The Crew - Air Gunners
For most of WWII, the Western Allies had no long-range fighters capable of providing protection to bombers taking the offensive against Nazi Germany. The only defense bombers had if found by enemy fighters came from their own guns. While on the whole self-defense of bombers proved inadequate, it would be wrong to dismiss air gunners as worthless. Lancaster Tail Gunner, Imperial War Museum The defensive armaments of the RAF's bombers were without doubt inadequate. For all but the last six months of the war, bombers, even the four-engine "heavies" (the Sterling, Halifax and Lancaster), were armed only with eight relatively light .303 machine guns. (Two forward, two midships, and four in the tail.) In contrast, U.S. bombers had the .50 caliber heavy guns, although they did not have dramatically more success shooting down the Luftwaffe's fighters. The outfitting of the bombers with .303 machine guns was not due to ignorance of the dangers to which the b...