Inside the B-17 Ball Turret

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My uncle died in his ball turret in a B17 named Leap Year Lady in 1944 when it was hit with shrapnel. This video helped me understand what he dealt with. I have the utmost respect for him. He was 26 years old.

Holy hell the technology for this was nuts. Especially when you consider it was the 40's.

I guess the gunner had to forego his parachute so he would have room for his BALLS to fit in the turret.... The courage and bravery of these men can NEVER be under estimated....

My uncle Andrew was a Mighty 8th B17 ball turret gunner. His plane was hit and went down after a successful bomb run over the loading docks of Palermo, Sicily. He was able to parachute only to be machine gunned while floating. He was 27. Thank you for this wonderful video. I always knew he died a true hero but this educational film shows me how extraordinarily so!

My neighbor, a Seminole native American 5'7", was a B-17 ball turret gunner,lived to be over100, served in the Pacific theatre the entire war told me not much room in there.This vid proves it.RIP good buddy.

Always heard that the ball turret was the worst seat in the house but never knew the specifics on how bad it would truly be. Fantastic video

My grandpa was a bellygunner, trained in B-17s but after coming overseas they trimmed the crews from 10 down to 9 and he ended up being shipped down to Italy and working on B-24s most of the time. One of my favorite memories was when we found a B-17 and B-24 at a municipal airport for Memorial day and he took us through both and pointed out lots of cool bits of trivia. This video was amazing, thank you.

Had absolutely no idea such a targeting computer even existed back then, much less inside the ball-turret.

My uncle was a ball turret gunner in a B-17 that flew 111 missions with zero casualties. He flew 35 total missions in a few different Forts but Li'l Audrey was his main plane (42-32006). He claimed at least one enemy plane shot down, and he caught a piece of flak in the sole of his boot but wasn't injured. He also had to bail out of one Fort over Belgium and with their help made it back to England. Excellent video!

My grandfather was a ball turret gunner on a B24 and I always thought that he had the coolest position on the plane and wanted to be just like him. The stories he told about his time up there were amazing.

I can't believe a YouTube channel doing ART like this.

Beautifully made video. I finally know the purpose of the mechanism that I have at home and it is shown at the time: 3:40. My grandfather managed to retrieve it from the wreckage of a B-17G, from the 2nd Bombardment Group, 49th Squadron, which was shot down in a great air battle, over the White Carpathians on August 27, 1944. The entire crew managed to bail out but fell into German captivity. The plane crashed near the village Liptál, in Moravian Wallachia, where my grandfather lived.

My dad was a tail gunner. I was visiting him on day and he said “there’s a B17 out at the airport.” When we arrived, we walk up to it and the crew was there. They knew instantly that he was a former crew member. It is a tiny airplane. The most interesting story was how he got the job. They had him stand in the back of a pickup truck and use a shotgun to hit targets that were thrown up. So the gunners were all good shots. He and another fella both hit a 262 one day. The second jet aircraft ever downed in combat. Late in the war apparently most of the rounds were armor-piercing and incendiary. The exceptions were the tracers. My dad’s parents were German and Italian Americans. So often it was cousins fighting cousins. My dad and most of the ex-

A couple of years ago I visited a museum with one of the few operational B-17's. For a fee I was able to sit in the ball turret. I'm 5'9", 175lbs, and it was tight, and I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt. The men that flew these beasts had balls of titanium.

The Sperry Ball Turret was a marvel of modern engineering

My grandfather was a ball turret mechanic towards the end of the war. I love that I now have a better understanding of the system he was so proud to have worked on

My father-in-law was a top turret gunner/flight engineer/crew chief on B-17's during WWII. He was a relatively short individual and was offered the ball turret as a gunner position, probably because of his size. He said he looked at it and said "You ain't gettin me down in that hole!" - so much for that idea.

"contrary to popular belief, the ball turret could not retract into the fuselage" I'm just imagining a bf109 coming from below and the turret getting performance anxiety and not being able to get out

Man, that was the best video that kept me hooked until the end. I NEVER knew most of the info in this video, excellent job and awesome details you brought out. Just excellent all around!