WWII antiaircraft/ shotgun trainer

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animal

New member
Another thread brought this to mind… wasn’t sure where to put it, but I figured C&R would have more historically minded guys…

When I was a kid, my granddad described a rig -up of two 12 ga.(pump?model 12 ?) shotguns modified and attached to an electric motor somehow… and mounted in a B-24 turret (that was on a gantry-like stand). He said they shot clay pigeons with the thing for practice. He wasn’t much of a gun nut, and I was a kid … so the vague description of its workings could be wrong. What’s certain is : twin automatic 12 gauges mounted in a turret for "shooting skeet", as he put it.

This would have been in Manduria, Italy in WWII. Given the "colorful" history of the group, and the base commander’s openness to ideas that his men came up with, it’s possible that they jerry-rigged this thing up but my research on it hit a dead-end.
He was a ball-turret gunner with the "Cottontails" … 450th Bombardment Group (721st squadron).

Anyone ever hear of this, or anything like it?
 
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Dfariswheel

New member
Gunner and pilot gunnery training often started out with standard skeet shooting, then progressed to the two guns mounted in the turret, then to a turret mounted on the back of a truck so both the clay bird and the gunner was moving.

After that they progressed to shooting from aircraft at target socks towed by other aircraft.
Some of the Remington/Browning Auto shotguns were reported to have fired over 1 million rounds during the war.
 
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B. Lahey

New member
My grandfather talked about this, he said it was great fun. He was first trained as a gunner in B24s, but then his appendix exploded (it wasn't a bad loose-meat sandwich as he first suspected), and he couldn't go to North Africa and Italy with his buddies. The gunnery school, in Texas I think, got him when he was released from the hospital. Ended up a crew-chief in the aircraft that towed targets for the advanced students. I have all of his training manuals, I need to scan them sometime.

The process was as described above. They started out shooting skeet, progressed to spade-grip shotguns on the back of a truck, and then took to the sky once they got the hang of it.
 
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animal

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Took forever to download that one for some reason, but well worth every second of it!
I’ve never seen so much information on WWII aerial gunner training packed into one article, Thank You very much, Scorch !

I t still has me wondering, about some stuff, though.
As I remember granddad’s story, the things he described were not at the training base, but supposedly built at Manduria out of turrets from shot-up aircraft, and scrounged up stuff… I don’t remember his exact words or anything, but the mental picture that "stuck" was of a ball turret suspended from a gantry. The "electric motor" could have been for turning the turret. I’m not sure.
I was a little gun nut and there were a few full automatics in the family way back then (including a Thompson and a Bren). Anyway, he started talking about it when I said it would be neat to have a full-auto shotgun… that’s why I assumed automatic fire rather than semi auto. All I’m really "sure" about is 12 ga. twin-mount in a turret and shooting skeet. … or … there’s the possibility of a child’s memory combining various training devices into one.

In previous research, I had found out that the 450th was the first group to use "mock-up turrets" and "solenoid actuated guns" for training… but found no further description or pictures. The group also modified their aircraft in various ways, and got credit for a few innovations.
 
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Pathfinder45

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Thanks for the article, Scorch.

My Dad told me and my brothers a lot about this stuff but he's passed on two years now. He trained as a waist gunner in B-17's and B-24's. Then he got into the B-29 program. He was the starboard waist gunner on the Genie II on some of the last B-29 Combat missions over Japan. He described flak: "The Japs weren't wasting ammo. They would fire one round at the formation and it would usually go off below you. The second round would go off above you. By then they would have your altitude figured out precisely and then they would open up on the formation with everything they had. It sounded like someone was outside throwing gravel at the plane." Stationed at Tinian's South Airfield, on a day off he and some buddies went up to look at the North Airfield. There was a brand new B-29 on the runway with the bomb-bay doors open and no gun-turrets on the plane. There was a crewman there that said, "You guys can just as well go home. We've got a bomb that's gonna end this war." My Dad asked him if he could go look up into the bomb-bay. Surprisingly he said, "Go ahead.". My Dad saw that it was rigged so that it could only carry one very large bomb. Right away he remembered his high-school physics teacher saying that if we ever figure out how to split atoms it would release fantastic quantities of energy. Instantly he knew that it was an atom bomb. Within days it was all over.
 
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Buzzcook

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Great story Pathfinder/

My uncle was a navigator on B-24s flying out of Italy. He got there just after the Polesti raid. He said that probably accounted for him surviving the war.
 
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Pathfinder45

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It was the Glorious Generation......

......and they are all but gone now. Whenever I find myself in a social situation where some of those folks are still around, [usually at a wedding reception], I take the golden opportunity to pump these folks for the stories of their lives. Except for actually being there, there's nothing more vivid than the eye witness account of those that lived it. If you work it right it's almost like looking through their eyes as the events unfold. Most people don't want to hear what the old folks have to say anymore; so when they run into me it all comes out in color because I'm interested. Soon they won't be around anymore and their stories, if not collected will die with them. I had the great good fortune to become fishing buddies in Vermont with a man named Al Brescianni, an Italian American that had been in the Infantry in Europe and fought the Germans all the way 'til they met the Russians. Because I spent time with him I heard things about his experiences that he didn't much talk about with others. Here's just one: They were fighting a pitched battle against old men and boys backed up by black-uniformed SS to take a German town. When the fall of the town was eminent, the SS would leave the front and the old men and boys would throw their guns out and come out weeping with their hads up. They didn't want to fight but the SS would shoot them if they didn't. This scene was often repeated town by town.
 
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OldShooter

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My Dad was a tail gunner in a B24. He flew 51 missions out of Italy. He never wanted to talk much about it all until his later years. I got some stories from him. He's gone now but not forgotten.
 
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Crazy Carl

New member
My Grampa was Navy in WW2 & Army in Korea. Wasn't till I retired from the Army, that he started to open up & talk to me about his military days. Cool old dude & starting to get "up there" a bit. Need to go visit him again, soon.
 
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bamaranger

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photos

I have seen photos and film reel clips of shotguns in turrets as described by others. All were supposedly "training" rigs.

The rumored best quail shot in our county was a B17 ball turret gunner. I was privileged to be at a fly in of a B17 at the local airport (Aluminum Overcast) and follow the old gent around as he talked to his grown son and grandson about his experience. He's gone now. Twenty five missions, Europe.
 
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ronl

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I have a sealed box of the shells that were used in the gunnery practice. Not an easy find.
 
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justashooter

New member
i have a box of remington shotshells marked special tracer, for governmnet use only. box is red and white, with paper hulls. these are number 8, 1 1/8 ounce, for clay birds. assume they were made for this program.
 
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jrusso9722

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Pathfinder posts

Hello, All enjoyable post. Commentary on Pathfinder WWII jewels of information. Met a man, Jack D. who was an armorer on B-29's in the South Pacific. His story: When japanese interceptors ran into that long barrelled 20mm in the tail gun position, they were shocked!! The muzzle flashes scared them, they had never seen anything like it. I guess some of them ran into that lead, also. So, they stopped approaching from the rear. HOWEVER, 20mm was too heavy for the B-29, caused porpoising in the thin upper air, and would sway the tail left or right, in reaction to which direction the slugs were fired. So, the 20mm/mount/ammo were removed, with alot better flight. A black broomstick was substituted to fool the japanese, who did not want to face that "20mm". Great Stuff
 
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pcb911

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AA Shotgun Trainer

Had one of these guns in the early 80's. Was a semi-auto shotgun on a tall tripod. Shot 12 gauge and held 5 rounds. The mount had spade grips and offset sights on the right side. The tripod reminded me of a mg-34 aa tripod. The gun and tripod came from a PD trade to a class 3 dealer that swapped M-16s for 20 shotguns in the late 70's. Of the 20 guns, there was only one on the tripod and had no butt stock. When I got it, I was told the grease fittings on the mount were to be packed with axle grease to make the gun simulate a 50 cal. on recoil. Last time I saw it was when a dealer in Athens, Ga. bought it.
 
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Willie Lowman

New member
I saw one of those guns for sale at a OGCA meeting a few years back.

I would like to build a modern version of it for shooting clays at home. :D
 
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