Page 30 - Eugene Patrick Collins

This Squadron notice one could well imagine to be fixed to the office door of the
Gunnery Leader at Fiskerton. This Officer was responsible to the Squadron's
Commanding Officer for training and discipline of the Squadron air gunners. They
were kept busy between operations. The policy of the RAF was to ensure crew’s
were continually refreshed in their respective trades.
In the case of air gunners they would be given lectures on the Browning machine
guns they used in the Lancasters turrets and target practice using Browning's on a
tripod on the stations firing range situated on the northern perimeter track next to the
northern T2 hangar. Updates of the techniques employed by the German Luftwaffe
and the RAF's response would also have been lectured on. Squadrons allowed the
air gunners the use of a shotgun firing at clay pigeons, the thinking being that this
allowed Air Gunners to practice deflection shooting.(Aiming at a space in front of the
target thus ensuring the shot and clay pigeon met in the same place at
the same time).