Word: turretful
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Sailors on a trim, haze-grey U.S. destroyer cheered as two seamen pulled away the stencil to show off a new decoration on the side of a forward gun turret. It was the white silhouette of a medium "Tiger" German tank, official recognition that their ship had destroyed one of the enemy tanks which gave Major General Terry Allen's "Fighting First" Division a rough time during the initial hours at Gela...
Another peeled off. This time the gun got the range, sending tracers and explosives that seemed to go right into the fuselage. He passed out of sight. All the guns were firing now-from the nose, top turret, the waist and the ball turret in the belly. The tail gunner reported attack after attack...
...Forces his diminutive stature made him a natural for gunner in the cramped ball turret suspended from the belly of a 6-17 Flying Fortress. His nickname was "Snuffy...
...during a raid on the Nazi U-boat pens at St.-Nazaire, his bomber. Fortress 649, was badly hit and burst into flame. The fire sweeping the fuselage drove the radio operator and both waist gunners to "bail out. Emerging from his turret, Snuffy cast aside his own parachute, tackled the fire with extinguishers and water bottles. When he had used them up, he beat out the last flames with his hands. Meantime, he had contrived to man both waist guns in turn, helped to beat off harrying Focke-Wulfs and given first aid to the wounded tail gunner...
...intensive training ("Our planes were in the air at 7 a.m. each morning and sometimes we'd still be at it at 10 p.m.") did not bother him. He thought the B-25 (North America's medium-range Mitchell bomber, stripped of its radio, bottom gun-turret and Norden bombsight) was a lively ship...