[707] The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

	-- Randall Jarrell

[Jarrell's note to the poem]

A ball turret was a Plexiglas sphere set into the belly of a B-17 or B-24,
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 foetus in the womb. The fighters which
attacked him were armed with cannon firing explosive shells. The hose was a
steam hose.

[My own commentary]

A rather 'obvious' poem, but one that's no less powerful for that: the image
of 'the nightmare fighters' [1] attacking the cold, miserable gunner as he
crouches upside-down in his lonely turret awakens a very primal response in
the reader. The extended foetal metaphor [2] adds to the visceral effect...

thomas.

[1] brilliant phrase, that - I can picture swastikaed BF-109s and FW-190s
screaming in to attack the lumbering Fortresses and Liberators... scary.

[2] "my mother's sleep", "wet fur", "dream of life"... need I say more?

[Minstrels Links]

War Poems:
Poem #132, "Dulce Et Decorum Est", Wilfred Owen
Poem #232, "Insensibility", Wilfred Owen
Poem #288, "Futility", Wilfred Owen
Poem #321, "Strange Meeting", Wilfred Owen
Poem #385, "Base Details", Siegfried Sassoon
Poem #535, "The Working Party", Siegfried Sassoon
Poem #28, "To Whom It May Concern",	Adrian Mitchell
(Actually, 'anti-war poems' is probably a better description of most of the
above)

Sort of War Poems:
Poem #43, "Tommy", Rudyard Kipling
Poem #276, "High Flight", John Gillespie Magee
Poem #32, "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death", William Butler Yeats
Poem #395, "Naming of Parts", Henry Reed

[Random Association]

Poem #707, Boeing 707, Boeing B-17... nah, I guess I'm just sleepy.

From: "William Doyle, Jr." <doylewj@>

When I first read this poem I was a college sophomore taking an English
Lit course (part 2 Poetry) in Spring 1969. I thought it was about WWII.
My English prof said no, it was about abortion. Then I had just finished
four years in the Air Force and was smitten with the literal apsects of
the poem. But the womb is shaped like a ball turret and are not
abortions oft done with a hose?
Bill Doyle, LaSalle University 1972, Philadelphia, PA

From: Michael Cash <mikecash@>

While searching for the text of the poem about the death of the ball
turret gunner, I encountered your site. 

I would like to say that, although he created a very moving image with
a minimum of words, the poet's comments about the ball turret gunner
being upside down aren't quite correct. Think about it. How could a
guy stay upside down 10+ hours and not pass out?

Anyway, I googled up a page on the turret mechanism and thought, if
you have an idle moment, you may wish to have a look at it to see for
yourself:

http://freepages.military.rootsweb.com/~josephkennedy/sperry_ball_turret.htm


yours


Michael Cash
Kiryu, Japan

From: "Jillena Rose" <jillenajoy@>

The speaker's sentiments of life before the war, his "mother's sleep",
are diminished by the horror and lonliness of his death.  "Loosed" from
dream, awakening to "nightmare", reality is disoriented, as a combatant
ball turret gunner would feel.  And, like the lives of so many young
airmen, this poem is over suddenly, as it begins.

To me, the poem is haunting.

--n

From: "Nick Carter" <nick.carter@>

I hope Doyle and Cash realize by now that 1) Doyle's prof was a fool if
he thought this poem was about abortion.  With luck he didn't get
tenure; and 2) that Cash goes back to the site he cites (sorry) and
understands that a ball turret is exactly what the web page says it is:
it REVOLVES, and in certain circumstances - probably MOST circumstances
- the gunner would indeed be upside down.  Did he not even read
Jarrell's own note?  "When this gunner tracked with his machine guns a
fighter attacking his bomber from below..."

I know my comments sound snide... they are meant to be.  Let us eschew
obfuscation wherever we find it.

Nick

From: Jim Rodgers <jim.rodgers@>

Check out the movies, Twelve O'clock High and Memphis Bell.  They didn't spend the entire trip in the turret.  

They would enter right side up then spin upside down to be in firing position.

They couldn't wear their parachutes in there because they wouldn't fit.

Jim  

From: "Jason Pagan" <jason@>

This may be off the main subject of the conversation, but the first line
"From my mother's sleep" very likely also refers to the use of a drug at
the time called "Twilight sleep" that was used to put women to sleep
during child birth, making birth an unemotional event. So the line can
also refer to being dropped from an unemotional birth to an unemotional
state.

This link explains more about the drug.

http://www.obgyn.upenn.edu/History/twilight.html

Just some thing that hadn't been mentioned.

JP

From: "JOSEPH MANGANO" <jmang1@>

Very moving poem with an accurate description of the feeling felt in a
ball turret.  However you were not upside-down in the ball turret.  At
max guns up position you were sort of in a laid back hard easy chair.
It was cold and lonely. No parachute .... Put in 37 sorties ( 50 mission
credit ) 15th Air Force, 301st Bomb Group, 32nd sqdn.
I must confess I made a covenant with God each mission asking to be
spared .  He kept his end .... I may have slipped a little on mine.
Joe M.

From: "Pam Schumacher" <cypre@>

My father was one of those short small men and only eighteen on his first
mission. Nobody fought over the ball turret he said. If you were short,
small and a decent gunner it was yours. I don't know if he has ever read
this poem but from his stories, it sounds on the mark.

From: "Kerry Cornell" <kerrycornell@>

I think Bill Doyle and his Lit professor are right.  There is an extended
metaphor in this poem which refers to an abortion.  I am a Junior in high
school and i was asked by my teacher what i thought the "extended metaphor"
was in this poem and i wholeheartedly agree with Bill.

-Kerry

From: Greg Cole <gcole_fla@>

Greg's note

Hi. I am  junior in high school analyzing this poem
for a report. I believe all of the posts are correct
in their own way. That is the interesting thing about
poetry. However, I fail to see what comment Jarrell is
making about abortion. I believe that he is comparing
war to abortion. He is saying that the leaders of this
nation knowingly send thousands of youth into war
where many of them will die. I believe that Jarrell is
focusing more on this comparison rather than making a
statement about the evilness of abortion. If you try
to hard to analyze this poem than you will see things
that arent really there.

               Greg

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From: eriknels@  Tue May  3 22:56:16 2005

To Nick Carter:



This poem is about abortion and I find it amazing that you can
absolutely disagree with everyone else. You told us to pay attention to
"Jarrell's own note.  'When this gunner tracked with his machine guns a

fighter attacking his bomber from below...' " My question for you is:
What is your point and how can you ignore this quote of Jarrell's -
"[...] hunched upside-down in his

little sphere, he looked like the fetus in the womb."  Since Jarrell
says this himself, that is what he wants people to begin to think. I
just thought that I would let you think about Jarrell's last half of his
quote that you failed to mention in your commentary.





-Erik Nelson

From: EnBuSo@

Hi

In 1963 I was a 17 year old high school junior.  In our English Lit final, we 
were asked to interpet this poem.........I got it wrong.......but never 
forgot it.

Pretty powerful

Why are you looking for comments?

From: "Bettye Johnston" <betjohnston@>

Today I went to an air show with my four year old grandson in whom I am
trying to instill a sense of the history of his country and the
contributions to his country that its miltary has made and is making.
We met a very old gentleman at an exhibit commemorating the Memphis
Belle (on which i played as a pre-teen in Memphis, Tennessee, as it was
deteriotating on Central Avenue)  The gentleman has served as a ball
turret gunner in WW2.  I had my grandson shake the elderly gentleman's
hand explaining that the man was a real hero and had seen things that
he, my grandson, and I never wanted to see.  The fomer gunner was kind
enough to pose with my grandson for several pictures which I am going
to have farmed along with this poem for presentation to my grandson at a
future Christmas when he is old enough to understand.  Robert G.
Johnston, Captain, JAGC, USNR (Ret.)

From: McArthur GS04 Douglas J <McArthurDJ@>

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