B17 Waist Gunner training video

[TDA]

My Grandfather flew a B-24 and got shot down. I remember he ran into the guy who was his tail gunner at thanksgiving dinner at a yacht club in Sarasota Fla in maybe 1987 or ‘88, and the last time they had seen each other was over France.

[Gater]

One of my uncles was a B-17 crewman with 8th AF. His aircraft was shot down by a Me262 jet at the end of the war. He and most of his crew bailed out and he survived to be captured (not all of his crew did). I recently read an account of the shootdown from the perspective of the German pilots...it is brutal stuff. The advantage the jets had in speed and armament was enormous, although the Me262 had its own weaknesses (particularly on take off and landing). It took huge stones to saddle up and fly into the face of that.