MA28M-JA

Aircraft Maintenance, 28th Sqd, 19th BG At Djockdjakarta, Java, Feb. 1942

WORK ON TURRETS

by T/Sgt Anson McMurtrey, RFD, Buell Idaho

            In Java the bottom turrets were very inefficient and we could not get parts for them. Altitude, temperature, and vibration caused the turrets to fail in their operation.

            Even when the turrets did work they were not effective, we could not hit anything with them.

            We had to find out some way we could use them. I believe it was Lt McGee’s idea to put something else in there to take the place of the old turrets. The men in the 28th Sqd armament section figured out the system we used.

            We took the whole bottom turret out, which left a large hole in the plane. We had a ring built by one of the welders, then added a mount for the guns. The ring rolled on the floor of the old mount such that we had 360 degrees of travel. It wasn’t what it should have been, but was a great improvement over the old one. We then modified this method, by suspending the whole installation from the ceiling by means of 3 steel rods that were fastened to a movable ring mount, thus giving the installation 360 degrees of travel and greater stability. This installation was found to be especially effective in strafing.

REARMING B-17s

            In Java the conditions were such that when something was needed and needed badly by combat crews, there was no regard for technical orders, the ingenuity of the men was the only thing left to rely on.  As a result airplanes were torn apart and put together to suit our needs.  Compliance with technical orders was something never heard of due to the extreme emergencies suffered there.  It’s thanks to the ideas and ingenuity of these ground men that a great many pilots owe their lives and accomplishments.

            Due to the fact that many of the Jap pursuit attacks were made as head-on attacks and from below, it was vital that some type of armament be devised to meet this new emergency. One of the things that was done was taking the escape door in the nose off, and devising a rack with a ball socket to hold a .30 cal. machine gun. It is definitely known that several pursuits have been shot down as a result of this, the effect of this improved armament is highly regarded.

            Until this time there had been no armament in the nose other than .30 cal. guns. A second modification made possible the installation of one .50 cal gun, which possessed a much greater range, muzzle velocity and hitting power. The .50 cal installation was praised by the combat crews and was found to be the most effective gun or set of guns that had been put into the nose of a plane.

            To accomplish the second modification, the small triangular door ventilator was removed and a ball socket mount was improvised with a steel plate for rigidity, so the mount for the gun could be placed in there.

            We had a box, set right under the gun, that fit against the wall. The box was curved to fit the contour of the plane. It had to be short enough so one could get elevation on the gun, and long enough to get enough ammunition to be of service.

TAIL GUNS

            In the LB-30s the tail guns had 25 round cans in them, which is just enough to test a machine gun. This had to be changed, along with many other things.

            Sergeant Wilhelm, now lying in a hospital somewhere in Australia, badly burned as the result of a plane crash, was the first man to successfully conceive the idea or arming the tail of an LB-30.

            At Djockdjkarta, Sergeant Wilhelm worked as much as 32 hours at a stretch -- with no sleep -- perfecting this armament, whereby a belt of ammunition could be fed into the tail guns. By cutting away part of the fuselage, a greater area of fire could be obtained. He changed the armor plating to give more protection. As a result of this the armament section had the huge task of changing all the rest of the LB-30s over to conform to these new ideas. Much of the hard labor was done by Javanese natives, and much credit must be given to them and the Dutch for their able assistance. Considerable machine work was required to make these changes and transitions.

            Mountable ammunition cans were replaced by a box, devised by the armament section under M/Sgt. Louis Silva, who was later killed in an accidental crash, This box would hold one case of ammunition. The weight of the ammunition was so great, the belts wouldn’t feed into the guns properly and thereby caused jams, etc. A spring was manufactured to keep the ammunition at the highest point of the box.

GROUND DEFENSE -- JAVA

            When we first got there, there were practically no guns at all for ground defense, and only small cal, .50’s and .30’s, operated by the Dutch.

            Whenever an airplane was on the ground for maintenance and out of flight condition, we would take the guns out of that ship and put them on mounts we had made by the Javanese in their machine shops. When the plane went out on combat missions we removed the guns from these mounts and installed them back on the planes.

            Whenever a plane was cracked up, we would rig up the guns from that plane and use them for ground defense. When there was an alert, the ground men would run to the closest gun and use it, men were not assigned to a particular machine gun due to the shortage of manpower.