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I don't understand why the zeros wouldn't stay out of 50 range and just launch 20mm at the bomber.

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I wouldn't assume that their 20mm outranges the .50's.

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I don't understand why the zeros wouldn't stay out of 50 range and just launch 20mm at the bomber.

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I don't understand why the zeros wouldn't stay out of 50 range and just launch 20mm at the bomber.

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Hell yeah. 666 was badass!

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I don't understand why the zeros wouldn't stay out of 50 range and just launch 20mm at the bomber.

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Big ass brass balls: that crew had them.

15K in 40sec?  I'm surprised it didn't destroy the airframe, also, is that the only bomber pilot to get a A2A kill in ww2?

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Legends

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Wow, awesome story!

During the morning one of  my B- I 7  reccos, flown by Cap-
tain  Jay Zeamer and  his  crew, performed  a mission  that still
stands out in my mind as an epic of  courage unequaled  in the
annals of  air warfare. This crew had  already become known
throughout the Fifth Air Force as the Eager Beavers, by asking
for and volunteering for every mission that looked like a good
fight. This day we needed some pictures of Buka strip. Zeamer
and his  crew got the mission  and remarked  before  they took
off  that things looked promising for a little action. They got  it.
About  ten miles  from  their objective,  in  blue-sky visibility,
they saw the Jap fighters from the Buka  strip taking off  and
climbing to intercept them. Instead of  abandoning the mission,
at least temporarily, as the crew of  an unescorted  recco plane
would be justified in doing, this gang kept right on course and
started their photographic run. About this time the Nip fight-
ers,  estimated at fifteen to twenty in number, opened the at-
tack. The  first one, making a head-on  attack, was knocked off
by Lieutenant  Joseph R.  Sarnoski, the bombardier, manning
the front gun. The  top-turret  gunner, Sergeant Johnny Able,
picked  off  a second. The B-17,  however, was  stopping some
bullets and so were the crew. They were flying at 28,000 feet
and sucking pure oxygen. A Jap bullet  cut the main oxygen
line.  Zeamer pushed  the  ship  over and  dove  to  18,000  feet
while  the gunners  gasped and kept  shooting.  Just  as  he was
leveling out, Zeamer saw a Nip fighter just off  to his left, He
had a fixed fifty-caliber  gun on his side of  the cockpit, which
he had had mounted with the hope that some day he could get
in on one of  the shooting parties. Quickly kicking the rudder
and making a diving turn to  the left, he got the Jap  in his sights
and pressed the trigger. The  Jap went down in flames.

As he straightened out another enemy plane made a head-on
pass  at  the B-17. A  20-mm.  shell  burst  in  the  bombardier’s
cockpit, knocking  Sarnoski back  into  the passageway  under
the  pilot’s  cockpit.  One  fragment  hit  him  in  the  stomach,
wounding  him  fatally.  Zeamer had  both  legs hit,  so  that  the
co-pilot, Lieutenant Johnny Britton, had to handle the rudder
controls. Sarnoski called out,  “I’m  okay. Don’t worry about
me,”  and crawled back to his guns just in time to open fire on
another frontal attack. He  fired one long burst. The  Jap plane
blew up and disintegrated. Sarnoski collapsed over his guns-
dead. The  radio operator, Sergeant William Vaughan, had his
radio shot away in front of  his face. He was wounded. Zeamer
had collected  some more  bullets  and was  now wounded in
both legs and arms. The  tail gunner, Sergeant “Pudge” Pugh,
would fire a burst and then dash forward and help bandage up
gunners who continued to man their guns. After forty minutes
of  this crazy combat,  the Japs finally pulled away. They had
lost five planes definitely. Most  of  the  others were  damaged.
The B-17 had completed  taking its pictures and headed back
toward home. The photographer, Sergeant William Kendrick,
also doubling  in brass on both side gun stations, had been alter-
nately taking pictures and shooting at Japs. A lot of  lead had
poured  through his section  of  the  ship but  he  had  collected
none of  it. Zeamer had passed out from loss of blood. The co-
pilot was being  bandaged.  The navigator,  Lieutenant  Ruby
Johnston, was  badly wounded and  out  of  commission. The
top-turret gunner,  just  slightly wounded and by now nicely
bandaged, who doubled  in brass as flight engineer, was in the
co-pilot’s  seat, flying a B-I  7 for  the first time in his life-keep-
ing  the sun at his back-which  was  roughly  the direction to
the  home airdrome,  580 miles  away.  No  radio,  no  compass
(Jap bullets had knocked that out, too), no brakes, no flap con-
trol,  just a shot-up B-17,  one man dead, 5 men wounded,  the
pilot unconscious, and the sergeant engineer at the controls-
but they had the pictures they had started out to get and could
now paint five more little Jap flags on the side of  the fuselage.

Zeamer  woke  up  occasionally, gave directions  about  the
course as he recognized islands and coral reefs along the route,
and kept lapsing back into unconsciousness  again.

The  coast  of  New  Guinea  came  in  sight.  Then  Cape
Endiaidere. Twenty-five miles more to the field at Dobodura.
Zeamer came to. His legs were gone, but he could lift one of
his arms to the wheel. The co-pilot had revived and was now
back  on the  job.  He could handle  the rudder. There was no
time to circle the field and worry about heading  into  the wind.
Zeamer wasn’t  going  to  last much  longer.  They rolled  to a
stop, using every foot of  the 7000 available. Without brakes,
it was a good  thing they had  that much runway.

“Pudge,” the tail gunner who by some miracle had not even
been scratched, helped get Zeamer and the rest of the wounded
out of  the airplane and started toward the operations hut. He
looked  up  at  the wind  cone and  saw  it pointing  toward the
direction  in which the B-17  had  landed. Without  a second’s
hesitation, he climbed up to the control tower and to the as-
tonished sergeant on duty yelled, “What  the hell is the idea of
having that wind sock pointing the wrong way?”  The  control-
tower  sergeant  took  one look at Pudge’s  face. He knew  in-
stinctively  that if  he told Pudge that his pilot, Captain Zeamer,
had landed with the wind, Pudge would  certainly sock him.
“Okay, Pudge,” he said consolingly, “I’ll fix it right.”

Of  course, Pudge was  probably  a bit  excited, perhaps  he
wasn’t thinking too clearly at that moment, and he was wrong
about the wind  cone,  but somehow  I  liked  the  subconscious
loyalty.

Zeamer  and Sarnoski were  awarded Congressional Medals
of  Honor  and the  rest  of  the crew  Distinguished Service
Crosses.

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.50 had much better ballistics then the relatively low velocity 20mm, and Jap 20mm shells had very small payloads

hell the Germans realized their 20mm minengescho ( have a much larger explosive payload ) rounds weren't sufficient and started loading planes with 30mm and 50mm cannon for anti-bomber duty

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... cool, I've never heard about that

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The following is from General Kenney Reports: A Personal History of the 5th Air Force in the Pacific. I had just read this part yesterday. BTW If you haven't this and are interested in the air war in the Pacific, read it. It's public domain and can be found by searching the name in Google.

Machine gun fire rips through the fuselage. Flames fill the cockpit and the aircraft plummets in a wild spin. But time and again the pilot of a P-47 Thunderbolt pulls out and keeps on fighting.

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45 minutes....how much ammo did they use and how much did they have left?  Hell of a job they did...even got the mapping run done.....Those men were Giants back then.

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How about, "Died protecting his comrades"

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There is something truly awe inspiring and humbling about Joseph Zamoski returning to his gun while mortally wounded. "Died manning his gun" is as fine an epitaph as a man can ever have.

The relevant part from his MOH Citation: "With indomitable fighting spirit, he crawled back to his post and kept on firing until he collapsed on his guns. 2d Lt. Sarnoski by resolute defense of his aircraft at the price of his life, made possible the completion of a vitally important mission."

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I'm sure they were carrying more than the standard load out, without having to worry about the weight of the bombs the plane wouldn't flinch at some extra .50 Cal belts.

In the ETO they experimented with B17 gunships as escorts but once the regular bombers dropped their bombs the heavily armed gunships couldn't keep up with the formation.

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I dont think the pilot often pulled the trigger though. This was a modded plane including extra guns for pilot and bombardier.

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It was just a plane.  Then men who flew it and fought were badass.

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It's probably been posted here in the past but I have not seen it for quite some time.

The most heavily armed B-17 on a lone wolf mission get's jumped by 17 enemy fighters, one hell of a story.

Enjoy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Im086TCu3I