It’s Crazy How Little Time These Gunners Had To Learn All This

Looking At That Footage, You Realize How Young These Guys Really Were.

This U.S. Air Force video was designed to turn new recruits into highly skilled gunners aboard many of our bombers. To say it must have been an intense time for these young lads would be and understatement.

Looking around that room, you realize just how young some of these guys were and after only 5 short weeks of intense, everyday training, they were sent on some of the most dangerous missions.

“First, you will meet your closest friends. The 30 caliber machine gun, and the heavier, harder hitting 50 caliber. You will have to be intimate friends with these guns.”-WWII Gunnery Trainer

In just over a month, these guys were trained from not knowing a single thing about these weapons to being experts. The instructor first takes them through the different parts of the guns and how to assemble and disassemble them.

Once the trainees knew how these guns operated, they were taught how to track moving targets inside a classroom. Once they passed, they shot from makeshift turrets and guns on the ground and finally went up in the air and shot at moving targets trailing behind other planes.

Once complete, it was time take the fight to the Axis.