pzu, thank you for the link in #9800 !
Geriaviator (speaking as the voice of Harry Hannah),
...In 2012, Vintage Wings of Canada honoured Harry Hannah by dedicating our Boeing Stearman in his name...
A suitable tribute to a tough old aircraft on which many of our wartime pilots started their training !
...all personnel were required to spend four hours a week belting ammunition. This was accomplished by having two nails on board and pushing a .303 bullet and casing through a clip to make a belt of 320 .303 shells which was measured by a gauge for accurate alignment. Pushing .303s through the clips, we developed very strong thumbs...
And bloody ones ! (extract from my earlier Post):
"But this paled into insignificance compared with the ammo. problem. You might suppose that machine-gun ammunition would come in belts ready for use. So it does, I suppose, for ground use when it is all one kind. But we had three "flavours" - ball, incendiary and tracer - and the "mix" was up to the user.
Our chosen sequence was ball-incendiary-ball-incendiary-tracer. This recipe had to be made up by hand - our hands - from single rounds. To complicate matters still further, we had two different calibres, .300 (US) rounds for the front guns and .303 (British) for the rear.
The stated reason for this was that the US .300 guns had been found so unreliable in service that they had to be replaced by UK .303s for our rear defence, where there was at least a possibility that they might have to be used. There was little chance of needing the front ones. Air combat in a VV was out of the question. Strafing was a possibility, I suppose, but the business of a dive bomber was to bomb and get away. The Hurricane and the Beaufighter were far better for ground attack work, in any case.
As to the reliability, it may not have been all the gun's fault. I suspect a lot of the .300 ammo would be WW1 stock; there would be a lot of duds in it; we could not cock the guns from the cockpit; so a dud round meant a stopped gun. In war films we've all seen cotton ammo belts jerking their way through the guns. There's no room for yards of empty belt in a wing gun bay.
Spring steel clips are the answer; when the guns are fired these go out with the spent cases. Each clip anchors one round to the next. You have to push the rounds into the clips by hand. It's a tight fit, the spring steel is sharp edged. Bloody fingers and thumbs were the order of the day (and we loaded 400 rounds per gun). Next you had to run the assembled belts through an aligning machine to ensure accuracy. One of our Indian (supposed) armourers put a .300 (fractionally longer than a .303) round into a .303 belt and forced it through the machine. (He bent the cartridge - luckily it didn't go off in his face!).
Curiously, a few months ago I saw on TV a clip of some RFC pilots in WW1. They sat in a companionable ring (like a sewing bee!), loading their Lewis drums with ammo. Nothing changes !"...
...Another recollection of the early Spits was that they were equipped with a hand pump to retract the undercarriage and on take-off, you could see the Spit bucking up and down as the pilot worked the pump...
"Ah yes - I remember it well (more rehashed old Post):
"...Some of our Mk.Is went so far back that they didn't even have an engine driven hydraulic pump. It wasn't just a matter of selecting wheels "up", you had to pump them up (and down) by hand.
Our tyro would have the stick in his left hand while he rowed away with his right on the pump handle. The Spit is highly sensitive in pitch. You can land one, or do a loop, with just the end of your little finger in the spade grip. So while our chap's right hand pumped, his left moved in sympathy. He couldn't help pushing and pulling a bit, a little goes a long way, and he'd porpoise away out of sight to the amusement of the bystanders. It wasn't the only aircraft of the day to rely on muscle power for the undercarriage. The early "Anson" was notorious for the 149 turns of a crank handle needed. Luckily, "Repetitive Strain Injury" hadn't yet been invented..."
Memories, memories...... Happy days ! (my regards to Harry when next you meet).
This is a wonderful story (how many more have gone to the grave with the teller ?)
Danny.
EDIT: For "Harry Hannah" above read "Rupert Parkhouse".