This photo is from the rear of the bomb bay looking forward towards the flight deck. Note the skinny , narrow walkway between the bombs to access the front of the ship...the pilot/co-pilot were in the upper area and the Navigator / Bombadier had to crawl under the pilots position to reach their small, cramped station....to escape in an emergency situation the Bombadier & Navigator had a pretty slim chance of getting out of their positions with their parachutes. It was a tight squeeze on the ground.....in an in - flight emergency situation add "G-Forces" and a certain amount of panic......... You can see the ill fitting bomb bay doors at the bottom of the photo.....a lot of air would come through the seen gaps at over 150 MPH....
It is my understanding that the nose turret of the 24 was actually mechanized, and not manually operated by a crewmember dedicated to that task. I believe the usual 10th man would have been assigned to the second waist gun. I am not sure this was always the case, but I'm pretty sure this was standard in the post-G models of the aircraft.
ReplyDeleteI'm fairly certain that the B-24 Nose Turret was "manned" and manipulated by a crewman. Access was through a rear door which could only be opened when the turret was facing forward. The B-17 had a mechanized "chin turret" in the lower nose. In many B-24's the lower "Ball Turret" was removed from many planes later in the war. It's usefulness was minimal and removing it allowed more weight in the plane for fuel, ammo,and bombs.
ReplyDeleteA B-24 built by Consolidated had both nose and rear turrets, powered by hydraulic power, driven by an electrical hydraulic pump. To get out of the nose turret, it had to line up with a door in the interior of the nose. If it was out of position and the power was lost, the gunner had to insert a handle in a hole in the bottom of the turret and hand crank the turret into home position. If he was of any size, it was almost impossible to do so due to the cramped space. At least one nose gunner rode down his B-24, along with two men attempting to help get him out.
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