Personal Stories Of WWII… More Safety

Issue 34.13

The food that the group mess hall provides to both air crews and ground personnel was probably much better than the infantry on the front lines received. We always complained about the food but not without just cause. We often had chicken on the menu but it was always not fried chicken but cut up chicken in some kind of a stew. That doesn’t sound bad but we often found pieces of bone, feathers and other less appetizing bits. I got so I could never eat mess hall chicken again. It is much like the song. The biscuits in the army are very fine, one rolled off the table and killed a pal of mine. Oh well, on days of flying a long mission,

I couldn’t eat breakfast because my nervous stomach would throw it up and if being able to eat after 10:30 PM, I was too tired to eat so I guess I saved the Army some money. I ate most of my meal sat the Church Army Canteen where they served spam sandwiches. Our group mess hall had one bright shining item. About once per month they would send some KP workers with cream in ice cream freezers up in B-17’s which were (slow timing new engines anyway) to freeze the ice cream. We flew in B-17F’s and G models and there was vast improvement in the G’s over the F’s. Three things that come to mind are “Tokyo” tanks, a chin turret and the waist machine guns that didn’t have to fire out of open windows.

In 1944 there was a directive that interviewed many air crew people about improvements. Some of the things the men asked for were. Better ways to quickly remove escape doors. As it was, some doors had to be opened with pliers or an axe. Some crew members lost their lives because their last breath of oxygen was not enough to sustain them until the door was out. There was a need for more emergency “Walk around oxygen bottles’ put in different parts of the bomber. A big complaint was that each ship needed a few extra parachutes because bullets or shrapnel would often pass through and ruin a parachute. As it was, some crewmen would wrap their FLAK suits around their chest pack chute that was stowed beside them. Many a man who went to bail out found that his chute was in shreds. They may have got their most complaints from lower ball turret gunners. At the aft side of a ball turret is a wooden walkway. If the plane is hit badly so that the power goes off and the guns are pointed in any direction except straight back, there is no way to turn the turret so that the guns are pointing straight back. Then the gunner is doomed because he could never move the turret in azimuth without power. If he did happen to have his guns pointed the correct direction, it would still take about ten minutes to work the clutch and with a three inch crank, crank the guns down and the hatch up, so he could get out.

Even then the gunner may not get out without someone grabbing his chute harness and pulling him up. There was not room in the cramped turret for a chute to be with him, so often he was doomed. Engineers were designing a parachute that was from the gunner’s neck to his thighs.

It could be thin enough to be worn in the turret. If this were in place, he could merely open the hatch and fall out to a better chance of safety. This was one reason why the ball turret position was so hated by crewmen. If these improvements were made, it was too late to do any good.

Sam can be contacted at 801-707-2666.