Friend of mine was a b17 gunner in the tail position with the 303rd BG, The Hells Angels. He flew 38 missions over France & Germany in 1943-1944 and was shot by a 109, hospitalized and returned to fly 20 something (he's 80 now and that was a long time ago to remember exactly) more missions, he flew alot of fill in gun positions on other missions because some planes would lose a crewman or two on a mission and they would ask the non scheduled guys for fill in (he always excitedly states "I NEVER volunteered !I wasn't crazy!") , understandable since he had gone thru times when the casualty rate was 50%! But when they would ask him he NEVER said no.
He's told me about his combat experiences with attacking German fighters and he makes it plain that they would open fire on the fighters as soon as they saw them and it didnt matter how far away they were I ask about estimates on distance and he said he had no idea, that the fighters look so small anyways that they would open fire for intimidation and that the fighters would come in on you so fast that the rule was pretty much early on that you would be shot down or killed if the fighter got in close enough to fire his own guns, he said that the most effective attack that he would see the fighters make was the head-on since its easier to kill 2 pilots than to take out the engines I guess and later on the high speed very low 6 attack on th ball and tail gunner since once they were dead the fighter could just ease in on the b17s six and take carefull deliberate aim and blast away. He says that later on when the b17 gunners got the compensating gunsight things got better.
He flew missions over places like Bremen, so you can imagine what he's seen.
You can see him at the 303rd BG website
http://www.303rdbga.com/ ile he crewed in a b17G 'Shoo Shoo Baby' at the time of this picture, he's front row far left, he's going to the 303rd reunion soon and will staighten out the "computer guys" about "who's who in that picture"(he's Noah).
