The aircraft I cited were all “heavy” 4-engine bombers. The crew of a typical US or UK heavy bomber was around 10 men (more or less depending on type). Pilot, co-pilot, engineer, navigator, radioman, bombardier, and several gunners. A B-17 had (at least) a top gunner, two waist gunners, a ball gunner and a tail gunner.
As you might imagine, the casualty rates in the bomber forces were appalling.
It sounds pretty horrifying.
I remember a poem about a tailgunner in a fight plane.
He had been shot and killed.
I think it is a quite famous poem but I cannot recall much of it.
Maybe I don’t remember being young and relatively fearless, because one would have to shoot me up with massive amounts of dope to be a tail gunner at 49. :(
Their mortality rates had to have been horrific.