A Veteran's Day Remembrance

“The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner”

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 the 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.

Randall Jarrell’s poem “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” is simply powerful in its minimalism.

World War II started as long ago as sixty nine years ago, in 1939. Japan catapulted America into the war on December 7, 1941. Famously some may remember the infamous words of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as “A day that will live in infamy.” But to understand the poem one must understand what a “Ball Turret Gunner” is, and what he does, and this where the mastery of Randall’s words shine.

Now, to understand Jarrell, a Ball Turret Gunner in WWII was an enlisted person usually small of stature and build that could crawl into a gun turret in a fetal position, and usually hung upside down strapped to a two barrel fifty caliber machine gun. The only things that kept a gunner from the rest of the world was a thin round Plexiglas encasing and the straps that held him in his position.

Jarrell evokes powerfully that imagery of the fetal womb position with these words, “From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State.” Realize it took me seventy two words in the last paragraph to explain what he did in ten, but what is even more significant is the use of the word “State.” State has many meanings as a noun. Jarrell uses it to identify the condition of the speaker, his feeling, his status as a person, and even the eventual “state” of his death.

The first sentence not only evokes the speaker’s essence but what has happened and will happen to the speaker of the poem. War is not something you play with and with the advent of Veteran’s Day; it is the youth of our nation that are brought to war and death’s door. Jarrell in ten words describes and shows how the speaker was thrust “from my mother’s sleep,” his youth, and into this war of the “State,” the war of our country.

“And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze,” is a verse that begs the question: “…wet fur froze” what is that? Here is the generational divide. The fur Jarrell writes about is the fur found on a bomber jackets collar.

“Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,” is the reference the writer placed to how high the plane he was in was flying, and how far from the “dream of life” he was. It alludes to the comfort of home and life as it was, “dreamy.”

“I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters” references to the sudden shock of the “flak” or fire of anti aircraft guns, and the fearful sight of the German Messerschmitt airplane fighters in the air seeking to attack his B-17 or B-24 bomber. The last sentence is self explanatory but evokes a gory bloody death, of blood splatters, and blood pooling in that Plexiglas dome: “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” These last words evoke the almost insignificance of life lost in a war.

God help our servicemen. If you enjoyed the pictures and want to know more about World War Two Airmen please visit:

Remembering World War Two Airmen

http://untoldvalor.blogspot.com/2007/08/ball-turret-gunners-breed-apart.html