As you get in, take these steps carefully and in proper order. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. the pain of waking up to life. A diagram depicting how a gunner sits inside a Sperry A2 ball turret. After what seemed like an eternity, he saw the White Cliffs of Dover on the English coastline. For defence, two Browning AN/M2 .50 calibre machine guns were squeezed into the turret either side of the gunner. The B-17 to our left went down with one engine on fire. Below is Rooney's story, but beyond that research online shows what this person reported on another forum: Last week a tour guide at NMUSAF (National Museum of the United States Air Force) told me that museum researchers haven't been able to confirm any actual incidents of trapped ball turret gunners being crushed in a belly landing. By all accounts, the ball was very small and very cramped. A ball turret was a spherical-shaped, altazimuth mount gun turret, fitted to some American-built aircraft during World War II. These ideas are birth, death, and war. Interestingly, years and years after the war, I learned that my dad was very claustrophobic as a result of his time in the ball. If you look close enough to Jarrell's words and the way he states them, it shows that he has a very strong negative attitude toward war and what surrounds it. Graduates of the school became a B-24 Liberator Flight Engineer. Already a well-known poet and professor, Jarrell had enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942 but washed out of the flight part of his pilot's training program. *Thank you to Reagan Grau, Archivist, at the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas. The city was the site of a Nazi nuclear energy project. This however quickly flips when the aircraft is shot down, as the gunner has to turn to the turret to the exit position, climb out and put on his parachute, all while the aircraft is falling out the sky. Rank: Staff Sergeant The NMUSAF calls it an "urban legend" according to that account. Then he called anyone. No answer. At 5'6, Lowell got the short straw. They could be raised or lowered with hand cranks. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. The Dornier Do 19 was a long-range strategic heavy bomber that faced off against the Junkers Ju 89 as part. Some gunners had to maintain this position on missions of up to 10 hours. To enter the turret, the turret was moved until the guns were pointed straight down. "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" written by Randall Jarrell is a poem that introduces three major ideas in only five lines. Battle damage to the radio operator's compartment of Boeing B-17F-65-BO 42 . I hope he is well and I want to let him know how much I enjoyed reading his story.. 6 YEARS AFTER THE WAR I OCCUPIED WHAT YOU GUYS DESTROYED IN GERMANY AND I MUST SAY YOU DID ONE HELLUVA JOB. The ball turret on a B-17 could not be "cranked up", as it was not retractable. It was the job of the ball turret gunner, armed with a pair of .50-caliber machine guns, to defend the aircraft from attacks below. He thought he was going to be killed and started to pray. Via: US National Archives. "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" was written by Randall Jarrell in 1955. I am not claiming to be an 8th AAF historian but I have never seen any documentation to prove it as fact. Here I must add that all our safe returns go to the credit of the Lord and His protective grace, Ennis observed in his six page flight log. We are a resource documenting all variety of aircraft, from the terrifying contraptions of the past to the absolute cutting edge of today. The AN/M2 guns were lightened versions of the ground based M2 machine gun, with a rate of fire of 600-800 rounds per minute each. I guess that didn't matter since your dad was over six feet. Part of HuffPost News. If a B-17 did have to be belly-landed with a man trapped in the ball turret, I am pretty sure they would have also picked a field to land on rather than a concrete runway. He flew 50 missions over Europe, was awarded several medals, and taught gunnery instruction after returning to the states. It was a sickening site. We learn details as time passes. Her research focused on Victorian, medical, and epidemiological history with a focus on childhood diseases. The Ball Turret was protected by only a thin sheet of metal and glass. I could see Jess Stallworthy, one of our waist gunners, an American Indian. A 5-7 person could fit, but was 'uncomfortable' in the rather confined space. It carried two .50-caliber machine guns and one man, who was usually short and small. Permanently fixed and unable to be retracted, there was no hiding from enemy attack. Normally, the gunner accessed the firing chamber by releasing a latch and raising the cover to a position perpendicular to the gun but this was not possible in the ball turret. Perhaps the other crew members were bigger men, but Dad wasn't small. What happened that day, a (Junker) JU-88, German twin-engine attack bomber, flew into our formation of B-17s and tore into us. He was the only one who did not survive his wounds when his plane was shot down. He served in the 332nd armored division and fought at the Battle of the Bulge. He flew with the Lt Albert L. Hanson crew. To enter in flight, the gunner had to manually traverse the turret so the guns were pointing directly down, which provided access to the door at the rear of the turret. Their mission: Bomb Oberphoffen-Hoffen, a suburb of Munich. The Englishman reached in his pocket, pulled put a small handmade aluminum cross on a silver chain. But when Lowell first met the pilot of Take It Easy, he knew what the officer was thinking. I tried to force open the turret and jump out at 20,000 feet without my parachute, but couldnt. Did anyone in your family serve in WWII? They were still over Germany. Airman in the bubble were hunched over almost in a fetal position, knees up to chin, machine gun controls inches away. If the power system and hydraulics were knocked out an emergency hand crank could be inserted into the gearing mechanism of the turret and it could be returned to the neutral position to allow the crewman to exit the turret. With this information, the sites reticule would automatically adjust to the lead required to hit the target. By that time, thousands of airmen had perished over the skies of Europe. I dont know what happened to the one on our right, he said. Had they bellied in, he'd have had it. And often did. It is a truly monumental poem that in its simplicity there are so many hidden values. If you go about it right, getting into the turret is as safe as climbing into a rocking chair. Location of the Ball Turret in a B-17. It wasn't until I was about 9-years-old that I realized the impossibility. Arguably one of the worst was as a ball turret gunner. "The first in/The last out The most exposed/The least protected. The poem uses the job of a ball turret gunner to represent birth, death and their similarities. Another time, we glean a little more. Normally, German fighters didnt attack during final approach because of the flak, but this time they did. Earlier designs appeared in other patrol seaplanes. Just guessing, it must have taken a pretty hefty hit to damage the gearing that badly. ball turret 2 [ ] B-17 2008 The poem is about the death of a gunner in a Sperry ball turret on a World War II American bomber aircraft. (A pretty impressive bit of aviation engineering!). Another factor was that not all stoppages could be corrected by charging (cocking) the guns. Michelle!! Poet and critic Randall Jarrell was born in Nashville, Tennessee. I was 5' 8" -- a little tall for the turret, but I accepted the assignment, which some deemed as a suicide position," my dad points out.On days that missions were flown, the crew was up at 2 a.m. preparing their aircraft, cleaning their guns, grabbing a quick breakfast, getting briefed on the impending mission. The Ball turret itself has inspired works like Steven Spielberg's The Mission. Tail Gunner: The pilot and co-pilot. Deviating from the course and getting out of formation was sure suicide because German fighter planes were always lurking in the clouds, ready to pick off a random plane. Out of that new war in the air came the most anthologized poem of the war, the only World War II poem most readers know, "Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," by Randall Jarrell. Artists who served on the bomber units also created paintings and drawings depicting the combat conditions in World War II. The Sperry ball turret was very small[clarification needed] in order to reduce drag, and was typically operated by the smallest man of the crew. Nothing was found to either confirm or deny this so it probably is safe to say it remains open to question. Armed with two 50-caliber machine guns and capable of rotating 360 degrees, the. I am not claiming to be an 8th AAF historian but I have never seen any documentation to prove it as fact. Dad was a 20-year old young man when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Well I couldnt move so I just sat there. It was at this point my ball turret got knocked out. Thirty-five hundred were shot down over Europe. Sadly, a number of B-17s and crews were lost enroute. The ventral turret was used in tandem in the Convair B-32, successor to the B-24. Injuries from flak accounted for more loss of life among the B-17 crews than any other factor. But, when it came to American bomber planes, the risk was far greater for some than for others. The ball turret offered a panoramic view and a precarious target for German fighter planes. (LogOut/ Designed in the 1930s, it was equipped on many US aircraft that fought the Axis forces during the war. Now as for Rooney - well as a journalist for 30 years, I looked at him as a story teller, and I take his tales with a grain of salt. Der Tod des Kugelturmschtzen") ist ein 1945 verffentlichtes fnfzeiliges Gedicht von Randall Jarrell.Das Gedicht handelt vom Tod eines Bordschtzen in einem kugelfrmigen Sperry-Browning-MG-Turm eines amerikanischen Bombers whrend des Zweiten Weltkriegs.. Jarrell, der selbst in der Army Air Force diente, fgte dem Gedicht folgende . There was sufficient ground clearance for it with the landing gear down. US MILITARIA FORUM - COLLECTORS PRESERVING HISTORY Access was severely restricted by the guns' location in the small turret. During this time period, Jarrell wrote many poems and novels about the army and the war while he was a celestial training navigator (Pritchard). The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner Randall Jarrell - 1914-1965 From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. The gunner held two joysticks in either hand, one to pivot the ball and the other to trigger the firing mechanism for the machine guns. Frank said before a combat mission a priest was available to those men who wanted to receive Absolution (part of the Sacrament of Penance). The turret also rotated 360-degrees, allowing the gunner to locate targets and stay on them, regardless of their position. The legendary stamina of this incredible aircraft became a well documented fact. He would put on a safety strap and close and lock the turret door. The crew was unhurt, but ball turret gunner Hamill recalled, "We climbed out of our wreck realizing that we had ruined two precious Spitfires. Frank was still in the ball turret and was there for the entire mission. Sitting beside Bob was an English couple who walked out of the services with the old aviator. "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" is a five-line poem by Randall Jarrell published in 1945. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. It was named the Sperry turret, after the company that made them; the Sperry Corporation. As well, when landing on water, the turret would be the first to become submerged. No answer. Cloud cover over the city that day forced cancellation of the mission, and a secondary target was chosen. Another story on this web site, WWII Camp Shanks, New York: And a Visit by Archbishop Spellman, addresses the comfort that faith in God provided the men and women who fought and died in the war. Often soldiers who were smaller in stature were selected for this gunner job since it would have been even more uncomfortable for a taller or bigger person to fit in this awkward space. Ball turret gunners were courageous warriors. I would like to know the Bomb Group, the Bomb Squadron. The link to the story ishttps://www.ww2history.org/war-in-europe/wwii-camp-shanks-new-york-and-a-visit-by-archbishop-spellman/. It's easy! One of the unique features of the B-17 bomber was the ball turret. They also received shooting practice on the ground and in tester aircraft. Should the ball turret gunner have to bail out of the aircraft, he would likely bail out through the waist door. It was critical that the ball turret gunner assume a particular position for belly landings, otherwise the sphere would hit the ground far before the landing gear and pose a threat to their safety. In order to fit inside the turret, the gunner had to assume a fetal-like position, with their knees bent close to their body. I looked it over and noticed a puncture in the left wing behind #2 engine. He never lost his childhood love for flight. B-17 gunners had a high casualty rate. September 26, 2012 in MILITARY AIRCRAFT & AVIATION. After the Connolly crew June 6, 1944, D-Day mission to Caen, France, Frank was hospitalized with pneumonia. They say your life flashes in front of you when youre about to die. From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" is a five-line poem by Randall Jarrell published in 1945. Drafted in 1943 he requested assignment to the United States Army Air Force (USAAF). "I flew my first mission on a B-17 as a ball turret gunner with the 8th Air Force at the age of 21," he tells me while driving me to school one morning. Answering the call to arms, Dad joined the US Army Air Corp and became a Ball Turret Gunner on a B-17 bomber. Hill Aerospace Museum's Boeing B-17G The worst thing about these gunner bubbles is that the turrets had be tucked up in a certain position for belly landings, otherwise they would hit the ground first and pose a threat to the soldier inside. Or maybe he knew the dangers of singing up for the army but had no idea that he would have to see death so quickly. He understood. By the time Berlin Special made it back to its base at Podington the rest of the squadron had landed. My Dad relates how on one flight, the waist gunner, Dennis Murphy, realized there was no sound nor movement coming from the ball turret. So very interesting, Michelle.My uncle became a field Captain during WWII. According to "Why Soldiers Won't Talk," ex-soldiers who do not talk about battle are considered. Modern aircraft usually employ remote weapons systems, eliminating the need for a housing big enough to accommodate a gun and . By the first sign of daylight, the flying fortresses were on their way. Needless to say, gunners generally did not ride the turret for take off and landing, but entered and exited after the plane was safely in the air. Between the ages of 78 and 88 he went hang gliding, parasailing, skydiving, and paragliding. He can look out of his porthole straight down for almost six miles, while battling incoming aircraft, sealed inside an aluminium ball without a parachute. These were removed in the B-17C and replaced with flush windows. The pilot was First Lieutenant Lewis P. Johnson Jr., 21, flying the 25thand lastmission of his tour. However, since there was only 40 cm between the ball and the runway, gunners would wait until the aircraft was in flight before entering. At their height, the schools were pumping out 3,500 graduates a week, producing approximately 300,000 by the end of the war. The design was mainly deployed on the B-17 Flying Fortress and the B-24 Liberator, as well as the United States Navy's Liberator, the PB4Y-1. 'The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner' is Randall Jarrell's best-loved poem. Director Steven Spielberg Writers Steven Spielberg Joshua Brand John Falsey Stars Kevin Costner Casey Siemaszko Kiefer Sutherland Lines 1-2. B-17 Ball Turret Gunner (Dangerous Jobs in History) Simple History 4.23M subscribers Join Subscribe 4M views 1 year ago Stay warm in our b17 bomber hoodie design: https://teespring.com/SH-b17. The Brits however weren't totally enamored with the boys from the U.S.A. As they said, "The Yanks were overpaid, oversexed and over here. It also saw use with the US Navys PB4Y-1. "About lunchtime, the B-17s hit their targets. The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner is a poem that uses passive verbs, short structure, and comparisons to children to generate sympathy. There is an episode of Amazing Stories about a ball turret gunner trapped in his turret and the plane has no more landing gear. Links are encouraged. Whoops! The name arose from the turret's spherical housing. Two of the engines of the B-17 were stopped, about 3,000 pounds of dead weight hanging from the wings. Ball turret gunner. Magee suffered . During the oral history interview Frank asked for a moment to collect his thoughts. The gunner in these turrets had to be in a reclined, almost fetal position. I just know that everything in the 8th AAF was so well documented I thought I would have read about it. Its movement was controlled by a self-contained, electrically-powered hydraulic system, and could rotate at high speeds important for tracking fast-moving enemy aircraft. The poem, written in first person, gives the deceased turret gunner a 'live' voice. Since this turret is of the ball type, the gunner moves with his guns and sight in elevation and azimuth by means of control handles. The 10 day affair wrapped up in the village church. Commendations: Distinguished Flying Cross, an Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters, campaign ribbons with three battle stars representing the Normandy Invasion, Northern France, European, African and Middle Eastern Theatre and the Air Offensive in Europe. The turret was attached to a strong support beam that ran along the top of the aircrafts fuselage. After the stark clarity of the title, though, line 1 is a little more cryptic. The B-17 landed at a B-24 base in England. A ball turret comes back to life! I hope someone can post a source other than Andy Rooney. The bomber is flying at a very high altitude and the speaker's life before war (even life itself), left far below, feels like an illusion. He is retired and lives in Grantville, MD. Its hard to explain like if you get killed, so what you just dont care.. Nothanks for the heads-up JS! Ball Turret Gunner B17 Flying Fortress Print WW2 WWII #1009 5x7. 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. He kept talking to him until the aircraft settled onto the ground. 1 Be sure the elevation hand clutch is in the IN position. While that may be true of most crews, my dad defied this description. In the case of the B-24, the Liberator's tricycle landing gear design mandated that its A-13 model Sperry ball turret have a vertically retractable mount, so that the turret would not strike the ground as the plane pitches up for takeoff or during the landing flare. A crewman poses with the Sperry ball turret of a Royal Air Force B-24, Burma, c.1943-1945, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Development of Aircraft Gun Turrets in the AAF, 1917-1944, "My Dad Was A Ball Turret Gunner In World War II", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ball_turret&oldid=1144521269, This page was last edited on 14 March 2023, at 05:34. I can't imagine dealing with flak in a ball turret. Sponsored. After gunnery school at Laredo Army Air Field, Texas, and ten days leave, Sergeant Perez reported to Salt Lake City Army Air Field, Utah, where flight crews were being formed. To aim the guns, the Sperry turrets were equipped with the advanced K-4 gun sight. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Wow! Ball turrets appeared in the nose and tail as well as the nose of the final series B-24. In "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," what does the speaker wake up to? Due to scheduling and additional training received by some members of Franks crew, he flew his first combat mission as a ball turret gunner with the Lt Dow C. Pruitt crew on April 18, 1944. Once training was complete, aerial gunners were sent out to operational bomber units as crewmen, serving as waist gunners, tail gunners, or most physically demanding, as ball turret gunners. He handed it to me, Bob said. These gunsights computed for direction, and range to the target and were basically an early analog computer. One can hope that other flyers experienced the feeling of peace that Frank felt before they died. heroic. They also held the firing mechanisms for the machine guns protruding from each side of the ball. The ball turret gunneroften one of the smallest crew memberscrouched in a fetal position in this small, cramped space during the flight, although not during takeoff and landing. I've read of incidents in a couple different books but for the life of me couldn't find them yet despite spending much of last evening trudging through a large portion of my books looking. The ball turret, hanging down beneath the plane, is no place to be when the bomber is moving along the ground. He was posted to the 360th Bomb Squadron and the 303rd Bomb Group as a Ball Turret Gunner on a Boeing B-17 Bomber known as "Snap! Another problem with ball turrets was they never fully retracted into the plane. A trunnion system provided vertical movement. The Sperry nose turret was tested and preferred, but its use was limited due to poor availability of suitable aircraft designs. Bobgee. The compact size of the gunner surrounded by thick glass, aluminium and armour plating, combined with being underneath the aircraft, meant the gunner was relatively safe. Stepping away from her academic career, Samantha previously worked as a Heritage Researcher and now writes content for multiple sites covering an array of historical topics. The balls door was located directly behind the gunner, so with the guns at 0 degrees of elevation the turret could technically be entered from the outside while the B-17 was on the ground. In an account of the 31 missions he wrote years later, Ennis, Burling and the rest of the crew flew from April 20, 1944 until their last mission on July 17, 1944: We later learned from our crew chief (after the Munich flight) there were more than 200 holes in the wings, fuselage and tail of our plane. My late father Thomas Witt was the radio operator on this crew. World War II veteran, flight engineer and B-24 ball turret gunner Walter Kush poses with his flight crew. Bob served two years, four months and 10 days as part of a B-17 bomber crew in World War II, and his son, Robert, served with the 1st Cavalry in Vietnam. Small, tight, difficult to escape from and with minimal visibility, the ball turret was a sphere of danger. So many interesting stories! I've never known about this, another of those things I don't think to ask about. B-24 Liberators were too low to the ground for the ball to fit, so they were fitted with a retractable turret that was stowed away for take off and landing. Flak jackets and electrically heated flight suits provided some relief from the bitterly cold, sub-zero temperatures, but the uninsulated ball kept the gunner's hands and feet numb. Did you intend this? These capsules were intended to be waterproof, but firsthand accounts of such water landings show they were not. Five B-17 crews were lost that day; three planes were shot down, but two reached neutral Sweden where the crews wereinterned until the end of WWII. I did find this, which isn't of a belly landed B17 but does support the idea of a crewman in the ball turret having to ride it down since the crew could not get him out while still in the air. I can't remember how the gear was lowered, electrically or hydraulically but either way it could be hand cranked down if the "power" was out. There was a pre-recorded show on A.F.T.N. Poker games. [2], Due partly to its short length, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" poem has been widely anthologized. As a child, he spent time in Los Angeles, where his grandparents lived, and he would later write movingly about the city in "The Lost World," one of his best-known poems. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. Growing up near an aircraft manufacturing plant, he became interested in airplanes. So this undated photo shows what looks like a disintegrating turret, and the purported victim is still anonymous. B-17 models A and B had blister canopies on the waist section of the fuselage armed with machine guns. Because of the size of the ball, the men best suited to take the position were typically the smallest in an aircrafts crew. The fighters which attacked him were armed with cannon firing explosive shells. Frank sailed home to the United States (US) after completing his required combat missions. They are two officers of higher ranks. The formation would be maintained on the way over, during the raid, and on the entire way home. Seems very possible. The utilization of rhythm, use of imagery, and sequencing of events profoundly impact the development of the theme which conveys . Randall Jarrell, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" from, Time and the Thing-in-Itself in a Textbook. Development of the spherical Emerson was halted. Top Turret Gunner/Engineer: 10. 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