Hal...MY MEMORY of cranking the gear down differs only in the number of turns of the hand crank...it was far more than 66 turns...it was close to 265 turns of the hand crank...the bomb bay door was a similar number of turns....the landing gear motors and bomb bay retract motor wers interchangebale.
I had to hand crank the bomb doors closed twice on missions, and had to crank the landing gear down at least once...along with the tail wheel...a similar number of turns on the tail wheel as well.
 
Jim :-)

As to the physical aspects of the damaged ball turret:
Situation A:  No power, the turret could be hand cranked to get access to the turret door for removal of the gunner.  This would take but a few minutes.
 
Situation B: Turret gears jammed/broken, the gunner is not saveable unless the plane can be safely landed. 
 
To drop the ball took 10 to 15 minutes I believe but don't know...we never had to do it.  The ball support column would have to be unbolted from the main spar and then the hangers broken off or unbolted.  At which time the whole assembly would fall away.
 
Landing with ball in place on a hard surface would jam the support column up into the main spar and fracture it causing the aft section of the fuselage to split and maybe detach  I don't think the ball or its column would penetrate the radio room.  This is just my guess.

Richard...the tail wheel hand crank postion was BEHIND the tail wheel....I had to take the hand crank on EVERY approach and check the main gears and the tail wheel for a positve down lock...if the limit switches were set correctly...I only had or two turns with the hand crank to verify the gear was fully down.
 
Jim :-)

Related to this topic, there is a very interesting chapter in Rob Morris' book: UNTOLD VALOR: Forgotten Stories of American Bomber Crews Over Europe in World War II in which he devotes a chapter (pp. 144-158) to ball turret gunners.  He interviewed Frank Coleman and Bob Capen both of whom flew a combined 71 missions in B-17s over Europe.  Frank also appeared on the History Channel documentary: "Suicide Mission: Ball Turret Gunners." Many of the stories recorded by Rob tell first hand what life was like inside the BT. Some of the anecdotes are very similar to stories told by other BT gunners on this Site. As an aside, the book is an excellent and easily readable series of first-hand accounts.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 

If you knew you were going to have to land gear up, would it be better to land on a concrete runway or on a grass/dirt field?  Which would do less damage to the plane?
 
Also, I have seen at least one photo of a B-17 that had to belly in.  The ball was pushed up into the fuselage but looked to be pretty much intact, not really smashed.  If I recall the plane in the photo had landed on a grass field.
 
Marty

No sparks on grass.

Steve

The pictures that I uploaded previously are hard to read.
Here are links to the two documents on the 384thBombgroup.com gallery pages concerning Ball Turret Removal.
 http://www.gallery2.384thbombgroup.com/v/384th-Microfilms/RAW_Microfilms/B0376/B0376-02104.tif.html
http://www.gallery2.384thbombgroup.com/v/384th-Microfilms/RAW_Microfilms/B0376/B0376-02232.tif.html

I’d be curious if the person on this topic seeking a personal reply from Mr. Rooney gets one, but in the meantime I was able to find the following:
 
In his book “Sincerely, Andy Rooney”, Rooney re-prints a number of letters about “My War”, including one to the Dallas Morning News about this incident.
In the letter Rooney is adamant in standing by his story of the ball turret gunner.
He states that the incident occurred in Bassingbourne, England, where the 91^st Bomb Group was stationed.
He states that the name of the ball turret gunner was withheld by censors at the time so he never learned it.
 
My father was in the Pacific War but I very much enjoyed "My War", maybe some 91st Bomb Group experts will chime in.....

Dfergy and b24copilotniece,
Thanks for the information. I have not heard anything back yet from Andy Rooney.   Regarding the time and place of the incident.  Concerning the 306th.
Here is another  link were Andy seems to specifically place the incident there in April of 1943.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=19821012&id=xh1WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EeQDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2084,1529196
 
Reading the sentence in the above article which concerns a reunion of of the 306th at Thurleigh,   "In April of 1943 , I was here when they came back...."
would seem to place it in April of 1943.    The problem is this would contradict his statement in "My War", about the group returning from Regensburg.  There was no raid to Regensburg in April of 1943.
There was a raid on 17 April 1943 to Bremen where they suffered heavy losses, so maybe that would be a place to start looking.  (The 91st also had heavy losses on this raid).
 
Given that he also "specifically" placed it with the 91st in "Sincerely, Andy Rooney" it would appear he himself can't keep the story straight.   

Looks like Jana and Rolland came upon the same article. I know from his book, "My War that Andy usually visited bases that were closest to London so that he could return quickly and get writing his stories.
 
The ball turret incident could have happened in April or in August, of '43 or '44, or actually any other place or month or year.
 
I'll give this to Andy, at least he knew his memory could be faulty. On the first page of his book, My War, he writes, rather humorously,
"This is a memoir, not a history book, but in an effort to make it accurate, I've checked my memory against the facts. It is distressing for me to note how infrequently the facts concur with my memory of what happened. I assume, in cases like this, that the facts are wrong."
 
Unfortunately for the reader, and folks like us, his lack of fact-checking is a annoying to say the least.
 
In his book he also says that he has file copies of most editions of Stars and Stripes printed during WW2, that include the approximately 200 stories he wrote. Seems like he would be able to identify when the incident happened.
 
I have attached the page from, My War, which gives the account. Seems like he has a lot of first hand information, that would make it seem true. One thing that stands out is the AC came in on the concrete runway. Maybe it doesn't make a difference. Hind site is always 20/20. From the other documents on this thread on the emergency procedure for jettisoning the ball turret. If they had the time to do it, they could have gone through that procedure, if indeed the ball was jammed, and possibly on landing the ball could have been shoved up into the fuselage, possibly sparing the BT gunner. But again, I'm sure other solutions could be worked out on paper, sitting at my computer without the great stressors these men endured after coming back from a mission. God bless that BT gunner, whoever he was. I'm glad we're remembering his sacrifice 70 years later.