Ball Turret Gunner Time Period
Inspired me to compose some music.
Ball turret gunner time period. Ball turret gunners on b 17 bombers were protected only by a glass bubble jutting out from the bowels of the plane. Hunched upside down in his little. Journey back to the second world war when fearless airmen manned the b 17 s belly guns glass bubbles that at any moment could become their coffin. A ball turret was a particular form of spherical form altazimuth mount movement manned aircraft gun turret accommodating the gunner with nearly all the needed equipment for defensive firepower except for the ammunition storage mounted either within or onto the spherical shell of the turret structure mounted on aircraft during world war ii the most common one was manufactured by the sperry.
Think of it this way. Permanently fixed and unable to be retracted there was no hiding from enemy attack. The ball turret gunners called their work flying the ball others called it crazy. In war certain missions demand the most and constitute much of the legends of bravery.
At a later date i put together a video to go with it the video was taken from news footage of the time. The turret held the gunner two heavy machine guns ammunition and sights. I saw one b 17 come home minus its ball turret due to flak. 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.
Sam wyrouck can be contacted at 801. It was an enclosure that at any time could become an airman s. Randall jarrell 1914 1965. Six miles from earth loosed from its dream of life i woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
Jarrell who served in the army air forces provided the following explanatory note. One of the poems the death of the ball turret gunner. If you had to write something in prose dealing with the complexity and emotion of big subjects like life death and war it would take you way more than 5 sentences to get it done. The death of the ball turret gunner is a fantastic example of what poetry is capable of.
How does all the war and death in the title work with the poem s first line. The death of the ball turret gunner. The death of the ball turret gunner title right from the start jarrell confronts the reader with ideas and images of war. Not having room for a parachute down there with me was something i thought about constantly.
I was once unconscious for an extended period of time but that event is written about at another time. A ball turret was a spherical shaped altazimuth mount gun turret fitted to some american built aircraft during world war ii the name arose from the turret s spherical housing. I flew all of my thirty five missions in the ball. The ball turret gunner was one of the most dangerous assignments in world war ii.
It was a manned turret as distinct from remote controlled turrets also in use.