*As Davey explains (and as the reader will discover in these pages) there was no technical solution to “the machine gun problem which arose from trying to fire the guns at altitudes where the temperature was 60 degrees below zero. The oil we were using on our guns, to lubricate them, was not viscous proof and the guns froze up and [often] refused to fire.” More often than not, only gunners who knew how to baby the B-17’s .50 caliber machine guns could keep them firing in these very difficult conditions.