Could Removing Air Gunners From WWII Bombers Really Have Saved Lives?

what if bombers in the second world war had stopped carrying air Gunners in their Crews would this have saved lives air Gunners lost in operations made up about 36% of all bomber command air crew killed for the Eighth Air Force this represented about 41% so by removing as many as two men from British crews and perhaps even five men from American crews could the Allies have really saved lives now this isn't some postwar War revisionist Theory it was a genuine wartime suggestion that came out of the British operational research section these civilian scientific advisers really believe that removing gun turrets from British aircraft at the very least would improve the bomber loss rate as well as reducing casualties so why wasn't this Theory ever tested well one of the reasons given was that those civvy Street buffins were too afraid to tell Arthur Harris about it so as ever there's a lot to unpack here I hadn't come across this proposal before but while reading the autobiography of Frank Musgrove who flew as a Lancaster Navigator with number 149 Squadron he raised a heck of a lot of interesting points one being the idea that the upper rear and front gun turrets on British heavy bombers should have been ripped out and the air Gunners benched for the duration it was not pilot officer musgrove's own idea but as a member of the academic Community post-war he did have some compelling ideas in his book so I'd highly recommend it for your own book wish list the idea originated in the operational research section this organization was the brainchild of Professor Patrick blackup who worked predominantly with the Royal Navy and Coastal command during the war similar organizations were set up in the RF including bomber command the idea was to give these military organizations the benefit of the technical knowledge of civilian consultants and therefore improved the efficiency of their own operations blacket was by all reports a force of Nature and successfully influenced the senior service his counterpart in bomber command Dr Basil Dickens has officially been recognized as being cut from the same cloth his appointment to head the BC RS was seen as significant by official historians and he was described as brilliant by Arthur Harris though also as young he was just 33 when he took up the role contrary to this praise he was described as a spineless sycophant by some of his subordinates but a very spineless character he never would say anything to sarur Harris that s arur Harris didn't want to hear and this is an appraisal that would fit with sir Max Hastings evaluation of bommer commands HQ at the time however to say that bom command and Arthur Harris in particular were in in transient in their prosecution of the bombing War might be a little unjust true Harris didn't suffer Panacea Merchants gladly but evidently supported any technology that would improve the effectiveness of his bombers the introduction of navigational AIDS such as OBO H2S and the like would support this evaluation there's also the fact that when Harris was Co of five group he proactively updated the gun mounts on his hens by hiring The Firm of Alfred Rosen Sons to invent a better solution he did this by successfully Sid stepping the official channels and then ordering so many units that the air Ministry was obliged to pay for it all genius all this to say Arthur Harris was not opposed to taking drastic action to improve the chances of his crew survival but of course he was at the mercy of red tape on many other topics of safety think Escape hatches and 50 cows that being said there did seem to be a glaring breakdown in the system according to Freeman Dyson a theoretical physicist and mathematician who was then a 19-year-old advisor in the OS if Dickens didn't think Harris would want to hear something he would alter the results of a study or Worse not pass it on at all this seems hardly conducive to an open and effective conversation on how to improve the effectiveness of bomber command while reducing the possibility of death of thousands of young men I think is a point often forgotten in the condemnation of Harris post-war and so it was in this atmosphere that Dyson and his colleagues came up with the idea of removing gun turrets from British bombers entirely the theory was based on Research Dyson carried out after joining the OS in July 1943 previous studies had shown that a crew's chances of surviving a tour of Duty significantly increased as their own experience grew this enabled commanders to confidently tell the young men under their charge that if they could get 10 or 12 Ops under their belts their chances of making it through the war were much higher most sprog Crews seemed to go down before this Milestone was met and the findings were logical the better the crew were at their jobs the better they were at avoiding unknowable dangers faced by Greener Crews it must have been good for morale at the very least the problem was that when Freeman Dyson carried out his own study he found no connection between level of experience and Mission survival rates something was happening over the Skies of Germany that was indiscriminantly claiming the lives of very experienced Crews and sprog Crews alike the chances of coming back seemed to no longer rely on how many times you'd been on Ops postwar the answer was confirmed but working out of their little Caravan offices in the woods around High Wickham the team of os2 and and in particular OS 2D were completely in the dark well not completely the head of ORS 2 Ruben smeed met almost weekly with an Invader who'd been shot down over Europe and made it back to blighty when asked how they had been shut down most could only tell him that they had suddenly been attacked and before they knew what was happening they were bailing out no one seemed to have drawn the correct conclusion from these interviews other than experienced apparent ly could not prevent the cause of these losses so it was proposed that as every crew had exactly the same chances of being lost on an operation the easiest way to reduce casualties was to reduce the size of the crew by leaving the Gunners behind that was at least two men on heavy bombers who didn't need to die also by removing the turrets on the bombers and making them more aerodynamic their performance could be improved OS claimed that as much as 50 mph could be gained in speed which would greatly improve a bomber's chance of evading the night Fighters the main cause of the nightly losses this all seems logical and worth testing so why were no trials carried out according to Freeman Dyson it was simply because Basel Dickens didn't have the guts to tell Bert about the scheme my question is was Dickens right was it a stupid idea when you really sit down and think about it the role of an air Gunner Is Not What It Seems while it is true that during the Great War they were a deadly adversary this became less and less true during the second world war the key difference was that especially in the case of the Allies facing German Fighters they were no longer using the same Armament as the foe machine guns even the heavier caliber ones used by American Crews were being outmatched by the cannon Armament on Fighters British aircraft especially the fairy battles of the Advanced Air striking Force found that air Gunners could not effectively defend them at best they could distract incoming Fighters if using Tracer or give advanced warning to their pilots to take evasive action there is an argument that says this ability could have been replaced by technology Mona a radar warning system that could do just that was developed in June 1942 it gave the crew an indication of whether or not another aircraft was behind them and at what distance this was done via a high pitched tone blasted out over the intercom which became more rapid the closer an aircraft became as Freeman Dyson explained Crews found it bloody annoying it was too sensitive which made it unreliable and most Crews simply turned the thing off this probably saved their lives seeing that the lufer had developed a method to hone in on bombers using the system when trying to determine the effectiveness of Monica on crew survival Dyson mathematically concluded cluded that it made no difference At All by late 1944 it had been abandoned it would seem that no air force during the second world war could rely on only their Gunners to defend their bombers the lufer discovered this in the summer of 1940 when they attempted daylight bombing the eth Air Force rediscovered it 3 years later RF bomber command was taught the same lesson in 1939 while fighter pilots were still at risk when attacking an enemy bomber whether alone or in formation a determined attack would usually see the bomber being shot down rather than the fighter there are of course some fantastic reports of bom Cruz bucking the trend but these were isolated cases so did the air Gunner serve any useful purpose aboard a bomber aircraft without a doubt while Gunners could and did shoot down enemy Fighters their most important task was observation ironically the very mettier that began their role in 1914 the Gunner was the eyes in the back of the Pilot's head during daylight while flying in formation Gunners could warn of impending collisions or the progress of the rest of the flight behind at night it was the air Gunner who might spot a stalking night fighter and give the life saving command cor screw to pull go Gunners were also available to carry out important tasks such as giving first a to other injured crew members or fighting cabin fires to save a crippled aircraft and sometimes being award wed the VC for their trouble their other main role was to provide a deterrent to approaching enemy aircraft even though the advantage was invariably in the favor of the attacking fighter it takes extreme nerve not to break off an attack when Tracer bullets are curving up to meet you in fact enemy Fighters were forced to attempt difficult attack angles in order to minimize their exposure to return fire this brings me back to the Memoir Frank Musgrove wrote in it he describes a catastrophic daylight Mission he flew on the 12th of December 1944 to viton the force of 140 lancasters was intercepted by German Fighters with the then flight Sergeant musgrove's Squadron being attacked by fw1 190s eight lancasters were shot down without a single loss to the lufer mus recalls the following incident during the mission there's a wolf on our tail Skipper the rear Gunner flat and unhurried laners voice he has an open fire I'm not going to fire either he might fire back apparently this fighter followed musgroves Lancaster for nearly 10 minutes while the rear Gunner determinately stuck to the policy of don't fire first this was the result of another or study that showed aggressive Gunners caused more damage to their own side as well as encouraging more attention from the enemy the simple fact the British for much of the war was that their defensive Armament was Far inferior to the offensive Armament of the lufer so if these members of crew had been removed would it have led to more or less bombers being lost on operations specifically when talking about British and Commonwealth or American bomber cruise we have to make the distinction between daylight and night bombing we also have to think about the way the various Air Forces flew their missions the air Gunner was a key component of the pre 1944 American approach to Aerial bombing it would have been impossible without men Manning The Guns of the b7s and B2 24s could American Air Gunners have been left behind on certain missions or in certain phases of the war it's a possibility air operations on D-Day would have called for very little defensive capabilities for American bombers but having extra eyes in those busy Skies was probably an advantage of course it was only after the operation that the commanders learned of the Lu Raff's absence I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I don't think the American approach to bombing would have worked without air guns even when longrange escorts arrived on mass in 1944 while the individual Gunner especially those with a single 50 cal may not have posed a great threat the combat box had its merits for the RF defensive Armament was almost redundant during daylight missions except as a deterrent the RF post 1941 never really developed the tight formation of the American combat box even when Frank Musgrove was sent to vitan during the daylight hours of the 12th of December 1944 the lancasters didn't fly wing tip to wingtip they adopted a loose formation to keep themselves generally in the same part of the sky but no closer no doubt this is why the 190s cut through them so effectively at night however I would argue that a Gunners whether actually armed or not were an advantage given the very high density of the bomber stream in 1944 1945 making yourself a tough prey would surely encourage a KN fighter to break off and find easier meat even with the effective development of onboard radar and the improved German Knack Jager Force as a whole if an RAF crew could spot a prowling fighter and cor screw away they would more than likely shake them off but answering just how likely that was it's quite difficult Ken delve in his book Night fighter gives the example of an attack on leig flown on the night of the 19th to 20th of February 1944 the lufer flew 294 salties that night with an interception rate of 28% of those 82 contacts that were tracked 74 was shot down by German KN Fighters that's a 90% success rate whether this was the norm it's hard for me to say but what is clear is that the lufa was able to achieve this by the beginning of 1944 we could assume that the eight RF bombers that escaped that night did so because an air Gunner spotted the approaching fighter however the reality is that given the tactics employed by the Germans it's more likely that they messed up these interceptions themselves although Freeman Dyson claimed that bomber command had no idea of the effect iess of the German upward Fine Guns many crews reportedly did carry out constant Maneuvers to check their blind spot below was this practice in all squadrons probably not the reality though was that RF Crews really needed an additional ventral Gunner to keep them safe but despite the or research the anomaly that led to any type of crew failing to return had not discovered the attacks from below that night Fighters were using to devastating effect when it comes to the proposal to remove air Gunners there is one other observation to make something Freeman Dyson probably didn't consider but this isn't necessarily his fault the simple fact is Dyson a civilian was not granted intimate access to the cruise whose lives he was trying to save in his book disturbing the universe he brings up a very interesting story he describes how Wing Commander mcgaan the chief medical officer at Whit and Airbase flew on several missions with the crews he cared for having completed nearly a third of a tour not only boosted the morale of his charges mwan was a lucky charm for the crews he flew with as he always came back it also gave mowan the moral authority to stamp lmf on the files of those boys who cracked up Dyson was not given this Insider view of the problem therefore he never really got the vital insights into eral combat that he needed to make a more informed conclusion firstly why did the Germans develop their now Infamous shreer musique it was simply because attacking in the usual way from the rear did not work because the air Gunner was there to spot you remove that Gunner and the far easier method of attack from dead a stern was now possible it would not have taken the Germans long to deduce that the wreckage of enemy bombers no longer carried gun turrets also and perhaps more importantly having your to and Charlie sitting in the cold and exposed rear of the aircraft boosted the morale of the other men they knew that there was a good chance their mate would see the one seeking their death and give advanced warning of it however it has to be said that these men these boys probably would have flown without the protection of Gunners if ordered to do so their Collective bravery was remarkable and their determination to finish the job no matter what was evident so was it worth taking the risk Dyson and his colleagues would argue that by removing the drag inducing turrets and the added weight of these positions and their men would boost the aircraft's performance obviously the best way to have tested this would have been in a real life trial today the best way I can think to evaluate this claim without any advanced decree in aerospace engineering is to look at the Avro lancrin this was the civilian version of the Arro Lancaster which indeed had all the gun turrets removed and replaced with more aerodynamic features was the Lancaster in roughly 50 mph faster than the Lancaster under the same conditions and loading would this have made much difference against night Fighters now before we get into the numbers here I have to admit I'm not entirely happy with the data I've been able to collect while I've managed to find some genuine flight tests carried out in the Lancaster but I trust I had to rely on Wikipedia for data for the afro lancastrian here's hoping one of the references they used actually had access to a manual or two that being said I think it's still worth looking at the numbers the tests carried out on the Lancaster Mark 1 and Lancaster Mark III which were the two most produced variants give the level performance in true air speed I've given you the results of the tests for the Ms and Fs supercharge gear settings it's also worth noting that the test for the Mark 1 was carried out with with a test rate of £4,300 and the Mark 3 at £ 58,60 a difference of £ 13,300 and Wikipedia was able to provide the following performance data for the lancrin which was apparently tested at £ 65,000 for reference let's look quickly at how much those gun turrets weighed fully crewed up and armed those three turrets on the average Mark 1 Lancaster weighed in at £ 3,488 or 1 and 1/2 tons the Mark II was fitted with a different upper turret but we can use this as a Rough Guide to put that in context that's the same as about half of B1 17's normal bomb load and 1/5 of the total weight of fuel and Lancaster could carry so removing them and two of the men needed to man the upper and rear turrets would result in a sizable decrease in the aircraft's weight in reality the front turret could have been removed in most cases anyway as the Bomer rarely had the chance to use it according to many sources looking at the performance figures for the Lancaster and Lancaster and again you notice that the Mark III tests were performed on an aircraft weighing £ 58,60 with the all up weights noted at 63,000 Wikipedia claims the level performance It quotes was on a Lancaster in weighing 65,000 so despite being heavier and without the dragon juicing turrets the the aircraft could achieve a faster true air speed at comparable altitudes to the Lancaster and if we believe these figures for the lancrin that it may very well have performed favorably in the face of German KN Fighters given the fact that these Crews had to stalk British bombers in the dark higher cruising speeds for the latter would have used up more of the German fuel reserves in pursuit of them leading to shorter and shorter sorties this would more than certainly reduce the number of interceptions and therefore may have reduced RF casualties perhaps this does in fact support what the chaps in OS 2D was saying what do you think but of course there are still other areas to explore the best argument for bombers without Gunners is the deavin mosquito there's an entire debate to have over why bomber command didn't simply employ the mosquito as its main bomber I'd really like to get into that in a video dedicated to just this topic but let's look into just a few points here firstly it has to be said that the mosquito was in fact used to carry out raids on targets which had previously resulted in unsustainable losses to the main bomber Force for example the Battle of Berlin waged between November 1943 and March 1944 over the entire period the average loss rate was 3.8% which translates to 1,17 aircraft of 29,44 sorties lost however many individual Rays During the period especially those on the German Capital itself were far in excess of this on the night of the 2nd to 3rd of December 1943 for example 8.7% of the 458 aircraft attacking Berlin were lost compare this to raids carried out by mosquitoes alone you get a very different story 10 days later on the night of the 13th of December 1943 16 mosquitoes attacked dorf with no losses also on the 26th and 27th of March 1945 80 mosquitoes attacked Berlin for no losses these admittedly cherry-picked examples show that it was possible to carry out bombing raids in unarmed aircraft without casualties this is why mosquitoes were increasingly used by bomber command to carry out nuisance Rays over the German Capital rather than risking the main bomber Force despite the advantages of using this Swift twin engine aircraft the the fact remains that at its extreme range the mosquito's bomb load was a fraction of the Heavies to achieve the same level of Destruction would have required at the very least three mosquitoes for every Lancaster possibly more with longer range Targets this is even if you factor in the assumption that a mosquito force would be more accurate in its bombing there's also the financial burden even if lives could be saved it would be hard for Any Nation to stop using expensive bombers they'd built or expensively trained Crews without carrying out the detailed studies on the theory as we've seen Basel Dickens was not want to bring radical ideas to the desk of Arthur Harris so this seems unlikely as I said I'd like to dedicate a lot more time to research this but I know that many of you will have been thinking about the mosquito while we discussed this topic so what do you think about the operational research section Theory could bombers have been operated by the RAF or any Nation without Gunners please let me know your thoughts and any points I've missed in the comment section and if you're interested in another interesting theory about bomber command check out the video on screen now