Bandit at 8 oclock high!

I first asked this about 1966, havent heard anything definite yet, it would be strange for it not to happen, thats a lot of ordnance flying about!
I do remember a story about WW1 pilot cutting a hole in the seat of his bi-plane, to get rid of the effects of the castor oil in use in the engine,and to show his displeasure with the Boche!
robert

For clarity though, "8 o'clock" would be slightly low and to your left. 12 being straight up, 6 being straight down with 3 and 9 being level on iether side respectively.

As for casualties being cuased my falling ordnance from fighting planes. I would have to think it happened a time or two but probably no way to prove it.

For clarity though, "8 o'clock" would be slightly low and to your left. 12 being straight up, 6 being straight down with 3 and 9 being level on iether side respectively.

Click to expand...

No. Picture standing on a clock face. Yes, yes, it's a big clock. Now... Noon is right in front of you, six o'clock behind you. three o'clock to your right, while nine is to your left. "Eight o'clock high" would refer to a position to your left, just a tad to the rear, and higher than your own altitude.

No. Picture standing on a clock face. Yes, yes, it's a big clock. Now... Noon is right in front of you, six o'clock behind you. three o'clock to your right, while nine is to your left. "Eight o'clock high" would refer to a position to your left, just a tad to the rear, and higher than your own altitude.

Click to expand...

T think that is called, '8 o'clock low'.

"T think that is called, '8 o'clock low'."

Negative, Ghost Rider; he has it right.

The clock position tells which direction to look - again, with 12 being directly in front, 6 directly behind, 9 is 90 degrees left and 3 is 90 degrees right. It's a reference to a lateral direction.

The high or low is relative to your own altitude.

"On your six" means that a 'bogie' is right behind you.

JB

Not exactly what you are asking about but my great uncle liked to tell a story about a guy who was killed when a damaged B-25 was coming in for a landing and one of the 50 cal "Blister gun" (whatever that was) broke loose and fell off hitting one of the tractor drivers out on the airfield.



Edit- man I need to learn to type today...the old fingers are just not co-operating.

Big Clock

Yes, 12 o'clock forward, 6 o'clock rearward.

You have probably heard the expression "watch your six" which is mil-slang for "watch your back." Other phrasings include "I've got your six" and "you've got a bogie on your six."

Six is usually a blind spot; it's one of the reasons you fly in pairs or groups, because you literally need someone to "watch your six" against the more common aerial combat attacks.

On ships we used a different system: ahead, astern, two points off the port bow, and so on.

Aircraft use the "clock" with references being pilot-relative.

I'd think that most dogfights would have taken place over relatively unpopulated areas. Dogfights over cities or bases would mostly be in defense of an attack, so most ground personnel and civilians would be in air raid fortifications, or wearing helmets and flak gear.

Falling shrapnel from AA weapons and pieces of aircraft would also be hazards as would unexploded AA ordnance.

I'd imagine that in most cases, those killed or wounded would be attributed to the attack in general and not specifically to falling debris so statistics would be almost impossible to document. Civilian collateral casualties are not often documented well at all anyway, especially not in WWI, WWII or Korea.

I've heard of aircraft dropping damaged or unused ordnance or fuel tanks that accidentally fell on farm houses and such (one such account is told in The Wild Blue by Stephen Ambrose). I doubt very much that these would be recorded anywhere but in memoirs and books written decades later.

As an amusing side note, I also read an account(Spitfires, Thunderbolts and Warm Beer by Philip D. Caine) of a fighter pilot who nearly shot himself down while practicing marksmanship on whitecaps in the English Channel. He recalled getting hits on his aircraft as he pulled up from the dive. Thinking he was under attack, he performed evasive maneuvers only to find himself completely alone on the clear day. He then realized that the hits were ricochets of his own rounds off the water.

One would think that with the millions of rounds of .50 BMG incendiary and tracer rounds discharged over Europe, at least a few people must've been killed. Consider that the maximum range of a .50 is in excess of five miles, and then add the fact that it's being launched from a significant height...they quite possibly could have killed people/set things on fire from miles and miles away. The sheer quantity of ammunition being expended would seem to guarantee that sooner or later it would happen.

And that's not counting the stuff thrown up at the aircraft from the ground, or the ammo fired by German fighters.

Not exactly what you are asking about but my great uncle liked to tell a story about a guy who was killed when a damaged B-25 was coming in for a landing and one of the 50 cal "Blister gun" (whatever that was) broke loose and fell off hitting one of the tractor drivers out on the airfield.

Click to expand...

Ze, American multi engined bombers had waist guns located in windows on both sides of the fuselage behind the wing. these were refered to has gun blisters.

Tim

Gun blisters were also forward firing fixed guns on the sides of the fuselage on B26/25 attack bombers. "Gun blisters" with manualy fired weapons was an English term, on English aircraft (Lancasters).

I was watching a documentary a long time ago on the theory that British bombers unloading ordnance over the English Channel may have inadvertantly killed Glenn Miller of the big band fame.
You see he was in a small plane going to or coming from France and may have gotten caught in the explosions of the expending of unused bombs. Actually pretty fascinating. Then again I'm a geek.

Just remember the statistical unlikelyhood of any two objects occupying the same point in space at the same time. No matter how much stuff is flying around, there's always much, much, more "nothing".

It's counter-intuitive, but one should be amazed that anyone is hit, not that folks aren't.

But I'm continually amazed after watching video of arty or airstrikes where it appears every inch of dirt is torn up and guys still pop back up to shoot when it's all over.

A good friend of mine who was in his mid-teens living in London, during the Battle of Britain, said that when the English fighters engaged the German bombers, etc., that empty cartridge cases from the machine guns firing far above, would fall onto the streets and buildings like hailstones.

I don't recall if he mentioned anyone being killed by bullets being fired from airplanes in air-to-air combat.

FWIW.

L.W.

I remember hearing a story as a kid about a family who left their house one morning to find an unexploded bomb on their walkway. They went back inside, said a prayer, and went out the back. I think I heard this in a religious setting!

Justin

While on the subject

of damage caused inadvertently by combat activities during WWII, I always ask the green weenies what became of all the millions of tons of crude oil, avgas and lubericants torpedoed and sunk in the oceans. Never find any record of damage to our environment at all.... strange.... puzzling? Between us, the Japanese and the Germans we spilled more oil in the six years of WWII than the entire history of oil spills including the Exxon Valdez etc. Every merchant ship sunk had bunker oil, every man o war had oil and other petro chemicals stored and then there are the tankers, just think about the tonnage and no damage to the oceans at all. All the greens measure the degradation of the oceans from the early sixties or late fifties and claim those times were "clean". sorry guys got carried away again

There's a story in Airwar by Edward Jablonski about a ground crew chief who was along on a B-17 doing a "shuttle mission". Instead of flying to a target, bombing and returning to base in England, the bomber stream would bomb, and then fly on to another base in Italy or Russia.

Anyhow, this crew chief who was along to supervise maintenance on the bombers at the shuttle base was sitting in the radio room of the B-17. A piece of flak came through the roof of the bomber and struck him on the knees, bounced off and landed on the floor of the bomber. He bent over to pick it up and found that there were numbers stamped into the fragment that were the exact sequence of his serial number, minus one. He yelled over the intercom; "Let's get the hell out of here, the next one has my number on it!"

British civillians had bomb shelters in their yards for lots of reasons besides bombs. Stray bullets, expended casings, links, for that matter, parts or even whole aircraft were falling. I don't recall hearing any stories about deaths or injuries though.

ceetee, I see your point, and I may well be mistaken for fixed wing. My first 3 years in the Army was in an aviation unit (Air Troop, 116 ACR), the pilots asked us to call out stuff as if we were looking directly at a clock and the helicopter was in center.

I'd think that most dogfights would have taken place over relatively unpopulated areas.

Click to expand...

I don't necessarily agree--the bombers are usually hitting a target near a population center. While your fighters try to hit 'em on the way in--that is, prior to bombing the target--I'd still think plenty of fighting would be over populated areas.

I've seen photos of bombers dropping into friendlies below--I think one series showed a B17 losing a rear stabilizer and crashing as a result.

In a show about Pearl Harbor they talked about several being hit by falling anti aircraft ordnance. I don't remember any specific numbers.
Mark.

I remember hearing a story about incident that supposedly happened in the Korean conflict: US jet fighter fired .50 MGs at enemy plane slightly above his, then dived at shallow angle while continuing straight ahead. In short time, his plane was hit by his own .50 cal MG fire and damaged. Not sure about authenticity of story.

Good shooting and be safe.
LB

Doubt it..

Even at supersonic speeds (which Korean era fighters were not), the bullet is so far in front of you, you never catch it..

Highly improbable. Not going to say it is IMPOSSIBLE, but not very likely..

While on the subject
of damage caused inadvertently by combat activities during WWII, I always ask the green weenies what became of all the millions of tons of crude oil, avgas and lubericants torpedoed and sunk in the oceans. Never find any record of damage to our environment at all.... strange.... puzzling? Between us, the Japanese and the Germans we spilled more oil in the six years of WWII than the entire history of oil spills including the Exxon Valdez etc. Every merchant ship sunk had bunker oil, every man o war had oil and other petro chemicals stored and then there are the tankers, just think about the tonnage and no damage to the oceans at all. All the greens measure the degradation of the oceans from the early sixties or late fifties and claim those times were "clean". sorry guys got carried away again

Click to expand...

Interesting point. However, while I would normally be an unlikely candidate to jump to the defense of environmental activists I would hazard a guess that an individual oil spill, on a relatively small scale, such as that caused by the torpedoing and sinking of a troopship or even a fleet oiler, in the open ocean, say, in the middle of the North Atlantic or Central Pacific, would constitute far less of an environmental hazard than a major supertanker spill close to a coastline, particularly one that is densely populated by waterfowl, etc. I don't follow the issue that closely, but it's my impression that environmentalists are more concerned by direct effects on coastal habitats rather than cumulative poisoning of the oceans by petrochemicals.

On the topic, I have read that at times British folks would amuse themselves in 1940 watching dogfights over London and southern England. Lots of .303 and 7.92x57 in the air. Probably foolish and dangerous, but I'll admit that if I was walking along a country road and saw a Hurricane and Bf109 going at it at 10,000 feet, I'd probably watch.

Interesting point. However, while I would normally be an unlikely candidate to jump to the defense of environmental activists I would hazard a guess that an individual oil spill, on a relatively small scale, such as that caused by the torpedoing and sinking of a troopship or even a fleet oiler, in the open ocean, say, in the middle of the North Atlantic or Central Pacific, would constitute far less of an environmental hazard than a major supertanker spill close to a coastline,

Click to expand...

Actually quite a bit of the "Battle of the Atlantic" was fought not far off the coast of the Eastern United States and Canada, sometimes close enough that people onshore witnessed the attacks. The transport ships sailed close to shore hoping to avoid the U-boats, and the U-boats, naturally followed them. One U-boat even penetrated into and was sunk in Chesapeake Bay.

In both the Atlantic and Pacific, choke points were naturally favored hunting grounds by all forces.