Franks last combat mission (Mission #32) was to a synthetic oil plant in Politz, Poland, on October 7, 1944. Just a great site you have, and will be returning many times. Ludwigshaven was the site of large marshalling (railway) yards and a railroad depot. He always had a passion for life and considered every day a blessing. In "Why Soldiers Won't Talk," Steinbeck uses the imagery of a body waking up from anesthesia to describe. Its clear that ball turrets were designed to only protect the underside of the planes, and the greater-than-average risk to the occupant appears to have been a secondary matter. 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. Arguably one of the worst was as a ball turret gunner. Greg Allen/NPR This Veterans Day, we're hearing. It's easy! As fate would have it, Frank knew many of the military personnel at the B-24 base. By the first sign of daylight, the flying fortresses were on their way. It was mounted above and in front of the gunners head, so its reticule would be in line with his eyes. [Frank would later fly with other crews to reach his required number of combat missions. There was no room inside for a parachute, which was left in the cabin above the turret. The conventional landing gear of the B-17 allowed for a non-retractable mount, but if the plane was required to do a belly landing (such as in the case of landing gear system failure), the ball turret would likely be destroyed due to the lack of clearance, meaning anyone occupying the turret would be in a precarious position if unable to escape. 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. The spherical manned ball turrets, deployed mainly on the bottoms of B-17 and B-24 heavy bombers, were very small in order to . He started flying with his crew again on July 28, 1944, with the target being the synthetic oil and ammonia plant at Merseburg, Germany. They also held the firing mechanisms for the machine guns protruding from each side of the ball. Artists who served on the bomber units also created paintings and drawings depicting the combat conditions in World War II. Wake up to the day's most important news. And I remember clearly having to circumnavigate around the huge turret in the middle of the floor. It was named the Sperry turret, after the company that made them; the Sperry Corporation. A ball turret comes back to life! [I] had my whole life flash before me from the time I was a little kid to that moment. Their mission: Bomb Oberphoffen-Hoffen, a suburb of Munich. However, since there was only 40 cm between the ball and the runway, gunners would wait until the aircraft was in flight before entering. 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. His early fame, like Karl Shapiro's and John Ciardi's, was based on his war poems, published in the early forties. 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 ball-turret gunner was caught in a plastic cage. The crew was unhurt, but ball turret gunner Hamill recalled, "We climbed out of our wreck realizing that we had ruined two precious Spitfires. (LogOut/ Discharged: October 1944 While a terrifying position to be in, statistically the ball turret was one of the safer places to be on a B-17. 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. The turret held the gunner, two heavy machine guns, ammunition, and sights. I lost everything but my oxygen. Permanently fixed and unable to be retracted, there was no hiding from enemy attack. What was the name of the plane or the pilot. You are also agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. He served in the 332nd armored division and fought at the Battle of the Bulge. Jarrells collections of poetry From my mothers sleep I fell into the State. =). Only three ball turret gunners received the Medal of Honor. But when Lowell first met the pilot of Take It Easy, he knew what the officer was thinking. PBY Blister Gunner, Rescue at Rabaul, 1944. A ball turret was a spherical-shaped, altazimuth mount gun turret, fitted to some American-built aircraft during World War II. He was a devout Catholic and wore a crucifix on the chain with his dog tags. As Director of the East Anglia Air War Project, he interviewed Frank Perez and many WWII Eighth and NinthArmy Air Force veterans and also members of British communities who grew to know and love (and sometimes marry) the Yanks. The link for information about the project is http://www.angliaairwar.org/. Drafted in 1943 he requested assignment to the United States Army Air Force (USAAF). Another time, we glean a little more. 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. While that may be true of most crews, my dad defied this description. The small size of the ball turret didnt allow for additional equipment to be housed within it. A nightmare situation to be sure. Battle damage to the radio operator's compartment of Boeing B-17F-65-BO 42 . "We had a 10-man crew and we were all terrified.". 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. "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" is a five-line poem by Randall Jarrell published in 1945. It was the best sight in the world -- second only to spotting the famous White Cliffs of Dover late in the afternoon after completing yet another harrowing mission.". The American writer Randall Jarrell published "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" in 1945, the final year of World War II. 'The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner' is Randall Jarrell's best-loved poem. Ramey found the turret in a surplus shop many years ago. The consent submitted will only be used for data processing originating from this website. Growing up near an aircraft manufacturing plant, he became interested in airplanes. He was flying a Messerschmitt-109 (fighter). Crackle! It moved horizontally by a ring gear on the turret. The target was the German U-boat pens at Saint-Nazaire, France. 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. The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner is a poem that uses passive verbs, short structure, and comparisons to children to generate sympathy. Pilot: 8. Gunners on World War II bombers had. [1] The name arose from the turret's spherical housing. ", Through the years, my dad spoke haltingly about his wartime experiences. 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. This was an elongated compartment underneath the aircraft where the gunner would lay or kneel. Access was severely restricted by the guns' location in the small turret. Wearing flak jackets and electrically heated flight suits, the gunners were ready to enter the uninsulated sphere that, if they did not react quick enough, would make them vulnerable to enemy fire. It's become a movie clichejust think of the climax of "The Memphis Belle" movie! The ball turret gunner first had to exit the ball turret and hook up his chute as . Injuries from flak accounted for more loss of life among the B-17 crews than any other factor. ** Thank you to Dr. Vernon L. Williams, Military Historian and Professor of History, at Abiliene Christian University. Between the ages of 78 and 88 he went hang gliding, parasailing, skydiving, and paragliding. After all, he had trained with them in Biloxi, Mississippi. September 26, 2012 in MILITARY AIRCRAFT & AVIATION. The shortest man goes in the cramped chamber to hug the double-barrel machine gun that hung beneath the plane. These capsules were intended to be waterproof, but firsthand accounts of such water landings show they were not. The poem is about the death of a gunner in a Sperry ball turret on a World War II American bomber aircraft. I was stuck, Burling said with a tremor in his voice and tears in his eyes more than half a century after the incident. In the 1941 B-17E model, the tub was replaced with the famous ball turret. So very interesting, Michelle.My uncle became a field Captain during WWII. I'm the proud daughter of a World War II veteran. The Ball turret itself has inspired works like Steven Spielberg's The Mission. But, the gruesome and terrifying nature of being a ball turret gunner was captured in a poem by soldier and poet, Randall Jarrell, when he described the gunner being hosed out of his turret after dying during the mission in Death of Ball Turret Gunner. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Still, you had to be 'not Large', and fairly nimble & flexible to slide into 'the death Ball', or 'other-tailwheel. The ball turret, like this one on a B-17 in England in 1943, was designed small to reduce drag, so its gunner usually was the shortest man in the crew. . Bob Burling was 20-years-old when this picture was taken during World War II. I have a question for the forum members to ponder. Normally, German fighters didnt attack during final approach because of the flak, but this time they did. He prayed, Well, God, if this is the way it has to be, let it be. Frank said, I was under tension and wanted to live. A reflector sight was hung from the top of the turret, positioned roughly between the gunner's feet. 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. 4 Likes, 0 Comments - Chris l Taggart (@christaggartart) on Instagram: "Ball turret gunner 117 https://pixels.com/featured/ball-turret-gunner-117-chris-taggart.html" I knew we had lost an engine and I thought we were going down. He kept talking to him until the aircraft settled onto the ground. He did not endure the cramped cold that your father did. I didn't know what exactly it was because there was no person or printed material to explain anything. The bombing run that day was completed, and the B-17s turned to fly back to their base in England. It took him 15 years to convince the owner to sell it, and he's . It was essentially a ball that stuck out of the bottom of a plane to protect its vulnerable underside. 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. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. In order to fit inside the turret, the gunner had to assume a fetal-like position, with their knees bent close to their body. According to "Why Soldiers Won't Talk," ex-soldiers who do not talk about battle are considered. A nod to the poem can also be found in John Irving's 1978 novel The World According to Garp, in which the protagonist's father died from a "rather careless lobotomy" by enemy gunfire while serving as a ball-turret gunner in World War II. The city was the site of a Nazi nuclear energy project. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life. 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. The ball turret gunner was crushed to death when a mechanical malfunction trapped him inside his plastic cage and a damaged electrical system made it impossible to lower the plane's wheels. Spouse: Frances 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. Once inside if anything went wrong the spheres were hard to escape from since they were raised and lowered into position via a mechanism that could be easily damaged. Jarrell is able to accomplish a lot in this short poem by using diction and syntax such as metaphor and figurative language. I can't imagine dealing with flak in a ball turret. Her research focused on Victorian, medical, and epidemiological history with a focus on childhood diseases. The date was April 20, 1944. The main points of the poem outline the birth and death. Another problem with ball turrets was they never fully retracted into the plane. Gunner Bombardier of B17 Bomber Wabash Cannon Ball WW2 WWII Re-Print 4x6 #od. The B-17s brought the men home when they didn't think they had a prayer. With the thousands of B-17s in combat it is logical to think it did happen. "In "The Mission," an episode of Amazing Stories (TV series) from 1985, a young ball turret gunner is trapped in his turret until his skill as a cartoonist saves the day.". He was the highest ranking NCO at Sargent. More from us: The Mark 14 Torpedo Scandal of 1941-43, Poet Randall Jarrell, who served in the US Army Air Forces, outlined the terrifying and grim nature of being a ball turret gunner in his poem, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner. They were still over Germany. Tail Gunner: The pilot and co-pilot. After the Connolly crew June 6, 1944, D-Day mission to Caen, France, Frank was hospitalized with pneumonia. The B-17 to our left went down with one engine on fire. 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. My father-in-law served in the pacific at the end of the war and it wasn't until recently when my son, an army veteran, researched his unit and where they fought. It had black and yellow check designs on its engine cowling and tail. Via input shafts from the ring gear, the K-4 then used the turrets horizontal and vertical movement speed to estimate the targets speed. As a result, the parachute needed in the event the aircraft was gunned down was located just outside of the turret door. 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. Camps. 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. I had no idea of your dad's experience in a B-17. B-17 Ball Turret Gunner. Powered by Invision Community. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: you are also agreeing to our went... A plane to protect its vulnerable underside was located just outside of the ball turret didnt allow additional... Turret 's spherical housing the K-4 then used the turrets horizontal and vertical movement to. And wanted to live Burling was 20-years-old when this picture was taken during World II... Made them ; the Sperry turret, fitted to some American-built aircraft World... Our left went down with one engine on fire firsthand accounts of water. 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