B17

[Matt308]

Jules, hope your recovery has come and gone and your health has returned.

My questions -

* Were the cheek .50s effective and were they kept in the aircraft? If deemed ineffective, was it only by directive that you were forced to keep them installed?

* What was the length of the average maintenance activities on your aircraft between missions? Minus major overhaul (modern day letter checks), was the aircraft typically turned around in a day or so for mission readiness?

* During any of your missions, did you or your crew report seeing aircraft of unknown configurations? What specifics might you recall?

Thanks for your time. I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread.

Matt

[jhor9]

Originally Posted by syscom3

Jhor, Im curious about the training that the pilots had.

Can you give us some idea's on the actual number of hours you and your colleagues actually flew during training. Was it more or less than the official required hours?

How did you get selected to fly B17's?

Thanks!

Syscom

As an aviation cadet I went through primary, basic and advanced.schools.
I had about 60+/- flying hours at each step, along with ground school.
Primary school had about a 1/3 washout rate,basic also had cadets washout.
In primary we flew Stearman PT 17 or 19? Basic was all metal BT 13 (Vultee Vibrator). Advanced we flew AT10 twin engine.Going to twin engine , I knew that I wasn't going to fighters. I asked for A-20's but they needed heavy bomber pilots, I went to B17 transition school, after which I formed a crew.

[FAC]

Jhor9

Thanks for you service and I hope all is well.

Just how cold was it sitting in the pilots position @28,000ft?

My dad flew in the 15th, 2Bomb grp., 20thsqdn, since he didn't talk about it all that much, we never got around to general flying conditions.

Thanks

Doug

[jhor9]

Originally Posted by FAC

Jhor9

Thanks for you service and I hope all is well.

Just how cold was it sitting in the pilots position @28,000ft?

My dad flew in the 15th, 2Bomb grp., 20thsqdn, since he didn't talk about it all that much, we never got around to general flying conditions.

Thanks

Doug

FAC

I don't know if I answered your question ---- At 28000 ft the temp was -50 to -60F. During my tour we didn't have heated suits or flak jackets. To give you a picture--- near or at the target I'd br sweating (adrenalin), condensation from my O2 mask would drip down on my chest leaving about an inch of ice, from the top of my thighs (parachute straps)to the tip of my toes absolutely numb, no feeling at all, operating the rudder pedals were from my head since I had no feeling in my legs and feet. The waist gunners had it worse because of open windows Once I had an orange which I dropped, it shattered in hundreds of pieces
Later in 1944 they had heated suitsand flak jackets

[jhor9]

Originally Posted by Matt308

Jules, hope your recovery has come and gone and your health has returned.

My questions -

* Were the cheek .50s effective and were they kept in the aircraft? If deemed ineffective, was it only by directive that you were forced to keep them installed?

* What was the length of the average maintenance activities on your aircraft between missions? Minus major overhaul (modern day letter checks), was the aircraft typically turned around in a day or so for mission readiness?

* During any of your missions, did you or your crew report seeing aircraft of unknown configurations? What specifics might you recall?

Thanks for your time. I have thoroughly enjoyed this thread.

Matt

Matt.
I don't know the answer to your 1st question

Usually, if there was no major damage the plane was ready to go the next day

The only unusual plane that I saw, near the end of my tour was the ME 262 ,
because of it's tremendous speed

[Matt308]

Thanks, Jules.

My first question was more out of curiosity of whether the bombardier actually used the cheek guns. They seemed from my ill-informed background to be of limited use based upon them being single guns, limited traverse and narrow field of fire (vs nose mounted gun/turret). Thus, if they were viewed as ineffective, did the crews have the leeway to remove them to save weight? Or is any gun considered indispensable and they kept them in.

Thanks for answering my questions.

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

Did you ever fly nightime missions?? If so, what did you prefer, daytime or nighttime missions?

I imagine the flak and fighter presence was worse during the day, but at night was it harder to keep the plane flying in formation and also to fly straight over the target area during the bombing run?

[jhor9]

Originally Posted by Soundbreaker Welch?

Did you ever fly nightime missions?? If so, what did you prefer, daytime or nighttime missions?

I imagine the flak and fighter presence was worse during the day, but at night was it harder to keep the plane flying in formation and also to fly straight over the target area during the bombing run?

The B17s never flew night missions to the best of my knowledge. In our theatre we had wimpy wellingtons who flew night missions, I know that they had heavy losses.

[Erich]

B-17's flew under the RAF 100th special group on blocking German radar and counter moves over the Reich. The 15th AF US flew B-24's at night on spec ops under the 2641st special provisional through 1945 over Yugoslavia, Czech and Austria facing the Luftwaffes NJG 100 Ju 88G-6's

E `

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Thanks for sharing all that with jhor. It truely is amazing what you guys did.

[jhor9]

Originally Posted by Matt308

Thanks, Jules.

My first question was more out of curiosity of whether the bombardier actually used the cheek guns. They seemed from my ill-informed background to be of limited use based upon them being single guns, limited traverse and narrow field of fire (vs nose mounted gun/turret). Thus, if they were viewed as ineffective, did the crews have the leeway to remove them to save weight? Or is any gun considered indispensable and they kept them in.

Thanks for answering my questions.

Matt.
Any gun that was in the plane was useful. I once tried unsuccessfully to use the flare gun to shoot at an enemy fighter

[Matt308]

Awwwwwww!!!! You can't stop there!!!

Please tell that story! I'm dying here. Feel free to embellish until your hearts content.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Yes this story is too interesting to pass up.

[jhor9]

Originally Posted by Matt308

Awwwwwww!!!! You can't stop there!!!

Please tell that story! I'm dying here. Feel free to embellish until your hearts content.

Matt,

About halfway through my tour, I checked out my copilot, he was flying left seat and I was in the right seat with nothing to do. Our "large" formation was qbout 35-40 planes. My plane was on the extreme right side, This incident took about 5-6 seconds. I saw an enemy fighter coming at me from 4 o'clock
I could see 20mm shells coming closer and closer. I had to do something. I remembered the flare gun with a shell in it just overhead and a litttle to the left, I reached up and tried to pull it down to shoot at him,In the heat of excitement I forgot that it was screwed in a half a turn.. Fortunately the fighter missed me, as he passed under my wing tip, I saw him waving at me , he thought that I was waving at him.

When I got back to base I related the incident to the S2 officer, he sent the item to hometown papers, several weeks later I received clippings from my folks
"Nazi pilot and Jewish pilot, gladiators at war, salute each other in the heat of combat"

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Wow that is crazy!