have been flying 1:04 #10 The open window 1:56 #9 The cold 2:41 #8 The heated suit 3:27 #7 The oxygen mask 4:17 #6 The gun 4:59 #5 The shot 5:54 #4 Two men, back to back 6:49 #3 The flak 7:43 #2 The wounded 8:24 #1 The odds 9:25 Back to Ye Olde Pub SOURCES Ye Olde Pub / Stigler / Brown, 20 Dec 1943: Adam Makos, "A Higher Call" (2012); USAF National Museum / 379th BG histories; Stigler d. March 2008, Brown d. Nov 2008. Frostbite in 8th AF heavy bomber crews, waist gunners most affected: Mae Mills Link & Hubert A. Coleman, "Medical Support of the Army Air Forces in World War II" (1955), ch. on 8th AF; Malcolm C. Grow reports. Heated suits (GE F-series), A-14 demand oxygen masks, mask icing, oxygen checks: AAF Pilot/crew training manuals; National Museum of the USAF fact sheets. AN/M2 .50 cal: ~61 lb, ~750-850 rpm (National Museum of the USAF). Flexible gunnery schools, skeet / moving-truck training: AAF Flexible Gunnery School histories (Las Vegas, Harlingen, Laredo, Kingman, Tyndall). Staggered/enclosed waist windows on later B-17G; crew cut from 10 to 9 (one waist gunner removed) late 1944: National Museum of the USAF B-17G fact sheet; 8th AF histories. Flak suit, Col. Malcolm C. Grow + Wilkinson Sword, 1943: National Museum of the USAF ("Flak Vest"). 25-mission tour, raised to 30 then 35; Memphis Belle (May 1943) vs Hell's Angels (303rd BG, May 1943): National Museum of the USAF (Memphis Belle exhibit); Wyler, "The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress" (1944). Archive film: The Memphis Belle (1944, William Wyler, US War Department), Target for Today (1944), Combat America (1943), AAF training films "Position Firing" (1944), "Flexible Aerial Gunnery", "Physiology of High Altitude Flying". Photos: Wikimedia Commons (public domain, US Army Air Forces / NARA / Library of Congress). #WW2 #B17 #FlyingFortress #MilitaryHistory