Gunner: An Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Turrets and Gun Positions

by Donald Nijboer, Dan Patterson (Photographer)

Through Dan Patterson's remarkable photography, we get to see, close up, the cramped, cold, exposed turrets that so many young men fought and died in. Veterans describe in spirited detail what it was like to fly and fight in the war's most renowned aircraft. Gunner reveals not just the turrets of such famous aircraft as the Lancaster and the B-17, but also the rarely seen gun positions of aircraft such as the Me 410, the Italian S.M. 79 and the Russian Il-2 Shturmovik. This book allows us to imagine what it must have been like to be an air gunner in the Second World War.

Hardcover

First published July 13, 2001

About the author

Donald Nijboer is a freelance writer who lives in Toronto, Canada. He teaches courses in radio and broadcasting at Humber College of Technology and Advanced Learning.

His books have been published by the Boston Mills Press and Osprey Publishing.

He has also written articles for Flight Journal, Aviation History and Aeroplane Monthly.

Reviews

[Joyce Rodella]

My Father, James Rodella, is interviewed in this book about being a Top Turret Gunner on a B-24 during WWII in the South Pacific.

[Jesper Jorgensen]

A book I'd like to have on my good ol' 'analog' book shelf. The pictures are absolutely stunning. The text short but informative.

[Norbert]

Great photos

[Jack Hwang]

This book has a lot of good color photos.

The first half of the book briefly goes through the air war and the development of the powered turrets on the bombers in WW2. Unfortunately, it's not detailed enough technically. For example, it does not even discuss the gunsights or the ammunition feeding mechanism of these turrets. The readers are left puzzling why a hand-held machine gun is inferior to a turret-mounted gun.

The second half of the book iterates through the defensive guns of the major heavy and medium bombers. Again, there is no deep dive into the technical side.

The most valuable portion of the book is the accounts, in their own words, of the air gunners. They talk about the airplanes, the missions, the fights, the boring, and the excitement. Interspersed within the air war history and the aircraft briefing, these memories make up for the weakness of the other materials in this book.

[Christian D. D.]

For all the endless volumes written about combat pilots (and to a lesser extent, bombardiers and navigators), aerial gunners have always gotten relatively short shrift, credit, or appreciation in the writings of most aerial combat historians, so the authors of "Gunner," Messrs. Nijboer and Patterson, seek to rectify this shortcoming, and they've done an admirable job of it.

Superbly detailed text and photographs alike. I especially like the section on the Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bomber (my favourite WWII warbird) and Nijboer's statistics on the SBD's air-to-air kill tally.