Air Force·Weapon system retired·In Memoriam
B-24 Liberator Nose Turret Gunner
Served: 1943–1945
Sat in an electrically-driven Emerson A-15 powered nose turret with twin .50s — the B-24's answer to the head-on Luftwaffe attacks that had butchered earlier glass-nose Liberators.
The Story
The B-24H was the first production Liberator built with the nose turret; the Emerson's electric motors gave the gunner faster tracking than the Consolidated-Vultee tail turrets the same airframe carried at the other end.
Epitaph
“Two .50s aimed straight ahead. Nothing flew at the B-24 that direction without paying.”
Sources
- Wikipedia — B-24 Liberatoren.wikipedia.org