The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

Common card · No. 453688

"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" is a five-line poem by Randall Jarrell published in 1945. The poem is about the death of a gunner in a Sperry ball turret on a World War II American bomber aircraft. Jarrell, who served in the Army Air Forces, provided the following explanatory note: A ball turret was a Plexiglas sphere set into the belly of a B-17, B-24, B-25, B-32 and inhabited by two .50 caliber machine guns and one man, a short small man. When this gunner tracked with his machine guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below, he revolved with the turret; hunched upside-down in his little sphere, he looked like the fetus in the womb. The fighters which attacked him were armed with cannon firing explosive shells. The hose was a steam hose. Technical/Historical Note: Of these aircraft, only the B-17 and B-24 had ball turrets. Neither the B-25 nor B-32 had them (see cross reference), although attempts were made with the B-32 whose cabin was pressurized like the B-29, and defensive...

Read on Wikipedia