January 15, 1943 (Friday)

Barbers Point NAS

Skipper pulled out this morning with the first three planes. I took off immediately after them on a gunnery hop. A Navy A-20C pulled the target. Very good hop with the some excellent firing. Best run was a corkscrew type that began on the target’s port, passed under, then, up and over, giving all the gunners a chance at it, thusly:

Nolan’s sketch of his gunnery run.

This has been my only gunnery run in a B-24!