Oral History Interview with John Glaze, October 4, 2012 Page: 8

                                
standing there, I -- a sergeant came along and tapped me on
the shoulder and asked me to follow him. So I followed
him. And he went through the radio room and up onto the
catwalk in the bomb bay. And then he pointed down and he
said, "Do you see that crank on the wall?" I said, "Yes."
He said, "Go down and turn that. We can't get the gear
down, so you got to turn it -- crank it down." So I said,
"Okay." So I was down there turning the crank. And in
order to get a good perch, I got my feet square to the
wheel. And I was turning it. Pretty soon another sergeant
came along on the catwalk, and he took one look at me. And
he stuck out his hand. So I reached for his hand, and he
grabbed me, pulled me up onto the catwalk. And he said,
"You're standing on the bomb bay door, and they open at 150
pounds of pressure."  (laughter) At that point, I think I
weighed about 160.
RG: They just didn't give you quite enough information, did
they?
JG: So I didn't get a good briefing on that.  (laughter) I

always thought that was about as close as I ever came to
biting it.
RG: Now this is a B17?
JG: Yeah. So anyway, but that was just an incident in that
training. Then we went to a holding camp in Valdosta,

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