[Dave Smith]

bilgerat. You're right, not just Americans either. Can you imagine going to all the trouble of pursuing an enemy aircraft, lining it up in your sights, pressing the " trigger" and.. nothing!!!?? Always done over water or open land, not a town, etc.

[Bilgerat]

I found a .50" (or 12.7mm) bullet while digging my garden one day years ago. I've still got it somewhere.

I may be wrong here, but I was under the impression that American aircrews used to test-fire their guns before heading out over enemy territory.

As an aside, I've fired the Browning M2 Heavy Machine Gun and it's a monster of a weapon. I certainly wouldn't be in the way of one.

[Dave Smith]

filmer01. I'm sure the Ankeny Historic Society would be more than interested in your find. It would probably take pride of place as being UNIQUE.

[Jason]

I guess this is the plant concerned

http://www.ankenyhistorical.org/pages/Fall%202009.pdf

8,000,000 rounds a day is impressive, and nowadays they're 4 pounds or more a round. It's mind boggling how much must have been fired just over the south-east!
It's hard to see from the photos, but that cartridge is almost 4" long - I've seen them with a piece cut out being sold as bottle openers :O

[conan]

I guess this is the plant concerned

http://www.ankenyhistorical.org/pages/Fall%202009.pdf

[filmer01]

The light blue tip of the bullet shows it be an incendiary round, but it looks like a solid, jacketed projectile.

[smiffy]

Perhaps a P-51 or P-47 was having a go at downing a V1.

It makes you wonder if anyone's ever calculated just how many rounds of ammunition were fired off over the south east of England during the war. And they all had to fall back down to earth somewhere.

[filmer01]

At our last house I found a spent bullet and a fired case both dug up in the garden at different times, and at opposite ends of our long plot.

I thought for years that the case, with its DM 1943 head stamp would be German (D=Deutsche?). However when I found them in a box of bits the other day, I googled the headstamp and it is American, Des Moines.

Although unrelated, they are both from a 0.5" Browning, one of the most common Allied aerial machine gun in use later in the war.