My wife's grandfather Jack flew a Dauntless (an example is pictured below) while stationed in the Pacific. His pilot was the squadron lead, and Jack was the best shot in the whole squadron. But he was 6'4", so too tall to be a tail gunner. The lead pilot had the rear seat of his plane modified so Jack would fit (I think against 'regulations'). They had several battles with the Japanese.
In one battle we heard about, they flew into a bad situation with three Japanese gun batteries shooting at them: One on each side of the plane and one behind. They were sitting ducks, but Jack opened up on them, taking out all three relatively quickly. While the shooting was going on, he felt he got shot in the shoulder, but kept going. (He later found this was a hot shell casing that spun out of the gun and went into his jacket and burned the back of his shoulder.) The plane got shot up pretty bad and was losing altitude fast. But Jack's pilot said "Jack, you just saved my a$$ so now it is time for me to save yours". His pilot nursed the plane back towards friendly forces and crashed/ put the plane down so they both made it without injuries from the crash. They then managed to walk back to friendly forces.
Like many (most?) WWII vets, he had nightmares his whole life about the war.
Both of my grandfathers were in Sweden. Sweden was officially neutral but sided with the Allies. At one point Hitler wanted to march his armies from Norway into Finland, through Sweden. He "asked" Sweden for permission but they really didn't have much choice or Sweden would have been annihilated. So Hitler marched his armies across the country. My grandfather was one who watched the German army move across the country through the sights of his gun. It was very tense and had anything been started, they would have fought to the death, even if they would not have had a chance to win.
My other grandfather was guarding an ammo dump when something happened and it exploded. He was blown 10 or so yards away by the force of the explosion. When he came to, he had lost most of his hearing, and never gained it back.
In one battle we heard about, they flew into a bad situation with three Japanese gun batteries shooting at them: One on each side of the plane and one behind. They were sitting ducks, but Jack opened up on them, taking out all three relatively quickly. While the shooting was going on, he felt he got shot in the shoulder, but kept going. (He later found this was a hot shell casing that spun out of the gun and went into his jacket and burned the back of his shoulder.) The plane got shot up pretty bad and was losing altitude fast. But Jack's pilot said "Jack, you just saved my a$$ so now it is time for me to save yours". His pilot nursed the plane back towards friendly forces and crashed/ put the plane down so they both made it without injuries from the crash. They then managed to walk back to friendly forces.
Like many (most?) WWII vets, he had nightmares his whole life about the war.
Both of my grandfathers were in Sweden. Sweden was officially neutral but sided with the Allies. At one point Hitler wanted to march his armies from Norway into Finland, through Sweden. He "asked" Sweden for permission but they really didn't have much choice or Sweden would have been annihilated. So Hitler marched his armies across the country. My grandfather was one who watched the German army move across the country through the sights of his gun. It was very tense and had anything been started, they would have fought to the death, even if they would not have had a chance to win.
My other grandfather was guarding an ammo dump when something happened and it exploded. He was blown 10 or so yards away by the force of the explosion. When he came to, he had lost most of his hearing, and never gained it back.
