My father, who just passed away last April, was a ball turret gunner on a B-17 in WWII. Flew 28 missions, based out of Italy. Didn’t talk about it too much, but did comment that it was very difficult to track the German fighters, let alone hit anything. The couple of times they saw the Messerschmitt ME-262, that his turret hydraulics could even turn fast enough to track it.
I salute your dad. The ball turret is the worst of all gunner positions as you can’t even stand up during the flight. Just asking, I thought it was 25 missions before a discharge?
(Briol was wifey’s uncle) This was a great little book.