The origins of Memorial Day

[Wild Bill]

A waist gunner manned a single ,50 cal. machine gun on the left or right side of the plane just aft of the main wing. The tail gunner on a B-24 was in a separate turrent at the tail and had twin .50 cal mgs. It was considered suicide to attack the tail gunner. I am not sure about a B-24, but a B-17 tail gunner had to leave his parachute in the alleyway before he took his firing position. The waist gunners were more likely targets as they had less firepower and a poorer position for defense.

My father-in-law flew a B-24 out of New Guinea in WW II. Charles Lindbergh came out to the Pacific for Lockheed Aircraft Co. and showed the guys how to get an extra 50 miles out of a tank of gas by feathering the props correctly, so they could make it back from bombing Burma without cracking up in the ocean just off the beach of their landing strip.

FDR hated Lindy for being in an isolationist group American First before the war and would not let him join the Army Air Corps. The story is that the pilots liked Lindy so much that they let him go up with a flight of P-38 American fighters (another Lockheed plane) and shoot down a Japanese Zero before he went back to the states. Sort of a thank you note.