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Did the jeep have the gun mounted on it.
Edward: No. It was a hand held shot gun. We had classes in which we would learn things like the Pursuit Curve which was used by the enemy fighters to get their guns honed on to your plane. They would come at you, but they wouldn't come directly at you, they were in a sliding position so their guns would bear on you. They would drop down and sort of slide by you and rake your plane. You had to learn that you wouldn't fire in front of the plane you had to figure out which way he was going to slide toward you. All of these things were factored in. Before we left, we got the planes and we got some firing at targets being towed by target planes. I had a bad experience with that. I was shooting a 50 Caliber out of the side of the plane and I was working the target and I swung it toward the tail. The B-24 has a twin tail and the guns have cut-offs so you don't swing and hit that part of the tail. Mine wasn't working and I shot off part of the tail. The pilot swore he was going back to combat where he was safer than messing with these kid gunners. I got clean up duty, for the rest of the time we were flying in the plane. It was a malfunction, but I got blamed for it. All of the gunners that were firing would deny it, but we were shooting colored bullets and they knew when the target was hit. They could tell it was me because I had hit the target that was being towed but I also hit my own plane. It really caused the pilot to use all kinds of bad language. I did cause some damage to my own plane which wasn't a very good start. We also had a blindfold strip. You would strip your 50 Caliber and put it back together. I was doing this and somehow a spring got loose on me. It went up and hit the floor and as I was blindfolded, I was fumbling around trying to find the part. The Sargent said, "Campbell, you not going to put this together and pass.", so he handed me the spring. So, at least I got a little help. I found out then, and throughout my military career, that people are helpful. They would see that you were failing at something and they would give you a hand. This happened all through my life. So, I was lucky that way.
We completed our training and got our wings and we were so proud. Then we got crewed up. That was a scary moment. Some of the pilots were just college kids and this was a big job they were doing and some of them were not quite up to it. But I was fortunate, as I got a Captain, named Rice, and he had been an instructor pilot and he
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with Edward Campbell. Campbell joined the Army Air Forces in late 1943. He completed gunnery school. He served as a B-24 turret gunner with the 394th Bomb Squadron. He completed 50 combat missions, over Tarawa, Borneo, bombing oil fields, refineries and ports. He returned to the US and received his discharge in 1945.
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