B-17 Belly Landing Ball Turret Crushed Gunner Tragedy: Separating Fact from Fiction

You definately crushed this myth.

This guy should have been a technical advisor to "masters of the air" this guy is awesome.

Andy Rooney was a well-documented “story teller.” Thank you for yet another educational and entertaining piece. You never disappoint!!!

It does seem that if this actually happened the identity of the ball turret gunner would've been known through the surviving crew members. But again your sticking to the facts and logic have shown what actually happened. You have one of the best YouTube channels!

Nice that you mentioned the "Amazing Stories" piece. The story was from none other than Steven Spielberg, and the ship's captain: Kevin Costner

Scenario #4 occurred as recently as 2004 when the B-17 "Aluminum Overcast" suffered a dual main gear collaps shortly after landing at the Van Nuys air port in California. The ball turret was pushed up into the fuselage and suffered minimal damage.

So even in the vanishingly unlikely event the ball turret gunner was trapped, he'd probably survive. However I'm pretty sure at least one pair of USAAF issue underpants would've had to be retired from service.

Just look at the documentation of the Navy turret Gunner who was killed in his turret and they couldn't get his body out when the aircraft got back to the carrier . The aircraft with the destroyed turret and the Gunner within were buried at Sea off the fan tail of the carrier .The entire landing and examination of the turret and the Burial at Sea was very well documented. I'm certain that if a gunner was crushed in a ball turret it would be just as well documented.

Another outstandingly researched piece. As a docent at the 390th Memorial Museum in Tucson, Arizona, I’ve been asked whether this event happened more times than I can count. I’ve also been “told” many times this event actually occurred because someone read the Andy Rooney story or they read about it in a book. I’ve always responded by saying that the event could have happened but no concrete documentation exists. Finally I can go through everything that would have to occur for this story to be true. Thank you.

This story was deeply disturbing to me as a kid when I first heard it on the "History" Channel. Glad to finally know that it never happened.

Thanks for all the research. I'm a docent on the Palm Springs Air Museum B-17G "Miss Angela." Many, many of our museum guests mention this myth.

Hello , I own the Armor Seat Plate of a B17 Ball Turret Gunner Shot down over Germany. Gunner bail out survived , and returned to Allied Lines. Great Part of History. Greetings Edward

As a volunteer on the B-17G “City of Savannah”, we have this scenario raised regularly. Our response is very similar to the data presented here. Thank you for sharing the accurate technical descriptions of both the landing gear & ball turret operation, along with the structural data for the ball support.

Oh man, I was so happy to see my article cited in the video! Thanks for linking it and the video was excellent!

OK, here's a Hail Mary solution for fun: the crew strap as many parachutes as possible to the ball turret and open them just before releasing the ball turret. Weight of 1200 pounds means 6 parachutes have a load of 200 pounds apiece. Rough landing, parachutes might interfere with each other, and if it lands in water, the gunner probably drowns.

Awesome to see a facinating story looked at so objectively :)

I cannot emphasize enough how much I appreciate you sharing the sources for where you got your information! Very few youtubers do this.

Fascinating... meticulous research as always on this excellent channel!

...but I heard it on the history channel, the channel that brought us 'Ancient Aliens'. P.S.- I always thought there was a solution to the "stuck turret" scenario. If nothing else, I was imagining that the guys could cut a hydraulic line, or otherwise disengage the ball from the mechanisms. The idea of altering the fuselage I-beam attachment makes a ton of sense to me. I get that in a stressful situation everyone may not be thinking clearly but there's enough of a crew on each plane that it's hard to imagine that none of them would figure out a solution in an emergency.

This was fantastic. For years I wondered why no details on the "event". I always wondered what steps the crew would have taken. As always your pieces are informative, educational and entertaining. Enough horrors in war but at least this event seems to have been clarified.