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Waist Gunner

The primary duty of the waist gunner was to defend the aircraft against the enemy. On a B17, there were two waist gunners located directly opposite one another. This made maneuvering sometimes difficult, and until later models of the B17, frostbite was also an issue, as the waist gunners stood near open window areas. Because of this, waist gunners frequently wore heavy layers of shearling and leather protective clothing, as well as electrically heated suits. Waist gunners were also frequently responsible for checking the aircraft for damage and assisting the flight engineer with repairs if necessary.

 Military Specialty

VOLUNTEERING

Are you an AAC, AAF or USAF Veteran, family member, historian or WW2 enthusiast? We Need YOU! Contact us today to see how you can help the Army Air Corps Library and Museum, a Texas Not-For-Profit Corporation. We need your help! We are looking for volunteers that can help us with the following tasks. Typing and Transcriptionists: One of our big projects is extracting data from the thousands of documents we have and putting this data into a database where we can display the information on a website such as this one. We also need assistance with retyping unit history documents.

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