Feeling Naked

Interviewer: Now, that's an interesting thing right there, and I guess this is as good a time as any to raise the whole question, if you wanted gunners and yet you were told no, they had to make, take the guns out. ...

Yeah.

Interviewer: How did that make you guys feel?

Well, a, a bit naked, because we, we don't have, we don't have this protection, we don't have fighter protection, we've got bugger-all and we were kind of, you sneak in and you sneak out and it depends upon cunning and we felt, when we saw the waist turrets, we saw the ball turret going, front guns, that went, oh they left, they left... I'm sorry we did have one gunner, in the rear, that was it, and, and that was all, and in that air craft, you had, you had the nose, you had two waists, you had mid-upper, you had ball, and you had the rear. Now all we got is the rear, so we, we didn't, but we thought, "Well, that, that's it, you know. We're..." And the, the CO, he said, "This is something new," and so on, "that you people are doing, that we've had some heavy losses." So, we thought, that's encouraging, you know. Anyway, it worked out, at least we, you, you accept it, you know, in the service, they say you don't eat for two days. You, you accept it, you know, that's part of, that's part of it. You bitch like hell, but you, you kind of accept it.