” ‘ ... Corporal Thatcher, a 20-year-old from Montana, manned a pair of .50-caliber guns in the raid... He rode in the rear of the Mitchell B-25 medium bomber... ‘
Maybe you should let the family know great-grampa was a liar.”
If Talisker and other forum members had any knowledge of the B-25 (numerous variants over a long production run and a very extended service life), and the Doolittle Raid, they would know that “riding in the tail” meant manning the dorsal turret (the ventral turret was removed from the 34 BMS aircraft used on the raid, to save weight, given the low-level penetration tactic greatly reduced the chances of attack from below). This is explained in detail in _30 Seconds Over Tokyo_, the book by Ted Lawson, one of the 16 pilots on the raid, commanding the crew of Ruptured Duck.
Tail-stinger positions were just then being developed; neither the first four B-17 variants had any, nor the first three or four B-25 variants.
The Raider aircraft mounted broomsticks painted black, to simulate guns. Nobody aviated “all the way back there” until later in the B-25’s combat activities.
Great-grampa wasn’t lying on purpose. I’ve heard hundreds of stories about such exploits, and people remember spottily. Sometimes they change stories and insist they have not.
More likely: his posterity heard it wrong - if they knew what they were hearing at all. And never underestimate the ability of authors and editors to scramble technical details; they are always certain they know better.
As a last resort, check the interior views at the USAF Museum link.
Fair enough. Good defense.