reglarnavy
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"Flying Irishment" B24 & B17 crew
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03/25/2008 10:59:41 PM
After posting this I remembered that his group started out with B24's and was converted over to B17s. We were at a warbirds airshow and Jim showed me how, at least from the tailgunner's perspective, the B24, with its fully hydraulic turret, was a better deal than the B17's tailgunner position, which took lots of manual labor to swing the twin 50s around. Again - thanks for any help w/my info request. Bruce
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jpeters140
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RE: "Flying Irishment" B24 & B17 crew
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03/26/2008 01:27:32 AM
There was a problem (built in) with the nose and tail turrets on the B-24...there was a set of doors on the turret that when swung to the side, effectively closed off the turrets from the noee/tail guinner getting out, if the power failed, or the turret jammed....The B-17 tail gunner had no such problem.
Jim :-)
James S. Peters Sr. T/Sgt B-17 Flt Engr, 27 missions 99 BG, 348BS, 5th Wing, 15th AAF Tortorella, (Foggia#2), Italy My Tour was from 12/03/44-06/19/45 M/Sgt USAF (Retired)
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reglarnavy
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RE: "Flying Irishment" B24 & B17 crew
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03/29/2008 12:59:12 AM
Jim
Interesting post about the turret doors on the B24. In this case looks like it wasn't an issue 'cause he never had to bail. I'll be yakkin' w/Jim this weekend and see what he has to say on this. Flying Irishmen was a lucky ship in that it made it back more or less intact each time.
Thanks for the reply, Bruce
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