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"Memphis Belle" Is On, Question

David Nunn
In the heat of battle, I wonder whether any gunner on a bomber accidentally shot an escort fighter.

I can sure see how it could happen.
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Comments

14 comments

Date Votes
  • spasmcreek
    don't know ...but a lawyer here in our small town served in air force flying off of grass strips in England ww2....after seeing the movie i asked him and he said it was close to what really happened ..he died while attending a high school basketball game and at the time was the oldest working lawyer in Kansas..RIP Emerson Shields...
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  • Brookwood
    Friendly fire has killed a lot of our own GI's and airmen. Human error has always been around and when the SHTF unfortunately, it magnifies!
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  • grdad45
    It was bound to happen, given all the lead flying around. I worked at the Navy hospital in Danang, and we saw some "friendly fire" casualties, some fatal. RIP, heroes.
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  • Tcatt
    This is a little off subject

    My father in-law was on an oiler during the invasion of Okinawa.
    They came under a kamikaze attack
    He said gunners on every ship in the vicinity shot that air craft down all the way to the water, He could clearly see the pilot who was still alive.
    He said those gunner shot that plane until there was nothing left of it.
    his comment was that the gunners had to have hit friendly vessels.
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  • Tcatt
    And by the way.

    The real Memphis Belle sat out side the National Guard Armory by the airport in Memphis when I was a boy.
    There were no barriers at all around it.
    It sat on a concrete footer that was low to the ground, my dad could lift me up on the wing.
    I climbed all over it, no one seemed to mind.

    It was later re-located to a viewing area on the Mississippi River.

    I do not think it is even in Memphis anymore.
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  • longspur rider
    I spoke with Dutch Van Deusing (sp) who was the navigator on the Enola Gay. He said he was nose gunner/navigator on a B-17 over Germany before moving to the Pacific. According to him he held the worlds record for shot fire for nose gunners & not hitting a damned thing.
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  • allen griggs
    I have often thought about that. You know damn well that a lot of P51 Mustangs got hit by those door gunners.
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  • Bill DeShivs
    The Belle is now at Dayton, Ohio-I believe.
    I remember it at the armory, too.
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  • chiefr
    Bill DeShivs wrote:
    The Belle is now at Dayton, Ohio-I believe.
    I remember it at the armory, too.

    Yep
    Wright Patterson AFB
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  • 35 Whelen
    I remember going to watch it at the theater. Mom and I took Grandma. I'll never forget the scene where Phil is standing outside, and shouts "I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die." Grandma heard that, slowly got out of her seat without saying a word, and walked out. Mom and I got up, and went looking for her. We found her outside the theater, sitting on a bench, crying. Mom asked her if she was okay, and Grandma said "I can't watch any more of it."

    She explained how several of her high school friends hadn't come back from the war, and that some of them had been in bombers like that. One in particular had been in a B-17 that had crashed in the English Channel, and never recovered. Still puts a knot in my throat thinking about that day.
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  • iceracerx
    Why would anyone expect USAAF escort fighters to fly into the 'box' defense that the B-17s flew in? The Luftwaffe pilots didn't mess with the 'box' if they were smart. Tail end Charley? Sure. Wounded Ducks? Absolutely. Even attacking the perimeter of the 'box' was suicide.

    A Bomb Wing consisted of 108 planes and was 3 dimensional. That's a whole lot of M2 50 cals.

    http://www.398th.org/Research/8th_AF_Formations_Description.html
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  • fatcat458
    German flak got 80% of the bombers over Germany :!:
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  • SoreShoulder
    Why would a US fighter need to get so close to a B17 if the fighter didn't need to shoot at the B17? I am sure those guys kept a healthy distance if they could.

    I seem to recall that the German aerial weapons were advanced and lightweight but did not have the range of a 50 cal Browning. So they had to get close if they wanted to shoot but there was probably a lot less reason a P51 would have to get close to its own bombers.
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  • Rocky Raab
    The job of the escort fighters was to chase down the enemy fighters. You keep them as far away from the bombers as long as you can, but when the enemy flew in close, you went in on his tail. There's no "home free past this line" where you break off and allow them to attack.
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