Gunner: An Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Turrets and Gun Positions [Hardcover]

Donald Nijboer (Author), Dan Patterson (Photographer)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 13, 2001

Through Dan Patterson's remarkable photography, we get to see, close up, the cramped, cold, exposed turrets that so many young men fought and died in. Veterans describe in spirited detail what it was like to fly and fight in the war's most renowned aircraft. Gunner reveals not just the turrets of such famous aircraft as the Lancaster and the B-17, but also the rarely seen gun positions of aircraft such as the Me 410, the Italian S.M. 79 and the Russian Il-2 Shturmovik. This book allows us to imagine what it must have been like to be an air gunner in the Second World War.

(200201)

Editorial Reviews

Review

A plethora of wonderful color images both original and modern ... Highly recommended for aircraft fanatics and modelers too. (TMMI (Tamiya Model Magazine International) 200707)

Original, high quality photographs and artwork to illustrate the business ends of 37 WWII combat aircraft... a winner. (Vic Johnson Airforce )

About the Author

Donald Nijboer is a copywriter, screenwriter and longtime aviation enthusiast. He has worked for radio stations and advertising agencies in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. He currently teaches Radio Copywriting at Humber College in Toronto. A member of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, he has attended many of the world's major air shows and toured aviation museums in England, the United States and Canada.

Since 1988 pilot-photographer Dan Patterson has published ten books. His Cockpit: An Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Interiors, with Donald Nijboer, published in 1998 by Boston Mills Press has been translated into German and Japanese.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Boston Mills Press (July 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1550463322
• ISBN-13: 978-1550463323
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 9.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,405,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for WWII warplane enthusiasts, April 9, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Gunner: An Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Turrets and Gun Positions (Hardcover)

I have to agree with the previous reviewer - the quality of the photographs of gun stations and aircraft interiors (in modern day color!) is rare and truly gives the reader a different perspective. While not presenting exhaustive histories of the different airplanes featured - it is more a "coffee table" book than a technical reference - they authors have presented an enjoyable overview of the history, characteristics of the planes, fleshed out with personal anecdotes of the gunners who served. Many rare archival documents and photographs are also featured. A good companion volume to "Cockpit" (which I also own)

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Close up !, March 23, 2002

By 

Patrick K. (Uithoorn, Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gunner: An Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Turrets and Gun Positions (Hardcover)

When I went through this book the first time I immediatly noticed a difference with other books of this genre. The amazing quality of the pictures in this book is stunning. Close up fotography is something special and the authors of this book have braught this up to a new level. They took pictures of planes that I've seen in real life as well and these pictures took me back to that moment. The anekdotes of World War 2 veterans make this book even more worthwile and in combination with a similar book (Cockpit) by the same authors this book is a must for airplane and World War 2 enthousiasts. Now you can try to imagine what it was like being a gunner on one of these airplanes, having only a few seconds or less to shoot down your enemy. I hope that there will be more books like these to follow because the quality is rare...

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary...but, March 7, 2005

By 

Rick Kaneen "PrPro" (Tucson, Az USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Gunner: An Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Turrets and Gun Positions (Hardcover)

For those of us intrigued with seeing and understanding the interiors of places like aircraft gun positions, this book is both wonderful and disappointing. While there are some incredible modern photos and plenty of interesting archival information, illustrations and photos (the astonishingly complicated remote control gun system on the ME410, for example) I wanted the photographer to show me more. The book could easily have had twice the number of pages and gone into more detail on each aircraft. But as one reviewer has written, it's a coffee table book.

There are also a number of typos, even misplaced photo captions, but that seems to be a common problem in recent books. Have publishers cut out the copy editor position as a cost saving measure!?

Nevertheless, Gunner is a magnificent book that provides more information and photos and does so better than any other I've seen. It presents more than 20 aircraft from the US, Germany, UK, and Italy as well as an interesting section on the development of aerial gunnery in WWI.

Well worth adding to your collection, especially considering the reasonable price.