B-17 Ball Turret Gunner – WWII’s Most Dangerous Job. Posted: May 15, 2025 | Last updated: May 15, 2025. Suspended beneath the bomber in a cramped, glass sphere—ball turret gunners faced ...

Feature on a B-17 Ball Turret gunner from WWII. Video by Airman 1st Class Sean Danker-Smith. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD ...

Leonard Dowling, who turned 100 on June 21, shared some of his WWII experience about getting shot down in a Liberator bomber ...

William Bieber served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. He was assigned to the 27th Bombardment Squadron, 30th Bombardment Group and headed to the Pacific to serve as a ball turret gunner ...

There’s a famous line by General George S. Patton, immortalized in the movie “Patton” that says “You may be thankful that 20 years from now when you are sitting by the fireplace with your ...

World War II vet finds comfort in ball turret. ... It was the job of the ball turret gunner, armed with a pair of .50-caliber machine guns, to defend the aircraft from attacks below.

The turret in question could be found at the bottom of a B-17 bomber — a plexiglass ball containing two .50-caliber machine guns and a very short gunner. The sphere could pivot to fend off attacking ...

World War II veteran Al Shaw points to a B-17 model that hangs from the ceiling in his Belle Fourche home. The model, which shows a translucent, bubble-like ball turret on the underside, is just ...

Inching up on eight decades since the end of World War II, Air Force veteran Larry Wills, 99, walked onto the taxiway of the Medford airport Tuesday to check out a near-twin to the plane in which ...

Leonard Dowling, a turret gunner on a B24 bomber shot down over Germany in 1944, and liberated in a 700-mile march, celebrated 100 on June 21.

Mazikowski would do his shooting as a ball-turret gunner on a B-24. Assigned to the 98th Bomb Group, 15th Air Force, based in southern Italy, he and his crew would bomb targets in north Italy and ...

Lester Schrenk, who served as an Army B-17 ball turret gunner during World War II, stands in the forest outside Tychowo, Poland, on March 22, 2025, where he was detained as a prisoner of war 80 ...