A Ball Turret Gunner’s Story

As AirVenture approaches, a moment to listen to what it was like to fly in one of those warbirds we’ll be seeing.

Anyone who has been in the military—any military—will understand what a shock to the psyche it is merely to enter. Comfortable routine and the warm embrace of family and friends are suddenly displaced by harsh, at times abusive, discipline and an utter lack of even the slightest self determination. Life in the military is defined by being a cog in someone else's big wheel.

Knowing that, I am always fascinated by interviews like this one, which we're running as today's video. It's a long-form interview with Robert M. Mitchell Jr., who was a B-17 ball turret gunner during World War II. As we approach AirVenture and warbirds will be at the fore, I thought it appropriate to run the interview now. It was shot and edited by Michael Schwarz and even though it's 20 minutes long, I recommend viewing it. Mitchell has a story worth listening to. The interview came to me by way of John Slemp, who you may recall from a previous blog is a photographer who has undertaken a project to shoot photos of flight jackets worn by World War II pilots and crew. Mitchell was one of them.

For me, listening to Mitchell and other veterans comes as close as I can imagine to understanding what it must have been like to be a Midwest or Southern farm boy suddenly yanked from an uncomplicated, peaceful existence and being thrust into an airplane bristling with guns and bombs and trying to survive the experience. Many did not. Mitchell describes one mission in which the crew landed back in England after a prop ran wild and punctured a gas tank, setting the B-17 alight. He tells the tale in that unremarkable tone that so many veterans have in describing life-threatening events barely dulled by the passage of time. The combat environment endured by the Eighth Air Force was so lethal, I sometimes wonder how any of them made it home. Mitchell survived 38 missions, well above the 25-mission minimum. He returned home and went to college on the GI bill, eventually becoming an engineer.

Mitchell's interview had a personal connection for me. Among the nine other crewmen he named was Ray Noble. For many years, Ray was a flight instructor and a designated pilot examiner in the Danbury, Connecticut, area. I took my instrument checkride with him and sent many students his way. That's not a common name, so I'm pretty sure Mitchell's reference is to the same Ray Noble I knew, who did serve in B-17s in Europe. Noble died in 2012 at the age of 90. Sadly, shortly after the interview was recorded, Mitchell also died, in May of this year. He was 93.

As I mentioned in the previous blog, John Slemp's work to document the lives of these aviators continues. Next month, he'll be shooting 15 jackets at the Smithsonian's Udvar-Hazy facility, include Claire Chennault's and Chuck Yeager's when he piloted the X-1 past Mach 1 in 1947. You can see some of those jackets here.

Toward the end of World War II, a famous poem appeared, written by Randall Jarrell, who served in war as an air traffic control tower operator. I've added the poem here for those who may not have seen it.

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.