B-17 Flying Fortress Crew Positions
The ten men who made up the crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress were each specially trained for their position. Most were unaware of the death and destruction they would soon be facing as they flew their Fortresses into combat.
Click on each of the crew positions on the B-17G Flying Fortress to learn more about their duties.
Waist Gunner (2):
Waist Gunner's duties and responsibilities on B-17 Flying Fortress
The waist windows of the Fortress provided excellent defense stations; however, great skill or good luck was required to obtain strikes on an enemy fighter hurtling past. The waist guns were an important defensive feature of the B-17 formations, combining the open lateral areas with a gauntlet of massed firepower.
The waist gunners had flak helmets, flak suits and an armor plate contoured to the curve of the fuselage below the windows as their only protection from the flak and bullets. Standing at their guns, their bodies filled a larger target area than was the case for the rest of the crew, who were sitting or kneeling.
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| An early fortress without the plexiglas covering the waist windows, behind which the gunners stood |
B-17’s carried two waist gunners; each protected his respective side of the aircraft. Waist gunners incurred the largest number of casualties of all the Fortress crew positions. Early waist gunner positions were directly across from each other, often causing the gunners to bump into one another and getting entangled in each other’s oxygen lines. Later, the positions were staggered, giving the gunners greater mobility. On early B-17’s, waist window coverings were on slide rails and had to be opened before combat so the guns could be swung out from their stowed positions. Improvements introduced on the B-17G mounted the guns to the inner frame of the windows and were enclosed with a permanent plexiglas covering, which meant the gunners didn’t have to stand in the freezing slipstream, as in earlier models.
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| Formation of B-17’s mass all of their guns for protective firepower |
