The tail gunner covered all points aft of the ship and had a wonderful view of the following formation. Of course he also had a wonderful view of the flak, though once the tail gunner saw it, the plane was through it. Before mission 5 to Linz, Charlie went to the B-24 graveyard and found a piece of 3/8" steel plate and snuck it aboard every mission thereafter, and sat on it. He couldn't leave it in the plane because they did not always fly the same plane. After the Linz mission Charlie said they counted 63 flack holes in the plane.