The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

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The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner is a five-line poem by Randall Jarrell. It is about a gunner in a Sperry ball turret on a World War II American bomber aircraft, who was killed and whose remains were unceremoniously hosed out of the turret. Jarrell, who served in the Army Air Force, provided the following explanatory note:

"A ball turret was a plexiglass 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 upsidedown 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."

Reviewer Leven M. Dawson says that "The theme of Randall Jarrell's 'The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner' is that institutionalized violence, or war, creates moral paradox, a condition in which acts repugnant to human nature become appropriate."^[1] Most commentators agree, calling the poem a condemation of the dehumanizing powers of "the State", which are most graphically exhibited by the violence of war.^[2]

Due partly to its short length, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" poem has been widely anthologized. In fact, Jarrell came to fear that his reputation would come to rest on it alone.^[3]

[edit] References

1. ^ Lreven M. Dawson. from The Explicator 31.4 (December 1972), Item #29.
2. ^ Patrick J. Horner. from The Explicator 36.4 (Summer 1978), pp. 9-10.
3. ^ Charlotte H. Beck. from Worlds and Lives: The Poetry of Randall Jarrell. 1983. Associated Faculty Press, Inc.

[edit] External links

• Text of poem
• On "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"