“Turrets at the Yellow Water Gunnery School. July 8, 1944. I think the range used over 3,000,000 rounds of 50mm bullets.” LS
Training turret gunners on trailers fitted with aircraft machine gun turrets at one of the practice ranges at the Yellow Water Gunnery School. The WWII base was located on land North of the former Cecil Field Naval Air Station near the current Equestrian Center off Normandy Blvd. I would imagine that being inside one of those bubbles in the middle of the summer was no treat. The back of the print is is stamped “Restricted, Official Photograph, Not to be used for publication by order of the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics”. Then there is a handwritten note saying “Please Release” with someone’s initials beside that. A sharp viewer brought to my attention that the rounds would have been 50 caliber not 50 mm as was written in Photographer Loyd Sandgren’s note that was attached to the print. Can any of Vintage Jacksonville’s veteran followers enlighten us on the type of aircraft that would have used this particular gun turret?
Tags: 008553, Cecil Field, gunnery school, historic photography, Machine Guns, navy, training, turrets, vintage photograph, weapons, WWII, Yellow Water
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Showed this to an “expert”…He thinks these were pure training devices…but for single gun planes like the Navy Avenger…Jon points out the similarities to the Avenger, noting the gun is on the wrong side for that specific plane…but also comments the photo print could be reversed.
We love looking at all L. Sandgren’s work.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for your observations. I welcome all input when it comes to the specifics of photographs in the Loyd Sandgren collection. I don’t know the scope of the type of aircraft that gunners were trained for at Yellow Water gunnery range but I would guess they trained the Navy crews for whatever they might end up flying in. Glad you are following Vintage Jacksonville, Bob Self/Vintage Jacksonville
My father was a gunnery student at Yellow Water in 1944. He said it had the worst cooks in the Navy… everything was boiled… even steaks when they had them.