Issue 26.12
One mission that we flew on over Germany during WW2 was different from all the others. This was to a war production plant near the city of Munich. I was the lower ball turret gunner on Robert Parnell’s crew. On every mission when our radio operator, Wally Sanchez, was not sending or receiving, on the bomb run or in flak concentrations, he would spend his time shoving bundles of chaff out of a special slot cut in the fuselage near his desk.
As all radio operators did this, the sky would be filled with this metal strips which was no different looking than Christmas tree tinsel. Our briefings told us that this saved us 10% losses from ground fire. I could never figure out why when we bombed by radar, our bombs would not be 10% less accurate. On this particular mission to Munich, our bomb group was the lead group in the bomber train. We carried no bombs but instead our bomb bay, radio room and waist area was crammed with boxes of chaff. When we got to the I P (initial point) which is the start of the bomb run, the radio operator, top turret gunner and waist gunner all connected to walk around oxygen bottles and proceeded to shove all those cardboard boxes through the camera well and into the slipstream which caught each box and slammed them into the back of my ball turret which would then break open and skater as my guns were pointing back to 6 o’clock. As each carton struck my turret I could feel it shudder and shake. It was a terrible feeling and I must have aged 10 years that hour. I kept thinking that the ball turret on a B-17 was designed to be able to easily jettison with three cast iron dogs to be knocked off with a hammer or axe. This was in case of a wheels-up landing, if the ball turret was still in place the B-17 would break in two. I wanted to get out of my ball turret but Bob Parnell, our pilot, ordered me to stay in place in case of an enemy fighter attack.
Once on a later mission, I could see solid objects whizzing past me beneath our ship. I couldn’t see above the horizon to see for myself what was happening. I thought perhaps someone up ahead was throwing out cases of chaff so I asked those who could see what was happening.
Parnell, our pilot, said “A B-17 in the lead squadron took a bad hit by flak. It looks like he is trying to hold on but he won’t make it because his plane is breaking up with chunks flying off.
Don’t worry, I’m staying clear from the falling debris.” That unfortunate B-17 then blew up and went down in a thousand pieces. We didn’t see anyone get out.