Suspended beneath the bomber in a cramped, glass sphere—ball turret gunners faced death with every mission.

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. Gunners on World War II bombers had only a ...

At some point in their schooling, students used to encounter “The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner,” a brief, bleak, harrowing poem from 1945 by Randall Jarrell.

The turret in question could be found at the bottom of a B-17 bomber — a plexiglass ball containing two .50-caliber machine guns and a very short gunner. The sphere could pivot to fend off attacking ...

Leonard Dowling, a turret gunner on a B24 bomber shot down over Germany in 1944, and liberated in a 700-mile march, celebrated 100 on June 21.

Randall Jarrell's "Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" is one of the few poems of World War II to have achieved wide renown. It reads in its entirety: "From my mother's sleep I fell into the State ...

A WWII veteran, who now calls Severy home, says you never get over what you see and live through in combat.

There was sufficient clearance with the B-17 for the turret to be in the lowered position when the plane landed. When a B-24 landed a lowered ball turret was scraped off taking the gunner with it.

The cramped quarters meant the gunner was the only crew member who could not wear a parachute during a mission. He had to exit the turret into the fuselage to put it on.

Jerry Duran, who served as a ball turret gunner during World War II, was recognized at a meeting of the Veterans Coffee Club on Thursday, Feb. 18, at the B-17 Alliance Restoration & Museum in Salem.