A Nose with a View

Posted in B-17, Personal

The most spectacular view in the Nine-O-Nine was from the nose of the plane. The position is in front of the cockpit. This is where the bombardier and the navigator sat, in an extremely vulnerable plexiglass bubble. German fighter tactics focused on attacking the plane head-on to kill the cockpit crew.

On this August day, I had a lovely view of the fields and mountainsides during my two minutes in the nose, as if I was sitting in an IMAX theater.

In that setting, it was hard to imagine how the crew could concentrate on its mission to get to the target in the original Nine-O-Nine as it swooped in over Berlin with desperate German fighters coming in from all angles.

In the nose was the Norden bomb sight. When the B-17 was on the bomb run, the bombardier actually “flew” the plane over the target until the bombs dropped, hopefully into the “pickle barrel”.

Then, as German fighters regrouped, it was a race to get back home in one piece.

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Published by Ernie Quatrani

Married with three adult children, I taught in the Upper Perkiomen School District for thirty-nine years, where I was also heavily involved in co-curricular activities, including the school newspaper, TV studio, and baseball. After coaching for thirty-two years, I retired and was inducted into the school’s hall of fame. Before becoming a high school English teacher, I received my BS in communication from Temple University, Post-Baccalaureate Teaching Certificate from St. Joseph’s University, and Masters in Educational Administration from Villanova University. 
 My work has been published or is forthcoming in The Main Line Times, The News of Delaware County, The Catholic Standard and Times, North Dakota Quarterly, r.kv.r.y., Apalachee Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, and The Town and Country.

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