B-17s in England, WW II

As a docent in a B-17g bomber museum here in Tucson I had the privilege of speaking and making friends with old air crews of B-17s from the war who visited the museum. The 390th bomb group had acquired the airplane and tricked it out to exact specifications of the war-time bird in the ETO. It was perfect.  In my extended time there, I came to know every square inch of the aircraft, from the cockpit instrumentation to the tail guns. 

     The fascination for me was the interaction with the guests. Air crew members covered the gambit from tail gunners to pilots and everyone in between.  I worked with pilots and ball turret gunners, who were of course, pretty small guys. Surprised as I was to learn they weren't all shooting down there. They spent a lot of time, taking pictures of older bombing sites to assess damage.

                                                                                                  

Shooting for him was done mostly approaching the target, over and coming out of the target. The res of the time, he joked, was in intensive prayer.
      A full Colonel was on the staff, nearly 90 at the time. He had 3 airplanes shot out from under him, and he completed 32 missions. On one, he brought his 17 back with over 520 bullet holes in it. None of the crew had a scratch, no one was wounded, a minor miracle, said the flight surgeon. This same pilot flew another airplane back with 3 of the 4 engines out - feathered. Luckily, the one working was an inboard #2, the source of cabin heat inside the airplane. On that flight, he just made the end of the runway of Col Jimmy Stewart's air base. He didn't get to meet him, he was asleep.
     In about that same time frame, one pilot told me, Clark Gable was flying side gunner and Andy Rooney was strapped into the navigation department of another B17 on the Schweinfurt mission.
     There was a tail gunner from Montana who wandered in one day, one of the largest men I ever met. A farmer, he wore those Levi overalls. He looked like he just climbed down off of a Massey Ferguson. Clarence was at the back end of the B-17 fiddling with the twin .50 caliber machine guns, moving them back and forth. I found out he lied about his age and enlisted at 16. He was huge, easily fooling the enlistment people. He volunteered for air duty, got into the 17, and how he squeezed into the tail section is beyond me. He fooled his pilot for year, downing 6 German ME 109s. When he turned the legal age of 18, they found out about him, came to him and said, " we don't know what to do with you, arrest you, send you home, or promote you for your six kills," his CO said.
    "I'd like to stay, " Clarence told him. So, he did and went on to down another 13 enemy planes by the end of the war.
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