RE Memorial Day: The Ball Turret Gunner

The near certainty the United States would be drawn into WW II prompted creation of an autonomous Army Air Force. Until the war in Europe began, standard doctrine gave an air corps no mission beyond supporting the ground forces. Now air power advocates fought for the authority to prove the theory that bombers could win wars. The B-24 Liberator and B-17 Flying Fortress carried 10-13 .50cal machine guns for defense and the Norden bombsight for precision daylight attack. Under combat conditions peacetime accuracy was never realized and bombers suffered horrendous losses until the P-51 Mustang could escort them all the way to the target. Now granted a lot of the men ended up as prisoners of war, but one historian noted that Kamikaze squadrons had a lessor casualty rate until fighter escorts could accompany the missions. Completing 25 missions was so extraordinary in 1942 and 1943, that the aircraft and crew of the Memphis Belle returned to the United States to sell war bonds.

Even though all crew members had to contemplate a dismal fate, that of the ball turret gunner exceeded all others. The man operating the two machine guns on the belly of these aircraft is described by Gregory Freeman in his book The Forgotten 500.

“Nobody really wanted to be in a ball turret. This Plexiglas ball hanging from the bottom of the bomber was one of America’s latest innovations in air warfare. An ingenious piece of machinery built by the Sperry Corporation; the ball turret was a heavily armed bubble just big enough to hold a grown man – but only on the small side. It had room for the gunner and its two fifty-caliber machine guns – and little else. The extremely cramped quarters meant that the gunner was the only crew member on a bomber who did not wear a parachute during a mission. Provided the hoist worked, he was left sitting up in the main part of the plane, where he would have to go to get it and put it on before escaping with the rest of the crew. [Clare] Musgrove always told his students: ‘Stow your chute where you can find it in a hurry. You won’t have much time’.”

“The ball turret was not a place for the claustrophobic. It was a tiny space, though it had a great view of the scenery below – or the fighter plane coming up to kill you. The entire unit rotated around in a circle and also up and down, so that the gunner could fire on planes coming from any direction. Being suspended underneath the plane gave the gunner a sensation of flying free, and that often meant that the attacking fighter seemed to be going after him personally rather than trying to shoot down the bomber itself. Everyone on the plane was riding an adrenaline surge during a fighter attack, but none more so than the ball turret gunner who was furiously firing his fifty – caliber machine guns at the German plane trying to kill him in his little glass bubble.”

“The ball turret gunner sat curled up in a fetal position, swiveling the entire turret as he aimed the two guns. As he moved the turret quickly to find attacking planes and then follow them with his guns, the gunner could be in any position from lying on his back to standing on his feet. The gunner sat between the guns, his feet in stirrups positioned on either side of a thirteen-inch-diameter window in front, his knees up around his ears and very little room for moving anything but his hands. His flight suit provided the only padding for comfort.”

“An optical gunsight hung in front of his face, and a pedal under his left foot adjusted a reticule on the gunsight glass. When the target was framed in the sight, the gunner knew the range was correct and he let fly with the machine guns, pushing down one of the two firing buttons located on the wooden handles that controlled the movement of the ball. Shell casings were ejected through a port just below the gun barrels, pouring out as fast as the beads of sweat on the gunner’s face. The plane carried two 150 round belts of ammunition per gun for the ball turret and fed them down from boxes mounted on either side of the hoist.

The ball turret in the B-24, which Musgrove flew, could be electrically raised and lowered, unlike those on the B-17 bombers, which had to be manually cranked up into the fuselage. Musgrove thought this was a great improvement over the B-17 design, because no one wanted to be trapped in a ball turret. There was no way to exit the turret without raising it into the fuselage of the plane, so a turret that could not be retracted was a deathtrap for the gunner. Any system that made it faster and easier to retract the turret was welcomed by the gunners. They had all heard the stories of ball turret gunners who were trapped in their glass bubbles when battle damage prevented them being retracted into the fuselage. Not only was the gunner left out there with no protection, probably with his guns empty or inoperative, but he also faced the prospect of the big plane landing with him hanging from the belly.

“It was every ball turret gunner’s nightmare, and it became a horrifying reality for some. If the gunner was already dead in the turret and it could not be retracted into the plane, the crew sometimes would jettison the whole apparatus, because the plane was not designed to land with the ball turret hanging underneath. But if the gunner was alive, they would have to tell him that they had no choice but to put the plane down eventually. The ball turret gunner had a long time to contemplate his fate, maybe to say good-bye on the intercom to his crewmates, as the damaged plane limped back to the base or looked for a field in which to crash. All he could do was sit in the glass bubble like a helpless fetus in the womb, watching the ground come closer and closer. When the plane landed, the ball turret was often scraped off the belly, taking the gunner with it. This problem occurred with the B-24. There was sufficient clearance with the B-17 for the turret to be in the lowered position, if the plane could land with the wheels down.”

These bombers were mainly crewed by teenagers and men in their early twenties. Memorial Day ad Veterans Day provide an opportunity to contemplate the extraordinary hazards faced by some of these young men, become our fathers, grandfathers, or great-grandfathers.

United States Army Air Forces https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Air_Forces#Army_Air_Forces_created

Consolidated B-24 Liberator http://www.aviation-history.com/consolidated/b24.html

Images Sperry Ball Turret https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=sperry+ball+turret&qpvt=sperry+ball+turret&FORM=IGRE

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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. Six miles from earth, loosed from its 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.

Movie: The Mission

A courageous young World War II gunner and aspiring cartoonist, trapped in the belly gun of a B-17 aircraft with the landing gear destroyed, has only his imagination as a force that might be able to save him.

One of my brothers was a bombardier on a B17 and was shot down over Wiesbaden Germany on August 15th 1944 on his 17th mission when I was 11 years old and it has left a emotional scar to this day even though he survived as a POW. I can still remember my mother getting MIA telegram from the war department and the joy when she & dad were notified he was alive but a POW. He returned home, married and had 3 kids and worked his butt off and lived into his 80s. My older brother was drafted about the same time and was in a unit that was involved in D Day invasion and the first Bailey bridge across the Rhine. A sister in-listed and served stateside. Her husband was in the unit that built the first P47 airfield behind Omaha beach and other airfields across France. My other sister’s husband served in the Naval battles of the South Pacific and came home and drank himself to death...

“Back in the day when men were men... Patch them up and send them back into the line...”

We still are.

God bless you and your wonderful family, my FRiend.

Much of America was cut from a different cloth in those days, a much better cloth, although we still have many thousands of heros, like your brother, who give it all and have given it all for those of us on the homefront.

May God give us the strength and smarts to honor them properly, forever, and hold on to what we've been given. Regrets for your other b-in-law who gave everything he had too, and just had not enough left to give at home.

A remarkable family, remarkable story and again, many thanks for telling it.

No, not Smith but Williams was the characters name....geezer memory problem here.

And thanks for posting the link, what a story!

I so identify with the picture. I make a point of not watching the news, but recently a couple reporters interrupted I golf tournament I was watching. The director must have made them hyperventilate before they went on camera to talk about covid-19. I intend to keep my own council and not share the popular anxiety. My attitude has been determined by the generation recently gone and that now leaving us. My grandparent’s generation acquainted me with WW I, Spanish Flu, Depression, and WW II. My parents’ generation acquainted me with Depression, WW II, and Korea. For me then the Cold War and service in three Vietnam campaigns was simply a rite of passage into adulthood and this flu is almost a non-event.

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