The naked gunner

Came across this startling picture on twitter.  

Click to enlarge.

Puzzling certainly.  But there's a great story to it.  From The naked gunner, Rescue at Rabaul, 1944.  The gunner is a crew member of a PBY doing a rescue of a downed and injured Marine pilot off Rabaul Bay.

“…we got a call to pick up an airman who was down in the Bay. The Japanese were shooting at him from the island, and when they saw us they started shooting at us. The man who was shot down was temporarily blinded, so one of our crew stripped off his clothes and jumped in to bring him aboard. He couldn’t have swum very well wearing his boots and clothes. As soon as we could, we took off. We weren’t waiting around for anybody to put on formal clothes. We were being shot at and wanted to get the hell out of there. The naked man got back into his position at his gun in the blister of the plane.”