By then the lyricism of “Flanders Fields” and the ironies found in comparing nature to the moonscape of trench warfare … were replaced in novels and poetry by descriptions of being a very small part of a gigantic, remorseless, efficient machine that cared not for which way the poppies blew, but concentrated on the efficiencies of killing and processing death on an industrial scale.

Out of that maelstrom came the poem “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” by American poet Randall Jarrell. Published in 1945, it consists of only five lines. They are not florid or high-sounding. Instead, the final line hits you square in the gut:

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.

Jarrell explained in a note accompanying 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 fetus in the womb.

The fighters which attacked him were armed with cannon firing explosive shells. The hose was a steam hose. 

Here is a recording of Jarrell reading his poem, along with footage of a B-17 bomber crew in action — and the aftermath of battle:

Still They Volunteered … and Died

It didn’t take long after America entered WWII for the dreaded telegrams to arrive at the homes of parents — the ones that began: The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your son … was killed in action …

The lives of those parents would never be the same.

Yet young men volunteered to defend their country from the air. There was no draft for the US Army Air Force. If you wanted to fly, you had to step up.

My father was one of those who volunteered, and in 1944 ended up on a B-17 bomber crew with the 15th Army Air Force. However, he was not the ball turret gunner, since he was too tall. Instead, as the crew engineer, his battle station was the top turret.

Personal collection. All rights reserved.

Like most World War II veterans, he rarely spoke of the war to us kids. However, he did tell my mother of seeing ground crew use that steam hose to clean out the ball turret of another plane. He turned away and couldn’t watch. Randall Jarrell was not exaggerating.

But beyond the terror and the horror, consider that these men who faced death in the skies were barely adults. My father had just turned 20 when he flew his missions. The crew’s pilot — and sole commissioned officer — was just a few years older. And while my dad and his crew all returned safely home, over 52,000 of their fellow airmen died in combat over Europe and the Pacific. Imagine being trapped inside a burning machine that had once protected you miles above the earth and is now plunging those miles to your death. If you were lucky, you bailed out and survived. But then you might be taken prisoner.

And you’re only 20 years old.

Today we are losing World War II veterans at a rate of about 245 per day. It is anticipated that we will lose the last veteran in 2043; by 2045 no more will remain.

Remember these men. Reread “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner.” And also reminisce on this prayer, written by an unknown British soldier from World War II, which begins:

Stay with me God, the night is dark!

The night is cold; my little spark

Of courage dims, the night is long.

Be with me God and make me strong.

Featured image: B-17 Ball Turret Gunner, 303rd Bomb Group, England, 1943. US Air Force Reference Number: 61856AC/National Archives/cropped/public domain.