Thanks for the photos. What Life Mag are they out of (what is the date)? My father served on a destroyer and one time he was allowed to go up in a PBM for three hours while it did practice bomb runs in the Caribbean Sea. I read about it in one of his wartime letters that I can publish here if you like via scanner. He wrote the letters to the folks back home. He says that he was allowed to shoot "30 mm" guns up in the nose while they did strafing runs on a simulated surface target and shell casings were deep around their feet, although my guess is that they were twin fifties and he was embellishing a bit. The PBM-1 is listed as having: Guns: 8 × .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns (two each in: nose, dorsal and tail turrets, one each in blisters amidships). I also understand that these types of aircraft were very heavily loaded with fuel if the mission was of long duration and that explosions sometimes occurred due to escaping fumes and people lighting cigarettes, etc? Some went out and mysteriously never returned and it was thought that they might have self destructed? Clue me if you think otherwise and that the type had no problems.