What It Was Like to Be a B-17 Radio Operator Over Germany

On the 20th of December 1943, over Bremen, a B-17 radio operator named Forrest Vosler was wounded twice and nearly blinded. Then his crippled bomber needed someone to send its position to England before it went down into the North Sea. Nine men in a Flying Fortress had a window, a gun or a sight pointed at the war. The radio operator had a desk. This is what that small room in the middle of the bomber did to the men inside it: the radio silence, the trailing wire, the single gun firing through the roof, the cold at 40 below, the hung-up bombs, the chaff, the wounded, Black Thursday over Schweinfurt, and the lifeline over the North Sea. ⏱️ CHAPTERS 0:00 Bremen, December 1943 1:43 #12 The office in the middle of the bomber 3:00 #11 Two soldiers at once 3:56 #10 The silence 5:21 #9 The wire under the plane 6:20 #8 A gun pointing at the empty sky 7:27 #7 The cold through the roof 8:35 #6 The bomb bay next door 9:33 #5 Throwing paper at radar 10:58 #4 The room where the wounded came 12:04 #3 Black Thursday 13:25 #2 The lifeline over the North Sea 14:27 #1 Forrest Vosler Every machine of war had men inside it. This channel climbs in with them. 🔔 Subscribe for the next machine. #B17 #WW2 #FlyingFortress