RE: Twelve O'Clock High (or, Thirty Seconds Over Kyle Field)
Been on a B-17 ride before. Pretty amazing aircraft. Sitting at the waist gunner positions you could imagine a Me-109 coming right at you. The Ball Turret impressed me most. You had to be under 5'6" tall to fit inside and you were curled up in a ball underneath the aircraft with two .50 caliber machine guns beside you for five hours at a time.
RE: Twelve O'Clock High (or, Thirty Seconds Over Kyle Field)
That is pretty cool.
Been waiting for a B-24 to offer rides in the area again.
(Diamond Lil will be flying from Lancaster, Texas on game day. *sigh*)
My father worked with both, in England, but there were more B-24s than B-17s in his bomb group.
(This post was last modified: 08-14-2013 11:19 PM by Grungy.)
RE: Twelve O'Clock High (or, Thirty Seconds Over Kyle Field)
(08-14-2013 11:14 PM)Grungy Wrote: That is pretty cool.
Been waiting for a B-24 to offer rides in the area again.
(Diamond Lil will be flying from Lancaster, Texas on game day. *sigh*)
My father worked with both, in England, but there were more B-24s than B-17s in his bomb group.
I remember a B-17 flyover at HRS.
My father was a nose gunner on a B-24.
He and his crew had to bail out over Yugoslavia and were rescued by the Partisans.
He was a Goldwater Republican with a soft spot for Tito.
(This post was last modified: 08-15-2013 09:27 AM by JSA.)
RE: Twelve O'Clock High (or, Thirty Seconds Over Kyle Field)
(08-15-2013 07:59 AM)JSA Wrote:
(08-14-2013 11:14 PM)Grungy Wrote: That is pretty cool.
Been waiting for a B-24 to offer rides in the area again.
(Diamond Lil will be flying from Lancaster, Texas on game day. *sigh*)
My father worked with both, in England, but there were more B-24s than B-17s in his bomb group.
I remember a B-17 flyover at HRS.
My father was a nose gunner on a B-24.
He and his crew had to bail out over Yugoslavia and were rescued by the Partisans.
He was a Goldwater Republican with a soft spot for Tito.
The 9th Air Force raids into Ploesti and the Balkans suffered horrible losses.
RE: Twelve O'Clock High (or, Thirty Seconds Over Kyle Field)
(08-15-2013 08:22 PM)WMD Owl Wrote:
(08-15-2013 07:59 AM)JSA Wrote:
(08-14-2013 11:14 PM)Grungy Wrote: That is pretty cool.
Been waiting for a B-24 to offer rides in the area again.
(Diamond Lil will be flying from Lancaster, Texas on game day. *sigh*)
My father worked with both, in England, but there were more B-24s than B-17s in his bomb group.
I remember a B-17 flyover at HRS.
My father was a nose gunner on a B-24.
He and his crew had to bail out over Yugoslavia and were rescued by the Partisans.
He was a Goldwater Republican with a soft spot for Tito.
The 9th Air Force raids into Ploesti and the Balkans suffered horrible losses.
My father was in the 15th.
He was the middle of three boys. His older brother was a waist gunner on a B-17 and was wounded on his first mission. His younger brother was an aeronautical engineer and was classified as an essential civilian employee. He wanted to enlist, but my other uncle wouldn't let him.
I don't know if my father witnessed this first hand or heard about. But Jimmy Stewart was a B-24 pilot in the 15th. He was planning a bombing raid and selecting potential targets.
"Well, well here's the factory where they make the ball bearings. And, and here's the railroad yard where they ship them, uh, uh. And here's the factory where they build the planes. *** ****, let's bomb it!"
/
Twelve O'Clock High (or, Thirty Seconds Over Kyle Field)
