Being something of a military historian, I would like to comment about this topic. The post that maintained that “belly gunners” manned guns that used cloth belts is suspect. The term “belly gunner” refered to an aircrewman that was postioned in the bottom of a bomber aircraft, usually forward of the bombbay doors. All WWII bombers i.e. the B-17 had .50 cal twin M-2 aircraft guns. These guns were called the aircraft configuration because they had 36 inch barrels as opposed to a 45 inch barrel on the standard M-2. At any rate, the M-2 machine gun has always used a disintegrating link belt. That was one of the reasons it worked so well on aircraft, the spent belt wasn’t there to get caught up in stuff after the ammunition was expended. In the case of the “belly gunner” position, the links along with the spent brass casings were ejected out the bottom of the glass bell the gunner was in.
Welcome to the Dope, T.S. I’ve reported your post so a moderator can move it to the correct forum. Hope you enjoy it here.
It’s in the correct forum, isn’t it? This is about the famous Cecil column:
What’s the origin of “the whole nine yards?”
ETA: I see that it was originally posted in Great Debates. Surprised there’s no post from a moderator mentioning the move. :dubious:
Welcome, T.S..
I’ve moved the thread to Comments on Cecil’s Columns/Staff Reports. The first column on this was Cecil’s What’s the origin of “the whole nine yards”? That was 1987, the Stone Age when it comes to finding out the origins of words and phrases–the world has progressed light years since then.
The exact comment you’re commenting on occurred just before Cecil’s final comment. It was proposed by one Ian McDonald. He said
We’ve progressed way beyond the ammunition belt theory. It’s now even beyond a military origin(but that’s not ruled out entirely).
Sorry. I was watching the opening of NCIS. Some things come first. 
On the B-17, the B-24, the early B-25, the B-29, the A-26, and paintings of the B-32, the belly or ventral turret was aft of the bomb bay. (While there are illustrations of B-32s with a far aft ventral turret, I am not sure that any operational B-32s actually had a turret, there.)
Thanks for the clarification.
Last I heard they had tracked down someone who used the phrase in a short story in the early 1960’s. Check the last few entries in this thread.