Positioned in the Glass Dome

There was seven of us in the aircraft. I was halfway back in the aircraft and what you did, you poked your head up into a glass dome and then once you got up in there, there was two stirrups, you stood in that and then you flipped a seat and you sat on the seat with your head and your shoulders up in this glass dome. The guns were right in front of you and, of course, the turret was operated hydraulically as you raised or lowered the guns you could turn the turret back and forth. On take-off, you are basically watching for other aircraft. At night it was pretty difficult. The daylight trips were, I think, more frightening than night trips because you could see all these other aircraft. We weren’t flying in formation, we were just flying in a bunch so aircraft are moving in and out, others are trying to get a little higher so basically you were watching for that. Once you crossed over the English Channel then you had to watch out for fighters, and at that stage there were a lot of allied fighters up as well so there was a lot of activity.

One time over a target at night I was looking towards the back and the bomb-aimer who had finished his job, he poked his head up in the astrodome up front and just as he did that he said there were aircraft wheels ten feet above his head. As I swung my turret around the pilot dropped and this aircraft just went over a few feet above us. That’s a frightening thing.