The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner Analysis

                “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner” is a short poem written by Randall Jarrell, a former US Air Force Celestial Navigation Tower operator, which was published in 1945, near the end of WWII. The poem consists of five lines, with only two lines rhyming in an ABCDB format. The poem describes the short life of a ball turret gunner on a WWII bomber. The first line seems to imply the gunner was forced to serve, possibly making him a draftee, and the line “From my mother’s sleep” implies the gunner was young and possibly living with his parents.

The second line uses personification to describe the bomber as having a “belly”. This gives us a distinct location for the gunner, probably being in the rear or bottom sections of the plane. The line also includes a mention of “…wet fur froze” which references the fur coats US Air Force personnel wore, and possibly as a product of anxiety, frozen sweat. The third line is straightforward, speaking of enemy fighters and enemy anti-aircraft artillery fire.

The final line is somewhat unusual, as it shifts the perspective of the speaker from first person to omniscient, as he has clearly died, as the last line explicitly states his death and subsequent washing out. Another interpretation of the last line could be that the hose and ball turret are some form of metaphor for the act which created the gunner.