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by bitwize
408 days ago
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One time when I was in the Bay Area, an old, short Asian man wearing a "World War II Veteran" cap boarded the BART. I silently wondered to myself if, due to his very short height, he had sat in the ball turret of a B-17. Year or two later, there's a blurb on the national news about a man with a Japanese last name from about the right part of California, who died at the age of 95. Turns out, he was indeed a rear gunner on a B-17 crew. Thank you for your service, old stranger. We met only briefly and never talked, but I'm glad our paths crossed. |
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Poor guy probably was carrying a lot with him.
There is a famous poem[1] about ball turret gunners that immediately came to mind:
>From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
>And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
>Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
>I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
>When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_the_Ball_Turret_G...
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