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.
Commentary
[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 metaphor2 adds to the visceral effect…
— Thomas
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.
Show 26 commentsHide comments
From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
William Doyle Jr · 24 March 2003
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
Jillena Rose · 22 September 2003
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
Nick Carter · 6 November 2003
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
Jim Rodgers · 22 December 2003
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
JOSEPH MANGANO · 2 February 2004
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.
Pam Schumacher · 5 February 2004
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.
Kerry Cornell · 12 April 2005
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
Greg Cole · 24 April 2005
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
Nelson Erik Thomas · 3 May 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
EnBuSo · 11 May 2005
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?
Bettye Johnston · 4 June 2005
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.)
McArthur GS04 Douglas J · 8 November 2005
Mothers sleep is the life he leads while in England. Warm, safe, etc. Falling into the State is the descent from the high altitude transit to the lower bombing run level. The hunching in it’s belly and the freezing wet fur are what a ball turret gunner endures as he hangs in the high altitude freezing temperatures and the sweat inside his sheep-skin lined flight suit freezes. The flak, nightmare, rude awakening, and assault by german fighters is a reality check of a major magnitude. Being hosed out of his ball turret is exactly what happened when B-17’s came back to base carrying dead and woundede. There is no other way than using a hose to clean out a dead ball gunner from his turret.
Chapel Events Coordinator
Midway Park Chapel
Randy & Laurie Williamson · 10 June 2006
I too am in Junior High and studying this poem.
I hardly think that Jarrell had any thougts of abortion when he wrote this.
It was about the cold realities of war. In the end, the ball was simply hosed out, waiting for the the next man - cold and callous.
The metaphor about the womb is obvious. The ball gunner in the belly of the plane - the baby in the “belly” of the mother. Both just as relying on the “mother” for safety.
It makes sense that in the era of 1969, professors would try to strike some prohetic statement on abortion with this.
Often I too think that some “literary genious’s” just try to find things that aren’t there, and mark you wrong if you disagree.
Did anyone ever ask Jarrell if he had any thoghts about abortion when he wrote it?
James Williamson
Warriorsstory · 20 September 2006
to joe mangano,
i salute your combat service as a b-17 ball turret gunner. last month a b-17 came to visit the lawrence airport, massachusetts, and was open to public. i took some pics of the ball turret and it sure looked cramped in there. were you stuck in there the whole time in flight or could you exit into the main cabin? did guys ever get claustaphobia? did you get cramps or muscle pain? you guys sure were brave. thank you for your servive.——mike
Andrus Burr · 4 October 2006
I have heard that a far too common death for a ball turret gunner resulted when an aircraft was damaged and lost its hydraulics. The wheels could not be lowered, and the turret could not be rotated to the position which allowed the gunner to get back up into the fuselage. The plane had to land on its belly, and the first thing to hit the ground was the ball turret. Think of having to say goodbye to the poor little guy in the ball. Andy
Todd Keller · 21 October 2006
While I can see some similarities of a ball turret gunner’s death and abortion, I feel that bringing
those that fought in that God-awful position versus those aborting an unborn fetus is rather a bad
approach to those that this poem is meant for.
Ball turret gunners in the B17/24 had almost no hope of returning back to base if they were given
the assignment to man that position. For one, you had to be shorter than most of the crew, you had
no parachute not because it wouldn’t really fit (which in reality, it wouldn’t fit…they weren’t small like
the base-jumping parachutes are now) but because if the turret didn’t line up perfectly due to hydraulics,
he wasn’t getting out anyways and because hydraulics failed a lot for those planes, it didn’t line up,
they had to manually jack down the landing gear, and if that didn’t work…well…there wasn’t anything
to wash out with a hose on a belly-flopped landing.
One thing my dad told me about ball turret gunners…they’re like the “tunnel rats” in Vietnam; that man
could be the most errant of soldiers in the army at that time, they could be hated and despised, but once
they went into those positions, they were vaunted and gallant heroes.
mb633 · 29 October 2006
I am also doing a paper on this poem for English Lit. I am an older returning student with a professor the same age as my oldest grandchild. She also thinks that this poem is a metaphor for abortion. Now let’s get serious, the poem was written in 1945 when abortion was not a hot topic. The war was a hot topic and anyone that thinks this poem is about abortion needs to reread the poem and possibly consider taking it as it was meant to be taken. Sometimes I think that poems are analyzed too much.
STHatch1960 · 27 November 2006
Hunching upside down is exactly what a ball turret gunner did. The gunner is “hunching up” feet forward on his backside, while most soldiers, even other crew on the bomber, had the privilege of hunching up by bending forward – i.e., head down and back to the sun (how else would anyone move across field and forrest while fired upon?). Among all the warriors that Jarrell wrote about, surely it is this very unnatural position of the gunner, one that placed the family jewels first in the path of incoming gunfire, and the claustraphobic space juxtaposed with the wide open sky that fired his imagination.
Read Little Friend, Little Friend (1945) and Losses (1948), for context and it is easy to see antiabortionists above are finding what they want in the poem, which I guess is their privilege, but rather irking that they have to pervert a fine memorial to a group of brave men. I wonder what they are reading into the black flack…
Eric N Chilada · 22 December 2006
It’s silly to project 21st century politics onto a poem that was written halfway through the 20th century. This poem has nothing to do with abortion – it’s about a ball turret gunner.
PHILIP SPOMER · 2 January 2007
“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”
You had quite an English Prof. There are probably few if any like him around anymore.
Yours truly,
Phil Spomer
PHILIP SPOMER · 2 January 2007
The professor who said that this was about abortion was a very wise and crafty teacher. To liberate the student from what may have been his prejudices, the teacher takes a work that the student a) has developed an affection for, and b) believes supports his already existing position i.e. common liberal antiwar default mode. By saying that the poem directs its sensitivity in directions unanticipated by the student, the teacher achieves a productive realignment in the student’s thoughts.
Baier Joseph · 9 March 2007
Doyle - Your lit professor was an idiot pushing a personal agenda on a bunch of young impressionable students. Jarrell’s only intention was to relate the terror of manning the ball turret during a mission. Reading anything else into this poem dishonors all the brave men who gave fully of themselves for our freedom.
James Goodson · 10 April 2007
The ball turret was more than a Plexiglas sphere it had more metal and armor plate than any other position on the plane. At five feet eleven inches and one-hundred fifty pounds plus I have been in a ball turret with a parachute and all the winter flying suit. We had a navigator six foot two that would rid in the ball for a thrill. I was in a ball turret and had three twenty MM cannon shells hit the armor plate seat and received only a small cut on my left ring finger. Jim Goodson, XPOW, Ball Turret Gunner.
Lauren R Baum · 15 June 2007
Anyone who has ever been in the situation of “going in harm’s way” will know what the guy is speaking of. But it may take some thought. First of all, the plane is going into battle, he tries to escape from reality and fear for awhile and dozes off, during which time he dreams of Mother and home, then it’s only natural to drift from the dream into a deeper sleep, which is disturbed by the cold. Then he is jerked suddenly awake by the sounds of attack, by shouting men and the indescribable noise of battle. There he finds the reality more of a nightmare than any dream could be. The final line is the wake up call.
I don’t see anything about abortion here, unless you speak desparigingly of the man himself, who has died. After all he is the only one in the turret “womb”
John Cooke · 15 September 2007
This is one of the most powerful—
if not the most powerful—poems I have
ever experienced.
John Cooke
Vietnam Vet, and
Huey Pilot.
John Donovan · 22 January 2008
John H. Donovan
Senior QA Engineer
KEWILL Enterprise Shipping Management
100 Nickerson Road, Marlborough MATel:Direct:Mobile:Fax: Visit our web site today www.kewill.com/shipping