All aircraft and stories

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Back to something on topic. I heard tonight that P-47 pilot Robert Johnson once brought his plane back after taking more that 100 rounds of machine gun fire and 21 rounds of cannon fire. That's a pretty tough airplane.
 
but can you prove it.................

and a B-17 made it back to base once with 800+ holes in it's fusilage, you can't say i always bash it........................
 
but youre not praising it, just making a statement. you could say that it couldnt even destroy what was shooting at it until it had taken over 800 shots. but the b-17 was a very tough plane, you cant deny that.
 
If I am thinking of the plane you are referring to, the ground crew counted 800 holes between the tail and the radio room (about half the planes length), got bored, and stopped counting. By the time it came into land it was only flying on one engine, 5 members of the crew had been wounded (all remained at their stations), and 13 or 14 German fighters had been shot down.
 
That B-17 story is perhaps the most impressive I've heard of the war. The tail gunner to a round through the hip that ricocheted off his pelvis and back out. One waist gunner suffered a compound fracture to his forearm and the other took a cannon round clean through his belly. All three men stayed at their post and each knocked down a fighter AFTER being wounded. The waist gunner who had been hit by the cannon round later died in a hospital.
 
Here's a funny story from Finland. Storyteller is "Illu" Juutilainen, plane of course Brewster B-239 : "It was also a "gentleman's traveling plane", for it had a roomy cockpit and room in the fuselage, as we used to say, for a poker gang. We unofficially transported mechanics, spare parts, oil canisters etc. in our Brewsters. Once, though two pilots went a little too far - a flight sergeant was flying, and in the fuselage was a second lieutenant, his friend, his dog and a lot of baggage. Upon landing the plane went off the runway and the suitcase came out. Both pilots were punished. Humorously, the lieutenant's sentence started with:"As the commander of the crew of a single-seat fighter.." "
 
I've seen a picture of a Waist Gunner being hit by a 20mm round and surviving because of his Flak Jacket.
 
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