Thanks to Roger Martin for spotting this photo on Facebook. This 1942 photo shows a jeep carrying an elevated target to help with shooting practice at Wendover Airfield. The photo was posted on Facebook by Damon Viola after he visited the The Historic Wendover Airfield Museum in Utah. He added, “This is a WWII Army Air Base dedicated in part to training the flight crew of the Enola Gay for the atomic bomb drop in Japan. If you’re ever in Western Utah I urge you to stop and check it out.”
Moving Target, Gunnery Range on Wendover Airfield, 1942. Courtesy of the Utah Historical Society.
I bet the GI’s did not like being assigned that job, looks like he is trying to keep his head down, but no helmet.
My Dad was a Tailgunner in WW2. He went through this training, but said that the jeep ran without a driver. There was one point where the jeep was visible for just a second, and all the gunners aimed for it then.
Hi Doug,
Yikes! It would be hard to get volunteers to drive the jeep for sure 🙂
This photo was most likely a setup (I mean you wouldn’t want to take out a photographer during gunnery practice, lol). I suspect “the driver” was placed there to make the scene look more “actiony”.
– Dave