Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner Essay

Most people say that wars are inevitable, some say that wars are necessary, some even say that war is good. America has fought in many wars, one of them being World War II. World War II was a very detrimental war for any country who was involved. The war started with Hitler beginning his conquest to conquer the world. America, though, did not get involved until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. In the end, America and its allies won the war putting an end to Hitler’s conquest. Many texts were written about World War II that described what happened in the war. The texts, Hiroshima by Hershey and Jarrell’s The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, both have different powerful themes of war.

Hiroshima, by Hershey, is a short story that has a very powerful theme about war. This text is about the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan by America. This bombing was the first time an atomic bomb was used and it proved to be very detrimental for the Japanese. Hershey says, “A hundred thousand people were killed by the atomic bomb, and these [four] were among the survivors.” This

story explains what was happening before the bomb was dropped. These people did not expect a bombing of their city, so they went about their everyday lives before the bombing. This story glorifies life. Hershey argues that human lives are important and should not be taken advantage of in this story.
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, by Jarrell, also presents powerful themes about war.

This poem is about a ball turret gunner on the bottom of the plane. It was very cold under the plane, and these gunners would oftentimes fall asleep during their flight and wake up in the middle of the battle. When it became time to land, the landing gear on the plane would sometimes malfunction and the plane would have to do a belly landing. This means that the turret gunner on the bottom of the plane would be killed and his remains would be scattered all across the runway. Jarrell explains all of this by saying, “I hunched in its belly til my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.” This poem presents a strange theme about war. Jarrell seems to suggest that life doesn’t matter in

wars.
The texts, Hiroshima by John Hershey, and The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell, are both very similar also. Both of these texts are about World War II. The tragic events in these stories are very different though. Hiroshima and The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner seem to suggest that war is necessary, that war is neither good nor bad, but inevitable. They agree that there is too much death in wars though. Hershey says, “And now each knows that in the act of survival he lived a dozen lives and saw more death than he ever thought he would see.” So Hershey is saying that there is too much death in wars.
So, the texts, Hiroshima by Hershey and Jarrell’s The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, both have different powerful themes of war. War is bad and terrible. Many lives are lost and debt accumulates for countries. World War II was perhaps the worst war in the world’s history. It involved almost every country which was very detrimental. The war caused more war debt than ever before. This war even took away from the meaning of human lives, but it was necessary.