A late friend was a boom operator on the KC-97. Served in a refueling detachment on Midway Island refueling B-47’s between the US and the Far East.
Got nailed one day by the Navy base commander (4-striper) for trapping albatrosses and stenciling the USAF “meatball” on the struggling bird’s wings with a rattle can of blue paint. Apparently the Navy ATC guys were mighty annoyed with the soaring birds “in the pattern” so to speak.
One of the legendary service pranks of all time. I’m sure they were looking for a crappier duty assignment than Midway for him. LOL! I guess Thule, Greenland was all booked?
I had never heard of B-17 external bomb racks before. And no, the B-47 never bombed anything for real. But it did perform a mission where it penetrated the USSR near Murmansk, made it halfway to Moscow, got shot up by MiG 17s and made it back to England. It fired defensive shots with it’s 20mm tail stinger.