Warbird Information Exchange

Do any lists (official or otherwise) exist recognizing Allied bomber crews who downed an exceptional number of enemy aircraft?

How about it fellow WIXers? What kind of information exists concerning top-scoring individual gunners, entire flight crew, or perhaps individual aircraft?

What started this all is a photo of "Old Blister Butt", an 8th AF (389th BG maybe?) B-24 with 16 swastikas stenciled under the pilot's window. That seemed pretty impressive, but I'm guessing the scores range even higher.

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

Take those flags with a grain of salt. One FW-190 goes through a B-17 formation and someone takes a piece off his tail and presto.....24 kills!!!
T/Sgt Art Benko top turret gunner of the B-24D "The Goon" 308th BG CBI had 16 real kills before being KIA (the Japanese crucified him!!!) with 7 in 1 mission.
There was a 323rd BG B-26 gunner who downed 2 ME-262s on 1 mission after being wounded winning the Silver Star 3-45.
Sgt John Quinlan of the Memphis Belle has 5 I believe from both his tours. The top Navy gunner had 4 I think John Liska in SBDs at Coral Sea and later SB2Cs.
http://www.308thbombgroup.org/goon.htm

Bomber gunner claims were HIGHLY inflated for a couple of reasons. First was the combat box formations which were adhered to regardless of composition of the box. The formations were designed to maximize the fields of fire for the gunners. HOWEVER, the aircraft comprising the formations were not always from the same units. After missions, the debriefers were from different units, and since claims were administered at the air base units, natural inflation occurred (shades of later body counting in Vietnam).

Second reason is that figures were NOTABLY inflated in late 1943 and early 1944 as a means of justifying the gunners on the aircraft. There was a serious movement afoot to remove the defensive armament from aircraft in order to allow heavier bomb and fuel capacities. The crews evidently rebelled against this concept, and inflated claims were noted around the time the ideas were being tested.

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REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!

I've been wondering for awhile about how to recognize bomber crews in a similar fashion to the way fighter pilots are done. Any suggestions on how to this information should be presented? By individual aircraft? By air crew? Etc...

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Scott Rose
Editor-In-Chief/Webmaster
Warbirds Resource Group - Warbird Information Exchange - Warbird Registry

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