Gunner kills

[Hunter368]

I have never seen a site or book that listed gunner kills. Anyone ever see anything like that where they list the highest gunner kills for each nation? Similar to pilot kills for each nation in WW2.

[FLYBOYJ]

Here's a little blip.

http://afehri.maxwell.af.mil/Documents/pdf/gunners.pdf

I've seen a kill list of USAAF Gunners during WW2, I thought the top guy had 9 kills. I'll see if I could find it.

In the link above there is the story of "Johnny Zero," probably one of the more famous gunner aces of WW2.

[drgondog]

Joe - is there an on-line reference that lists the air to air awards for gunners in WWII?

There was a pilot in the 355th FG/354FS by the name of Charles Spencer that shot down an Me262 and recorded four Japanese meatballs plus the swastika on his canopy rail. I asked him about this and he told me he was a B-17 gunner in the PTO with four credits before becoming a pilot.

It would be interesting to add that bit of history if I can verify it

[Erich]

side note : Bill do you have the combat report from Spencer on that 262 downing : March 19, of 45 /// send me a private if you would ~ 262 of I./KG (J) 54 over Giebelstadt airfield (Spencer) with another 262 of the same unit damaged, and also another one destroyed by ? 355th fg pilot's.

E ~

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by drgondog

Joe - is there an on-line reference that lists the air to air awards for gunners in WWII?

Not aware of one Bill, but here's an aces page that list aerial gunner aces..

US Army Air Force aces of WW2

This was on the list...


TSgt Arthur J. 'Art' BENKO 9 C.Watry-D.Hall (+ 9 ground) 308BG 15/11/1944 B-24 top turret gunner ace, CBI. MIA. 18; 16

Originally Posted by drgondog

There was a pilot in the 355th FG/354FS by the name of Charles Spencer that shot down an Me262 and recorded four Japanese meatballs plus the swastika on his canopy rail. I asked him about this and he told me he was a B-17 gunner in the PTO with four credits before becoming a pilot.

It would be interesting to add that bit of history if I can verify it

I tried to look for him on that site...

[Hunter368]

Thanks guys, interesting reading. I would be interested in both Allied and Axis records for gunners if anything exists like that.

[renrich]

Having done quite a bit of wing shooting the difficulty of hitting anything on purpose with a machine gun from a moving bomber in WW2 awes me. The only run a fighter could make where it might be relatively easy would be from directly astern or head on. The rest of the shots what with the bomber moving at 150-175 mph and with the fighter moving at a much higher speed look almost impossible. I suspect that if you took the kills credited to gunners on bombers in WW2 and reduced them by 75-90% you would have a more accurate number.

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by drgondog

There was a pilot in the 355th FG/354FS by the name of Charles Spencer that shot down an Me262 and recorded four Japanese meatballs plus the swastika on his canopy rail. I asked him about this and he told me he was a B-17 gunner in the PTO with four credits before becoming a pilot.

It would be interesting to add that bit of history if I can verify it

Hey Bill, from the site "Little Friends"


44-14563 P-51D 354 WR-Q Spencer Capt. Charles H

[Hunter368]

Originally Posted by renrich

Having done quite a bit of wing shooting the difficulty of hitting anything on purpose with a machine gun from a moving bomber in WW2 awes me. The only run a fighter could make where it might be relatively easy would be from directly astern or head on. The rest of the shots what with the bomber moving at 150-175 mph and with the fighter moving at a much higher speed look almost impossible. I suspect that if you took the kills credited to gunners on bombers in WW2 and reduced them by 75-90% you would have a more accurate number.

100% agree, fighter pilots from all countries over claimed (honest mistakes). But bomber pilots who flew most often over enemy country way way way over claimed (also honest mistakes).

[Hunter368]

Originally Posted by FLYBOYJ

Hey Bill, from the site "Little Friends"


44-14563 P-51D 354 WR-Q Spencer Capt. Charles H

Good find Joe

[renrich]

Agree Hunter, they were honest mistakes. When a gunner was in an airplane in a bomber box and everyone was shooting I don't know how one could tell who hit a fighter when one was hit and only occasionally could anyone see the fighter disentegrate or hit the ground.

[Hunter368]

Originally Posted by renrich

Agree Hunter, they were honest mistakes. When a gunner was in an airplane in a bomber box and everyone was shooting I don't know how one could tell who hit a fighter when one was hit and only occasionally could anyone see the fighter disentegrate or hit the ground.

Totally agree

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Hunter368

Good find Joe

I have that photo - it's probably one I sent to peter for the 355th collection.

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by drgondog

I have that photo - it's probably one I sent to peter for the 355th collection.

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by renrich

I suspect that if you took the kills credited to gunners on bombers in WW2 and reduced them by 75-90% you would have a more accurate number.

That's the right ballpark from what I know. Intelligence assumption AIUI in ETO was reduce confirmed bomber kills by 75% to get German fighters lost. Checking the Japanese losses v US B-29 claims in Henry Sakaida's "B-29 Hunters of the JAAF" it was a little better than that, but some of those Japanese fighters were ramming on purpose, hard to mistake their destruction. Another example was the Korean War where I found Soviet accounts of all their attacks on B-29's and found 3-4 actual MiG-15 kills by B-29's v 27 credited victories, and at most 1-2 of those downings actually corresponded to a credited victory, the other 2 gunners downed MiG's they *weren't* credited with! (one victory was over a Chinese MiG, they claimed no B-29's so it's unlikely any other B-29 credits were their a/c, the NK's didn't fly MiG's till after the B-29's gave up operating in daylight).

Besides the difficulty of shooting down a fighter from a bomber (all the more for a MiG-15), formations of bombers had an inherently much more difficult task in eliminating duplicated claims than fighters did. It was, apparently, impossible to do that accurately. And even with benefit of opposing records it would not generally be possible to say which fighter was downed by which gunner, or sometimes whether bombers or friendly fighters were responsible, unless the opposing records say which.

On 'honest' it should IMO go without saying that overclaiming had little to do with honestly; discussions shouldn't get sidetracked on that, and most of all claims should not be taken at face value on the belief that it's somehow disrespecting the claimants to try to find out what really happened. There were surely (and demonstrably in cases) individuals who deliberately overstated their achievements, that's part of the human condition. But it's pretty clear that the virtually across the board phenomenon of overclaiming was due to limitations in human perception under stress, not about honesty. That said, different tactical situations, different verification processes, and probably different cultural tendencies too, resulted in a very wide range of overclaims, which can only be determined by correlation with opposing records.

Joe