By that time, thousands of airmen had perished over the skies of Europe. Crews on a B-17, fondly referred to as "The Flying Fortress," flew enemy raids against Nazi Germany from 1942 to 1945. Linked to yours at mine. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. I researched that aircraft to death for Rose Harbor as that's what my heroine flew with WASP. The B-17C also changed the belly position to a bath tub style, similar to the German Heinkel 111. 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. Frank and the crew stayed there for a few days while the B-24 mechanics repaired the B-17 engines. See much more from Sgt Lester Schrenk! 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. On the ends of the grips were the buttons to fire the guns. Airman in the bubble were hunched over almost in a fetal position, knees up to chin, machine gun controls inches away. It was able to turn on two axis; 360 degrees horizontally and 90 degrees vertically. The worst position by far was held by the ball turret gunners. It's become a movie clichejust think of the climax of "The Memphis Belle" movie! 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.". ", But if the Brits were ambivalent, the Dutch more than made up for it. This made them much more dangerous to work in than other areas of the planes and the ball turrets could never be fully retracted, making them potential targets. The poem is about the death of a gunner in a Sperry ball turret on a World War II American bomber aircraft. The ball turret gunner first had to exit the ball turret and hook up his chute as . The turret also rotated 360-degrees, allowing the gunner to locate targets and stay on them, regardless of their position. The Connolly crew then went to Sioux City Army Air Base in Iowa for advanced overseas crew training. Small, tight, difficult to escape from and with minimal visibility, the ball turret was a sphere of danger. Frank sailed home to the United States (US) after completing his required combat missions. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Trapped in the ball turret of his B-17 bomber over Germany he almost died War History Online. 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" It wasn't until I was about 9-years-old that I realized the impossibility. There was no room inside the ball turret for a parachute. Dad was a 20-year old young man when Pearl Harbor was attacked. Because of the size of the ball, the men best suited to take the position were typically the smallest in an aircrafts crew. (LogOut/ The space inside the turret was very small and cramped. One can hope that other flyers experienced the feeling of peace that Frank felt before they died. I remember touring a B-17 when an air show was here long before I wrote my book. I'll keep digging for an actual bellied in incident. Poet and critic Randall Jarrell was born in Nashville, Tennessee. The ball gunner has his guns pointed straight down as opposition aircraft. I would like to know the Bomb Group, the Bomb Squadron. So many interesting stories! 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. The system allowed the gunner to protect all of the area below the aircraft, instead of just the rear. This is a mix between sci-fi and fantasy. He never lost his childhood love for flight. This was an elongated compartment underneath the aircraft where the gunner would lay or kneel. The Sperry-designed ventral system saw widespread use and production, including much sub-contracting. Hometown: Dayton, Ohio The B-17 to our left went down with one engine on fire. And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. I hope I learn the truth. He thought he was going to be killed and started to pray. He flew 50 missions over Europe, was awarded several medals, and taught gunnery instruction after returning to the states. Manage Settings By entering your email and clicking Sign Up, you're agreeing to let us send you customized marketing messages about us and our advertising partners. Top Turret Gunner/Engineer: 10. 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. Armed with two .50-caliber machine guns and capable of rotating 360 degrees, the ball turret's gunner was responsible for protecting the otherwise-exposed underbelly of the flying fortress. It was their second mission in Berlin Special, a B-17 Flying Fortress. Their four-engine bomber was part of the 92nd Bomb Group, 407th Squadron of the 8th Air Force flying out of an airbase near Podington, a tiny farm village some 40-miles northwest of London during World War II. When we got over the target the flak was so heavy you could almost land on it. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. Still, you had to be 'not Large', and fairly nimble & flexible to slide into 'the death Ball', or 'other-tailwheel. I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. The gunner would use his left foot to adjust a frame in the sight to match the size of the targets wings this would provide the targets range to the computer. 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. A good friend of mine was a flight engineer on B-17s. A diagram depicting how a gunner sits inside a Sperry A2 ball turret. (A pretty impressive bit of aviation engineering!). They flew the B-17 back to Deenethorpe. 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. I've never known about this, another of those things I don't think to ask about. Which was not ideal, considering all four extremities had jobs to do. They also received shooting practice on the ground and in tester aircraft. Finally, I looked up through a 4-inch glass port that allowed me to see into the bomber. I have seen photos of B-17's that belly-landed with the ball turret in place. He kept talking to him until the aircraft settled onto the ground. Soon the crew would don oxygen masks as the temperature inside the cabin (and out) dropped to 50 below zero. My dad was never in the war because of his health history and being 4F. The Amazing Stories episode is "The Mission". They were still over Germany. All rights reserved. I could see Jess Stallworthy, one of our waist gunners, an American Indian. To aim the guns, the Sperry turrets were equipped with the advanced K-4 gun sight. 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. The title"The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"sets us up for a poem about war and death. Kassel targets included aircraft, heavy tank, locomotive, engine, and motor transport plants as well as railway works. Via input shafts from the ring gear, the K-4 then used the turrets horizontal and vertical movement speed to estimate the targets speed. They include "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner," not his best but certainly. Answer (1 of 5): 5-6. The turret on the B-24, however was retractable, as it hung much lower down. -S. McColl. Over twelve thousand B-17s were built by Boeing. Small windows allowed them to see under the plane, but not above. Jarrell is able to accomplish a lot in this short poem by using diction and syntax such as metaphor and figurative language. 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. It lost two engines and couldn't keep up. Development of the spherical Emerson was halted. 625 Words 3 Pages Decent Essays Read More Injuries from flak accounted for more loss of life among the B-17 crews than any other factor. 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. Sadly, a number of B-17s and crews were lost enroute. The poem in length is very short, but in meaning it is miles long. It moved horizontally by a ring gear on the turret. While a terrifying position to be in, statistically the ball turret was one of the safer places to be on a B-17. But, when it came to American bomber planes, the risk was far greater for some than for others. I figured they must have assigned only short men to the craft. Frank died January 16, 2015, two days after his 91st birthday. Every person involved in fighting or caring for the wounded in World War II had a risk to their life. They were fully aware of how susceptible to death they were, nevertheless, they would continue to fight time after time. Sergeant Smith was a ball turret gunner on a B-17 Flying Fortress on his first combat mission. Two hundred, ten thousand airmen flew over Europe. Earlier designs appeared in other patrol seaplanes. Most of all what was the dead mans name. $5.39. 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. Lt. Bill Ennis, pilot of their B-17, picks up the story from there. A nightmare situation to be sure. The crew began throwing unnecessary equipment and supplies out of the plane to lighten the load. The turret held the gunner, two heavy machine guns, ammunition, and sights. My late father Thomas Witt was the radio operator on this crew. This story was first printed in the Charlotte Sun newspaper, Port Charlotte, Florida on Monday, January 4, 2010 and is republished with permission. This left him positioned with his eyes roughly level with the pair of light-barrel Browning AN/M2 .50 caliber machine guns which extended through the entire turret, located to either side of the gunner. As fate would have it, Frank knew many of the military personnel at the B-24 base. Entered Service: 21 November 1942 This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner is a poem that uses passive verbs, short structure, and comparisons to children to generate sympathy. 1914-1965 Poet and critic Randall Jarrell was born in Nashville, Tennessee. Hill Aerospace Museum's Boeing B-17G Dornier Do 19 The Bomber Designed to Win the War, Richard Bong Ace of Aces & Low Flying Crocodile Hunter, TDR-1 The First Television-Guided Missile, Armin Faber Luftwaffe Pilot Who Helped the RAF, Dornier Do 335 Pfeil The Piston Powerhouse, Myasishchev M-50 Bounder The Soviet Hustler, Northrop XP-79 The Flying Battering Ram, Northrop XP-56 Black Bullet Pusher Power, XP-55 Ascender: the Back-to-Front Fighter. Interestingly, years and years after the war, I learned that my dad was very claustrophobic as a result of his time in the ball. He was the highest ranking NCO at Sargent. In the photos it looked like the ball turret got pushed up into the fuselage rather than being crushed. Their mission: Bomb Oberphoffen-Hoffen, a suburb of Munich. He now lives in Lazy River Mobile Home Park in North Port, Fla. Photo provided. Randall Jarrell, "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" from, Time and the Thing-in-Itself in a Textbook. "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. As a result, the parachute needed in the event the aircraft was gunned down was located just outside of the turret door. This odd station was built like an appendage on the bottom of B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator planes, 2 of the main aircraft used to combat Axis forces during the war years. With this set up, the turret can move vertically and horizontally at the same time. Frank did not drink alcohol but said if he did he would rather have had the shot of whiskey before the mission instead of during the interrogation when they returned to their base. Needless to say, my Dad made it through the war. In fact, Jarrell came to fear that his reputation would come to rest on it alone.[3]. This was the same for the return flight. I SAW A GREAT MANY TRAIN STATIONS AND NOT ONE WAS FREE OF ANY DAMAGE. Flight suits were heated and insulated but the crew often reported icicles on their eyebrows and frostbite around their mouths. In fact, a literal reading of the line is downright confusing. I had no idea of your dad's experience in a B-17. Eventually, the ball turret was abandoned in future plane designs, leaving the immense dangers it posed behind. 'The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner' is Randall Jarrell's best-loved poem. The city was the site of a Nazi nuclear energy project. Hot meals. This was only possible to accomplish in daylight. heroic. It also saw use with the US Navys PB4Y-1. But, he said, Magee only spoke to him three times about the events on Jan. 3, 1943. "You literally had your knees up to your chest and in between you had the machine guns," said Gary Lewi, spokesman for the American Airpower Museum based . He was the only one who did not survive his wounds when his plane was shot down. "So far gone was I that Murph had to instruct me on how to get out of the turret -- I was not capable of remembering. The landing gear was stuck also, and being after a mission the aircraft probably low on fuel. The only thing I have to base this on, though, is Memphis Belle, in which the ball-turret gunner only enters his turret once the mission is underway. We should have been blown to bits. The gunner placed his feet in the heel rests and occupied his cramped station. The Dornier Do 19 was a long-range strategic heavy bomber that faced off against the Junkers Ju 89 as part. Did you intend this? Ball turrets were eventually abandoned in later aircraft in favour of remote controlled systems, and then radar aimed turrets in aircraft like the B-52. Just guessing, it must have taken a pretty hefty hit to damage the gearing that badly. Her research focused on Victorian, medical, and epidemiological history with a focus on childhood diseases. The target that day was Kassel, Germany. By the end of a battle (which he never spoke of) he was promoted to captain. It carried two .50-caliber machine guns and one man, who was usually short and small. By the first sign of daylight, the flying fortresses were on their way. September 26, 2012 in MILITARY AIRCRAFT & AVIATION. Those brave guys endured things we can't imagine. The Ball Turret was protected by only a thin sheet of metal and glass. Last edited on 15 February 2023, at 01:43, "On "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Death_of_the_Ball_Turret_Gunner&oldid=1139421417, This page was last edited on 15 February 2023, at 01:43. Andy Rooney is supposed to have told about seeing it happen. guns firing. The Sperry Corporation designed ventral versions that became the most common version; thus, the term "ball turret" generally indicates these versions.[4]. B-17 models A and B had blister canopies on the waist section of the fuselage armed with machine guns. $0.99 + $1.09 shipping. SMITH FLEW HIS FIRST MISSION on May 1, 1943, as a ball-turret gunner on a B-17F Flying Fortress known by the last three digits of its tail number, 649. It wasn't until I was about 9-years-old that I realized the impossibility. The first is admiration: Jim Shepard, who has been much praised for his . And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. So very interesting, Michelle.My uncle became a field Captain during WWII. He was considered a perfect fit for the B-17's ball turret. He was thin and wiry to be sure, but according to his driver's license he was 6'1". Sitting beside Bob was an English couple who walked out of the services with the old aviator. In many cases, when a stoppage occurred, it was necessary for the gunner to "reload" the gun, which required access to the firing chamber of the guns. He saved my life and up until his death, I kept in regular contact with him. For 1941 this was cutting edge technology. We are a resource documenting all variety of aircraft, from the terrifying contraptions of the past to the absolute cutting edge of today. A few gunners wore a chest parachute. Frankwas very active in his church and his community. Small ammunition boxes rested on the top of the turret and additional ammunition belts fed the turret by means of a chute system. 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Old young man when Pearl Harbor was attacked men best suited to take the position were typically the smallest an! Flight engineer on B-17s men to the German Heinkel 111 up the story from there like... Aircraft probably low on fuel wounded in World War II had a risk to life... Keep digging for an actual bellied in incident aircraft settled onto the ground was here long i... One can hope that other flyers experienced the feeling of peace that frank felt they... Nuclear energy project knees up to chin, machine gun controls inches away 360 degrees horizontally and degrees...