An Aerial Gunner's Perspective of the B-24 Armament

An Aerial Gunner's perspective of the B-24 armament ....

My name is Joseph Taddonio, from Saugus, Massachusetts, a retired Doctor of Optometry and formerly a WW-2 Aerial Gunner/Assistant Radio Operator. I flew 40 combat missions in B-24 Liberator bombers - from the ‘D’ model to the ‘J’ model and also trained on the ‘C’ model during the 3-month phase of combat training in the spring of 1943. My crew was led by the pilot, M.Chester Serafin, from Oil City, Pennsylvania, the same town as Col."Gabby" Gabreski, the WW-2 Ace of Aces.

I flew 22 missions with the 376th BG, 515th Sqdn, as part of the 9th AAF in Lybia, the Middle East, 12th AAF in Tunisia, North Africa, 15th AAF in Italy and 18 missions with the 93rd BG, 328th Sqdn, 8th AAF in England. We were transferred to England to lead shuttle missions to Italy and back ..but that's another story ..!

We were the "M.C.Serafin" crew - also known as "Satan's Kids". The ship in which we flew most of our Mediterranean based missions was # 85,"Joey Uptown". It had the 515th sqdn insignia one side of the nose ..3 small devils riding a bomb - the first devil is thumbing his nose-(5) - the second devil is hitching a ride-(1) and the third is thumbing his nose-(5); 5-1-5 or 515th bomb sqdn -- and we are so listed in the 376th BG row on the side bomb bay door of the "All American" B-24.

All of the following is from experience and not from any Air Force armament manual.

I'd like to talk about the B-24 Liberator from an aerial gunner's point of view concerning the armament as the plane progressed from its early combat days to the ship that is out there on this airport- tarmac. That ship, the B-24-J, evolved through many needed changes discovered while actually in combat. Think of the men flying combat in 1942 and early 1943. Think of the perils they endured to finally having a formidable ship evolve.. as is the All American B-24-J .

Let's start with the B-24-C model. This model was used for the first Ploesti raid in June of 1942, a raid that did no damage to the oil fields but instead alerted the enemy that Ploesti could be reached; and so the Germans had over a year to prepare for the low-level mission of August 1, 1943 using the B-24-D model. The C and D were very similar with a few exceptions: the C model had 5 flexible guns - those were the hand held guns - 3 in the nose framework of metal and plexiglas and 2 out the open waist windows, one right and one left. Ammunition for the C model had aluminum cans on the sides of the fuselage containing 30 round each - about 12 cans per gun. They had to be exchanged after a 2 second burst or so because the 50 caliber guns fired 850 rounds per minute or about 15 to 16 rounds per second. The D model had 6 flexible guns with boxes of 200-250 rounds on the side walls with the ammo fed into the guns by flexible belts of aluminum- as you can see in the waist of the All American B-24-J. The nose had the flexible guns of both models set into ball joints - one in the center pointed ahead at 12 o'clock manned by the Bombardier, one set higher up pointing to 11 o'clock on the port side and another pointing to 1 o'clock on the starboard side - both manned by the Navigator. Neither of these men had much knowledge of aerial gunnery and the enlisted aerial-gunners weren't too happy about this scenario. The plane should have a nose gunner's position now that the fighter attacks were becoming frontal.

The top turret for the C and D models was built by the Martin Co.and was suspended from the top of the plane rotating 360 degrees, self sufficient with its own ammo and oxygen leaving some room below it and around it on the flight deck unlike the top turret of the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber which was operated by a turn-table configuration that rotated the turret and the gunner sitting in a sling seat. The B-24 turret had a can of 425 rounds for the left gun and another of 450 rounds for the right gun - due to the control box and motors for the electric power, oxygen and intercom on the left side. The oxygen bottles were under the seat and had to be refilled by the radio-operator or anyone on the flight deck - or else the gunner had to drop the seat, come out and do the refill himself. On one mission our top turret gunner Wesley Hardison, the assistant-engineer gunner from N.C., had the pleasure of kicking the Wing C.O., a General, in the butt to signal him for a refill of those bottles. He got away with it and never stopped bragging about it!

Back in the waist: the C model had a belly gun position built by the Bendix Co.. The C model tunnel gunner sat or knelt beside the turntable looking down thru a periscope sight, red on the direction dial for starboard side and green for the port side. I never actually saw one because they were removed as definitely being useless. The D model had a wooden cover over this pit to prevent anyone from bursting down and through it. The escape hatch, located just before the tail turret, was made of ribbed plexiglas, as the nose was, and had a ball socket in the center for a flexible tunnel gun - again utterly useless, especially if the hatch had to be used in a hurry - so it stayed lashed to the fuselage wall. We did use it for spare parts on a mission when my waist gun, with too much headspace, ruptured a cartridge casing that stuck in the barrel. I field stripped the waist gun while Paul Allen, the Armorer gunner, from Wichita, Kansas, did the same to the tunnel gun; the waist gun was rebuilt and returned to action. This was during the Nov 2,1943 mission to the Weiner Neustdat Messerschmitt factory in Austria ..but that's another story ...! The tail turret, built by Consolidated Co., was hydraulic-pressure operated and became useless if the ship lost hydraulic fluid and power from flak or fighter damage. It had hand cranks for rotating the turret and raising or lowering the guns but believe me, this was very difficult; the guns were then fired by a foot switch. The left gun had a can of 425 rounds and the right gun had a can of 450 rounds – the difference was due to the presence of the control box and motors. The turret was made of steel; had a one inch thick plate glass front window laced with chicken wire and was said to be "bulletproof" but it just prevented shattered glass from flying. If the glass was hit and couldn't be seen thru, the gunner could loosen two thumb screws and kick it out. The All American's tail turret is similar to this but for the ammo load. With the fuselage increased in length for ship trim and balance due to the nose turret, the later B-24-Js had boxes of ammo placed in the waist, fed to the tail turret guns by booster motors so finally this turret had almost 1,000 rounds per gun! Unbelievable! .. definitely over-kill as this made the plane that much heavier. Notice these same type of ammo boxes inside the All American B-24-J as you pass through.

In 18 missions with the 8th AAF, my crew had only four or five enemy fighter attacks. The superior numbers of escort consisted of the P-47, P-38 and later the P-51 ..but that's another story!

About July to August of 1943 a ball turret was being built into the D model inserted in the waist at the original tunnel gun position to become the B-24-Modified-D model and in August of 1943, it became the B-24-E model.

A B-24-G model came out briefly (about 125 were built) some with and some without the ball turret; some with and some without a nose turret. In August 1943 the M.C.Serafin crew, now at Salina Air Base in Kansas, took charge of a B-24-E model fresh off the assembly line of Henry Ford's Detroit Willow Run plant, guns wrapped in paper and with a glistening coat of desert-pink camouflage paint; the Sahara Desert sands are pinkish and not the same color as our stateside beaches. No longer did we have to guess as to our overseas Theatre!

I'll not go into the long 'northern route' overseas flight we took to get to Cairo, Egypt, the headquarters of the 9th USAFIME (United States Air Force in Middle East) also known as the 9th Bomber Command of the Desert Air Force because .. that's another story! Sent back westward, we passed over the horrific remains of the battlefield of El-Alamein to arrive at Bengasi, Lybia, and join the Liberandos, the 376th Bomb Group, 515th Bomb Sqdn. The 376th was based at Berka-2 located on the edge of the Great Sahara desert with a corrugated metal runway and with white English-India 'Gunga-Din' type tents for our living quarters.

On August 1st,1943, the 376th had led Tidal Wave, the low-level Ploesti, Romania, oil fields mission. ... and that's really a story! Our crew arrived at Bengasi in the first week of Sept 1943, a month late for the Ploesti mission - thank heaven!

Unlike the B-17, the ball turret couldn't suspend down from the bottom of a B-24 - it would hit the ground - so a hydraulic system was installed to raise the ball turret up into the body; it would be lowered when airborne. The ball turret had its own ammo - the left gun had a can of 425 rounds and a can of 450 rounds for the right gun. The gun sight was special - when a fighter was framed in the reticule - wing-tip to wing-tip - the sight adjusted for the distance, bullet drop and deflection.

For the flexible guns and the other turrets, a gunner usually had to know the wingspan of the enemy plane but I used 50 ft for any single-engine fighter such as the ME-109 or the FW-190 and used 100 ft for any two-engine attacker such as the ME-110 or the Ju-88.

These gun-sights were used in order to calculate the distance of the enemy fighter by its position in the radius of the gun-sight and also used for the deflection which depended on the angle of attack. Each sight was different: the Martin top turret had a 30 RAD sight, the Consolidated tail turret had a 60 RAD sight and the flexible guns had a 90 RAD sight - one of the reasons a gunner usually preferred to operate the same turret.

We had been trained on an A-frame with a ball turret and this new B-24-E was our first view of an actual ball turret in a ship. Paul Allen and I practiced all the way to Egypt since we would be alternating missions in the ball turret. That new plane was taken from us on our arrival at Benghazi and we never saw it again.

Being a new crew, we flew in the oldest B-24-D models - and I mean old - no ball turret and some of these planes had the old constant-flow oxygen high pressure system where pure oxygen was sent into a bladder suspended from the nose of the oxygen mask. The moisture from one's breath - and nose - dripped into this bladder and froze. When oxygen was sucked up - so were those ice crystals.. " YEEUCK" .. and..the bladder had to be removed and emptied of ice or not enough oxygen could flow. The Navigator called out the altitude so the regulator would be adjusted every 5,000 ft from 10,000 to 20,000 ft up and down and, when not needed, one had to be sure the system valves were closed or lose all the oxygen. This system was dangerous because oxygen under pressure is explosive .. or could become a blow-torch in case of fire. The later D models and other newer models had a low-pressure demand system that was much better. It mixed the oxygen with the outside air supplying nitrogen and other needed chemicals for better breathing. It had a lever to switch-over if only pure oxygen was needed - as when my crew was briefed to carry poison mustard gas bombs during the Normandy Invasion of France. We weren't one of the final crews chosen but others were ready on June 6, 1944 ..but..that's another story !

The B-24-E was, to us, the ultimate bomber - RIGHT ?..WRONG ! Some one overseas had cut the nose off a D model and installed a Consolidated hydraulic tail turret. IT WORKED.. however the plane was nose-heavy and difficult to trim. Back in the USA the engineers got the message, lengthened the nose and fuselage, and about the end of Oct 1943, the B-24-H began to arrive - still in desert pink - and though we were now based in Tunisia as part of the 12th AAF. Very few of the B-24-H models were made with the Consolidated nose turret. It made the ship nose heavy, difficult to trim and was a gas guzzler. A lighter electrically operated turret replaced the hydraulic turret in the later B-24-H frames. The All-American was such a model and is listed as a B-24-J. By Dec 1943, the B-24-Js began arriving overseas in great numbers and several B-24 Liberator bomber groups were now based in Italy. This model had the Emerson electrically operated turret ... light and self contained with its own ammunition.

M.C. Serafin crew and B24-H model I am under the number “9“

B-24-J Emerson nose turret

When I flew with the 8th AAF, I rode this turret in the lead ship of the Section-A formation. It was a bit nerve racking to be out ahead of the entire formation completely exposed and surrounded by only a plexiglas dome. The Bombardier and Navigator complained that when I rotated the turret, the nose compartment was drafty and colder; the pilot complained that the movement of the turret and guns threw the ship off trim; so there I sat with guns pointing down for the entire mission. No enemy fighters came as we had plenty of escort.

Eventually the B-24 progressed to the ‘L’ and ‘M’ models with a more advanced nose turret, tail turret and twin-50s waist guns but they arrived too late and in meager quantity to matter much to the outcome of the aerial war.

B-24-L I firmly believe that the ‘J’ model, similar to the All American B-24, won the war in Europe.

Joseph Taddonio - ([email protected]) Suntaug Estates 9 Broadway, Unit 211 Saugus, MA. 01906 ......