Flying Boat - Precarious Nose Gun Setup

Interviewer: Did you ever wonder at any point and say to yourself "What did I get myself into? "

Nope, I loved it. The... and incidently flying off waters is great fun it's different then.

Interviewer: How so?

Well, this was almost like World War One, I'm not joking.. the, you had a noise gunner and you had waste gunners and they could slide the windows back on the, on the, and they had, we had .303 machine guns and twins set on the nose of the aircraft. And what you would do, you'd, after you got airborne, because you had to have the hatch closed on take off or you would flood the aircraft. And after you're in the air, you'd just, we'd have a horn sort of, in one manned actioned stations, you know, so they go to the gunner, goes to their spot, and the nose gunner has to pull that hatch back and there was a scarf ring that came down and you pull that up and click it in place and then you can swing that mount by, where you put the, and the twin mount machine guns were here and you, it's like putting a brace in bit, you know, on a, on a... what do you call it, a bore anyway. And this poor devil, would have to stand up there in the wind and, and try to get this thing back in and so he could mull it and then swing it around and he'd look, I'm looking at him through the windshield you see. So he would generally, turn his back to the thing and try to frig with this thing and I'd slow it down to the, as slow as I could, help him but anyway, then and he of course with he standing in the open there, so he had a harness on and a G-string, that he, cable that hooked on to the floor so that he wouldn't, couldn't, because you hit a down draft or something he, which nearly, which did happen to us one time and he was, here he was up like this with a , he had just unhooked the machine guns on the way back and they have to store everything, close the hatch again for landing. And we hit a downdraft and, and he went right up, right up, there he was in front of me, hanging on to the and he was hanging on to this twin mount and then down we came and he hit the twin mount machine gun on the edge of the thing and we lost it overboard. And I'll tell you, you want to see an investigation start, when you lose a twin mount and two machine guns.