tailgunner

Dramatic shot. Added to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail_Gunner Thanks for posting these!

A machine gun on an airship filled with hydrogen does not strike one as being particularily sensible from a fire/explosion prevention point of view.

When folks with other machine guns are trying to shoot your airship down, their machine guns become a much, much bigger risk than adding guns to your airship...

Brian Burger Indeed..... I remember reading some where that the planes sent up to shoot them down had a significantly higher ratio of tracer to normal in the bullet mix. Is the rumour that then men put on this duty would bet each other 6 months wages if they could smoke a cigarette without getting caught whilst they did their stand true?

The planes sent up to hunt airships would usually have been armed with incendiary ammunition - the better to set off all that hydrogen. I've never actually heard the story of the smoking bet, sounds like the sort of insane thing some crew might try!

¡ Beautiful image ! Congratulations for your work and a greeting.

vagabu.blogspot.com.es/

Shiny new Consolidated B-24J-200-CO Liberators incl. 44-41187 getting pre-flight checks at the San Diego factory ca. '44.

Vickers Wellington Z8900