WWII is my family history.

Starboard Gunner

That’s the starboard gunner’s position on a B-25J.

My namesake, mom’s brother Bill, was training as a pilot on Oahu when the Imperial Navy attacked Pearl Harbor. He was wounded, and the Army Air Corps doctors took him off flight status when they discovered he had a hole in his skull (from a childhood accident.)

The story goes that he wanted to fly, so found a sympathetic doctor who cleared him to serve as a bombardier in the Pacific.

He flew missions on B-25s

Imagine that space full of cordite smoke, spent brass, the oil spray from the engines, noise, cold, and young men asking whatever gods were listening to deflect the bullets fired at them.

All that so my Uncle could aim and drop a couple dozen of these:

Bomb

Updated after reconfirming the facts with my father (who trained B-25 crews, among others, during the war.)

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  4. Restored Cold War defense site in the Bay Area
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  • Kelly

    My grands lived through the war and my grandma was in Leningrad laid siege to. It was the worst time in her life and I can’t even imagine how she lived through it.

  • Tom

    My great uncle was a flight engineer/gunner on B-25′s in the Pacific also. I am perusing your site looking at photo refs as I am in the middle of building a model of a B-25J of the 42nd Bomb Group which he belonged to. Glad you have all these pics!!!

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