How Many Ball Turret Gunners Died

Ball turret gunners on b 17 bombers were protected only by a glass bubble jutting out from the bowels of the plane.

How many ball turret gunners died. 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. Magee s friend don jenkins also a veteran of wwii said that being a b 17 gunner was not an easy job during wwii. June 6 1943 b 24 tail gunner. 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.

The ball turret gunner was one of the most dangerous assignments in world war ii. From the complete poems by randall jarrell published by farrar straus giroux inc. Permanently fixed and unable to be retracted there was no hiding from enemy attack. 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. Steve i cant post a source but i do know it was a concern of a relative who was a ball turret gunner in ww2 he flew out of italy and in b17s what he stated to me once was he saw a b17 land once with the turret down he wasnt sure if the guy was already gone or not as the aircraft had considerable flak damage and they couldnt get the ball cranked up before landing he also said he was a bit tall. It was a manned turret as distinct from remote controlled turrets also in use. Sgt is top turret gunner on a b 24 of the 8th air force in england.

Loosed from its dream of life i woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. He is seen here giving an interview from his waist gunner position aside a 50 caliber browning m2 machine gun. Waist gunner with ammo feed. The turret held the gunner two heavy machine guns ammunition and sights.

Hunched upside down in his little. Jarrell who served in the army air forces provided the following explanatory note. The death of the ball turret gunner is a fantastic example of what poetry is capable of. When i died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

From my mother s sleep i fell into the state. This was mainly because german fighters would target the gunners first. It was common knowledge among soldiers that the b 17 ball turret gunners had a very high casualty rate. Randall jarrell 1914 1965.

Tail gunners suffered the highest casualties because that is the direction enemy fighters would most often come from.