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. Its last line is especially memorable: “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” These days, I suspect, the poem is rarely encountered in classrooms, where teachers are required to dispense trigger warnings and emotional support with any dose of reality.
A ball turret is a plexiglass sphere slung beneath a heavy bomber, such as the magnificent Boeing…
