2024年12月26日 · On November 29, 1943, the skies above Europe roared with the sound of engines as more than 300 B-17 bombers headed for Bremen, a heavily defended industrial city in Germany. Among the crew of the B-17 “Rikki Tikki Tavi” was …

While the ball turret was the most uncomfortable station for aerial gunners, the most dangerous one was that of tail gunners. Often known as “tail end Charlies”, they operated machine guns placed in the bombers’ rear, and were tasked with acting as lookouts and primary defense for attacks from that direction.

The tail gunner on the B-17 “Hell’s Angels” poses for a photo with his twin .50-caliber machine guns between missions. Tucker said that he once had to shake his guns at a USAAF rookie pilot who flew too close to his “office.” Rookie gunners were …

2024年8月30日 · His role was initially as a tail gunner, positioned in the cold, exposed rear of the B-17’s unpressurized fuselage. Dunn’s first mission, on January 29, 1944, was part of the largest attack by the Eighth Air Force on a single target up to that point in the war.

2025年1月22日 · The role of the tail gunner began during the First World War, with early examples including the Sikorsky Ilya Muromets S-25 and the British Handley Page V/1500 bombers. These early designs featured open gunner positions, which left the crew exposed to the elements and enemy fire. During the interwar years, advancements in aircraft technology ...

In December 1943, Stevens joined his 10-man B-17 bomber crew. He was assigned to be the tail gunner and he took to it right away. Everyone else was close enough to other crewmen for conversation—at least over the interphone; the noise from the engines blotted out normal conversation. The tail gunner was all alone.

Nicholas Stephen Alkemade (10 December 1922 – 22 June 1987) was a British tail gunner in the Royal Air Force during World War II who survived a freefall of 18,000 feet (5,490 m) without a parachute after abandoning his out-of-control, burning …

A tail gunner or rear gunner is a crewman on a military aircraft who functions as a gunner defending against enemy fighter attacks from the rear, or "tail", of the plane. The tail gunner operates a flexible machine gun emplacement on either the top or …

The tail gunner protected the rear of an aircraft. The tail gunner compartment was one of the tightest, second to the ball turret underneath the plane. The tail gunner sat on a bicycle type seat in a kneeling position for the majority of the mission.

2023年7月5日 · On November 29, 1943, tail gunner Eugene Paul Moran survived what could have been a horrific crash aboard a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress. While on a bombing run over Germany, his aircraft was shot at and broke in two.