Posted on 08/23/2022 5:54:19 AM PDT by daniel1212
See this waist gunner in a B-17, flying at 28,000 feet? It’s -42 degrees below zero heading for -60 below and his fingers will start to freeze in one minute if unprotected! And if his M2 .50 jams, or needs to have a new ammo belt, to continue to protect his segment of the bomber’s defensive “box”, he WILL have to take off those gloves, and he WILL lose the tips of his fingers, guaranteed. And if this young man, aprox. 20 years old, ever gets back home to Yourtown, USA…he won't have the tips of his fingers and all of his toes.
“Deep frostbite (the most severe kind) means that all the layers of your skin and the tissues beneath it have frozen significantly. When this happens, your skin turns white or a bluish gray, and is numb to feelings of cold or pain. It may be stiff and rubbery when touched, and your joints and muscles may have difficulty working. After rewarming the skin, fluid-filled blisters may appear within 24-48 hours, and the damaged skin will turn black.”-Healthpartners
“Severe frostbite has longer-term affects and requires immediate medical attention – sometimes involving hospitalization. In the most critical cases, tissues are seriously damaged and amputation may be needed if blood flow to the skin is permanently blocked. In other instances of severe frostbite, patients may avoid amputation, but experience lifelong numbness in the affected areas.”-Healthpartners.
My mom’s cousin, Fritz, from southern Minnesota, was the pilot of a B-24 in the ETO, and flew 25 missions…he came home missing several finger tips and toes, not to flak, but to frostbite.
(Above: Famous photo from Life, Sept 1943. of some B-17 waist gunners. You can see the electrical wires coming down powering their electrically heated clothes and the oxygen tubes plugged in to the wall. Exposed flesh freezes in a matter of mere minutes. Toes were esp. hard to keep warm, and Fritz talked about the agony of just sitting there in the pilots seat, his feet on the controls, unable to even stamp his feet as the rest of the crew constantly did. ...
Bomber missions to Germany from England were often 8–10 hours long and the planes were unheated and open to the outside air as the pictures shows…and just imagine how hard it is to complete tasks in that uncomfortable clothing — from the mask to the boots.
The crew wore electrically heated suits and heavy gloves that provided some protection against temperatures that could dip to -60 degrees below zero…but often short-circuited. Once above 10,000 feet they donned oxygen masks as the bombers continued to climb to their operational level that could be as high as 29,000–32,000 feet. Approaching the target, each crew member would additionally don a 32-pound flak suit and a steel helmet designed to protect against anti-aircraft fire. Parachutes were too bulky to be worn all the time, but crewmen did wear a harness that allowed them to quickly clip on their parachute when needed…(but, oh, yeah, about that parachute: Bomber crewmen weren’t trained to jump out of airplanes with parachute. They were simply given instructions.) ...
(Above: One of the special features of the Ball Turret Gunner was extra cold…hanging down in the 200 mph air stream at those high altitudes, and that turret, though well-built, wasn’t “hermetically sealed”…it was very drafty and extra cold. A miserable crew position, not to mention lonely.
(Above: Great illustration of a B-17F, showing the bright yellow portable oxygen canisters crew members needed whentheyb disconnected to the main oxygen lines to move about the ship, and many more aspects of a B-17 that kept the crew alive at 30,000 feet,) ...
"I'm sorry, sir, I've been hit..."
Here’s the actually story of one B-17 crew member:
Joseph Hallock was a 22-year-old First LT serving as the bombardier aboard "Ginger" a B-17 flying out of its base north of London. Hallock dropped out of college to enlist in the Army Air Force in June 1942. After training as a bombardier, he arrived in England in November 1943 and began his combat career on the last day of the year:...
"“In early 1944 the number of missions required to complete his tour of duty was extended from 25 to 30."
"My first raid was on December thirty-first, over Ludwigshaven. ....
After a while, with the emergency oxygen running out, we had to come down to ten thousand feet, which is dangerously low. We saw four fighters dead ahead of us, somewhere over France, and we thought we were licked. After a minute or two we discovered that they were P-47s, more beautiful than any woman who ever lived. I said, 'I think now's the time for a short prayer, men. Thanks, God, for what you've done for us.'"
“The twenty-eighth [mission]was on Berlin, and I was scared damn near to death. It was getting close to the end
Yet victory has its own tests, and few are victorious over prosperity. The progressively liberal post WW2 generations have produced a country - including its Woklitary - that almost begs to be conquered. .
along with The Pentagon Forming a Diversity and Inclusion Office, and
allowing transgenders to serve in the military,
and with the Pentagon even ensuring free gender reassignment surgery for active military personnel,
with Army mandatory training now including training Army personnel to know what to do in such scenarios as when a soldier who was "assigned" a biological gender at birth says he/she identifies as another gender, and lives as such in off-duty hours, but is not requesting to be treated as such while on duty, versus if such later requests to be identified as according to their chosen gender during duty hours, and/or experiences increased distress relating to his/her gender identity;
while apparently as part of the Naval Sea Systems Command Inclusion & Engagement Council’s Diversity Team's video series called “NAVSpEAks,” the Navy posts video on "the importance of using correct pronouns as well as polite etiquette when you may not be sure of someone's pronouns"
and the Air Force being with WOKEism in creating 'LGBTQ' and 'Indigenous Nations Equality' Focus Groups,
and also authorizing the use of gender pronouns in signature blocks,
and hosting a drag show at festival at Joint Base Langley-Eustis (JBLE) on July, 2022, which also includes a poem on “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,”
and the CIA funds a 'cisgender millennial with anxiety disorder' campaign, and with the
with the former posting rainbow bullets, and the latter a rainbow colored arm and hand in salute (essentially to the flag of Sodom)
along with the Navy's first all gay U.S. Navy helicopter crew,
to lower fitness standards for women
while nearly half of female soldiers are still failing the new Army Fitness Test,
yet calling for Increased Diversity and More Women in Combat,
and changing its song to be gender-neutral,
and Forcing Marines to Make Boot Camp Coed,
and feeding cadets cultural Marxist propaganda about gender and masculinity therein,
to its new diversity and inclusion operation from West Point
and for its Special Operations Command ,
while showing a rapid response readiness to engage in online combat with the likes of Tucker Carson and other such enemies
thus nuking Jesus-themed candies on an Air Force bases
as well as the Pentagon ordering a company to stop making faith-based Dog Tags,
and prohibiting service members from “liking” or reposting "extremist" views on social media (depending on all the circumstances involved) as part of its prohibition against actively engaging in extremist activities,
yet allowing turbans and hijabs in the Air Force,
while working to rid the military of “extremism”
such as the head of the US Space Force unit being fired and put under investigation for criticizing Critical Race Theory
And said, O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God: for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens. (Ezra 9:6)
Then there those who were tortured by the Communists.
Mostly I fear.
What gender does that abomination identify as? If I was forced to serve with something like that I would change my gender identity to ‘civilian’.
Indeed and the always ready to help the mama boys out oh the pain of a broken nail.....................................
My dad was a tailgunner in B24s out of Spinazolla Italy. I miss him a lot.
My father’s brother was the bombardier noted in this section of a B17 book. He and all his brothers served, 2 never came home.
On August 26, 1942 one of eight B-17s that took off from Mareeba Airfield at 4:45am piloted by Captain John Chiles with co-pilot Lt. Jim Dieffenderfer on a bombing mission against a Japanese convoy off Milne Bay. The magneto on engine no. 1 was dead and during take off blew a spark plug on engine no. 2 but proceeded on the mission anyway. The weather inbound to the target was horrible with a ceiling of only 2,000’ or less. Over the target between 6:30am to 7:45am, the formation bombed from roughly 1,500’ and experienced accurate anti-aircraft fire from the ships. A shell exploded above this B-17’s nose wounding both crew members inside. Bombardier Sgt. Earl W. Snyder was hit in the head by shrapnel. Although mortally wounded, he managed to drop their four 500lbs bombs before expiring. Navigator 1st Lt. David Hirsch’s left leg was nearly severed by shrapnel. Engineer Sgt Wathen Cody left the top turret to investigate and found Snyder dead and applied a tourniquet to Hirsch’s leg and dragged him to the flight deck and returned safely. During the attack, B-17F 41-24354 sustained a direct hit from anti-aircraft fire and crashed near the convoy
The standard adiabatic laps rate for moist air is 3°F per 1000 ft of altitude. So if Berlin was 50°F, at 28,000 it would be about about -34°F. Even if it was 70°F in Berlin, it still would be 10 below zero (-ish) at mission altitude.
And if you’re old enough to remember the era before when things like battery-powered socks became reliable, you’re probably amazed everybody in the crew didn’t freeze to death on every mission.
Air crewmen must’ve thought Christmas had come early when the B-29 arrived because from that point on all bombers were pressurized. Just like the modern airliner, the crew rode inside a sealed and climate-controlled “pressure vessel,” and maintaining the integrity of the pressure vessel meant that all the defensive guns had to be controlled remotely, not by an airman in a heated suit and standing in an open window.
They also flew the first land-based bombing mission to Mainland Japan (after Doolittle's carrier-based mission to Tokyo). He later posted to Tinian and was preparing for further bombing missions when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were atom-bombed.
Fascinating stuff! Didn't know, for example, that conventional bombing continued even after Hiroshima and Nagasaki - with, e.g., 37 aircraft in a daylight mission dropping 902 500-lb pounds of GPs onto Hikari, Japan on Aug. 14; their last mission. 99.5% of the bombs hit within 1,000 ft of their target; this was described as "probably the best precision bombing record in the annals of WW II."
My respect for the U.S. flyers of WW II has only risen!
Regards,
Wouldn't be allowed in today's Air Force.
My favorite: "Big, Ain't It?"
Regards,
Chosin Reservoir survivor lives down the street. He’s a tough man.Just a couple of years ago, I saw him chasing down two teens who stole a garden stake from his yard. I was ready to assist, but saw quickly that he had things under control. The kid’s body language indicated to me that they were scared shitless.
Chosin Reservoir survivor lives down the street. He’s a tough man.Just a couple of years ago, I saw him chasing down two teens who stole a garden stake from his yard. I was ready to assist, but saw quickly that he had things under control. The kid’s body language indicated to me that the little bitches were scared shitless.
“My father’s brother”
You mean your uncle?
Submariners did more.
My Dad was part of the B-17 ground crew for 8th Air Force - They were the first troops in England. He told me a few stories about pulling the wounded or dead crew out of the wrecked planes. He had nightmares for many years...
My dad ‘crewed’ Lancasters and P51 planes. He told me some horror stories
At my Father’s funeral I met old guy who was soft spoken and really needed his cane. He told me he served in Korea.
A little later he told me on his 2nd day after arriving in Korea, he was on a tuck being shipped out to a small enclave up north, it was the Chosin Reservoir.
He spent most of the rest of his time in the military being put back together in a military hospital, after he and the rest of his fellow marines had to fight their way back out.
My late father in law Calvin (1923-2003), a B-24 waist gunner during winter-early spring 43-44, preferred not to talk about the carnage, mostly the training, and life on the bases. He grew up the youngest of 7 brothers (plus 2 sisters) who taught him how to hunt, how to shoot, and how to clean a gun. He said his 50 never froze at those extreme temps when entering combat, because he would take it apart and clean the grease off before departure. He saw others’guns freeze, after warning them to clean the grease off them.
His fellow waist gunner insisted that Cal had a super-human aim, and was credited with seven kills. Cal wouldn’t talk about it. He would just say, “I made it home,... many didn’t.” Among the awards for a crew member that completed 30 missions, he also received the DFC. When the subject his service came up at family gatherings, my mother in law would mention the DFC, and Cal would blow it off, “Aww, everybody got that. My awards are being alive, and having a family”. I miss him. He was one of the most honest men I’ve ever known.
My mother’s only brother, a 24 tail-gunner perished over Germany on his first mission. In my father in law’s later years, upon seeing our government become more corrupt (he had kissenger, pappy bush, and puppet clintoon pegged), one day said to me in a somber voice, “Son, I fear your uncle and many others died for nothing”.
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