EAA Ball T

TeaSea

TeaSea

SOH-CM-2014
<center> </center> <center>The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
By Randall Jarrell


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.




Link takes you to the EAA's Project for their Ball Turret Project on "Aluminum Overcast". Pretty interesting.



http://www.eaa.org/video/eaa.html?videoId=71171263001


I threw the poem in for context...actually, counting casualty statistics, the Ball Turret Gunner was the safest crew position on the airplane.




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I'd say everything above the waistline was more at risk, if mostly from fighters.
 
Head on pass from slightly above was the deadliest fighter run on a bomber. The ball turret gunner was immune to those. Most other attacks were rear quartering slashing passes from six o'clock high. Again, the ball turret was relatively immune.

Fighters don't want to attack from below because they lose speed.

I've seen one video of a German gun camera run on a B-17 where he lined up for a level six o'clock run and poured rounds into the rear gunner and ball turret gunner positions. I can only surmise he knew both were dead.

Ken
 
I suspect also that the since ball turret gunners were generally small men, curled into a small fetal position, they would therefore expose less to be struck.

Don't know if that's actually the case or not....
 
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