b17 Liberty Belle

Gee Dee
My question was really tongue in cheek….When under fighter attack, the worst position in the plane is the copilot’s spot. The pilot is flying the plane. the rest of the crew all have guns to fire except the copilot. I can vouch for that from personal experience.

songs

Dave,
When I was an aviation cadet, (about 11 months) anytime we marched on base in cadense, we sang the air force song, also remember Pearl Harbor and I’ve been working on the railroad, also Dinah.
I think it was an official air force song.

P 51 escort

P 51s didn’t fly escort in the 15th A.F. until mid 1944

Dave.
The ground officer in the nose certainly was thrilled by the experience. After landing, he said that he wouldn’t fly with me again because I was looking to commit suicide.

I must tell you about some stupid things that I did.
As a former smoker, while returning from a mission, after leaving indian country and slowly letting down I would light up a cigarette at about 18-19000 feet, I’d hold the oxygen hose in one hand, the cigarette in the other, after a puff I started to black out, then I would suck on the oxygen
hose. So with a suck and a puff I got my quick fix.

When I returned to the US I asked for B 29s, but I was told there was a greater need for instructors, in order to get crews overseas, this was before D day. I was sent to a base to get instructor training. Unfortunately, we had an instructor who was a stupid young man who had about 60-70 hours in the aircraft, he went by the book. We three “students” each had about 7-800 hours. I decided to give him a hard time. On one flight, I was in the left seat and was flying formation with a plane on my right. I could see my instructors face peripherally, I put my plane so close that a person in the waist of the other plane would have been able to touch my wingtip. I could see him sweating and his face was turning green, He yelled to stop formation flying. When we landed he complained to the operation officer, and said he couldn’t fly with us because we were all crazy. we were reasigned to someone else, who went with the flow.

Andy
If I remember, there was only 1 gun in the nose, most of my sorties were flown in B17F
I guess the reason that a nose turret was put in, was because of head on attacks.
Another reason the Germans made head on attacks was that they tried to get a plane out of their tight formation. A single plane was dead meat.

The shots are great. Just to put my comments on the thread.
My tent mate, while flying B17’s in the ETO, finished his tour before me. He went back stateside and flew B 29’s. He eventually went to the Pacific theater and flew missions, after about 18 sorties his plane went down over Tokyo, all KIA. However, he kept a diary wherein he describes his flights, the Jap fighters were most aggresive, many kamikaze pilots. The missions he describes were as hairy as any in Europe. So, the depiction of the close flying zeros in TTT are fairly accurate

My comment before, about being able to takeoff and fly with 3 engines still stands. I’ve had the experience of flying on 3 engines on combat missions about 6 times, no problem, but I still had 4 engines attachd, as the plane was designed, but takeoff is another story.
The plane could most likely fly on 2 engines with weight taken off as mentioned above. There were many instanes of planes returning from missions on 2 engines after all disposable weight was tossed overboard. However I don’t know if I would volunteer to tke off with 2 engines,even with a very long runway. It wasn’t engineered to fly on 2 engines This is only my opinion

geedee,
I’m looking forward to next month when the Collings B17 “Nine O Nine” comes into my area, I sit in a chair at the exit door and as people exit the plane I try to answer questions that they might have
Let me pose a question. In your opinion what is the worst position in a B17 in combat?
Don’t answer all the positions (the whole plane) because that is a given.