dears,i’m making a dissertation on wwii poetry and i wish you can recommend some titles that can help me in my research.
[i]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. [/i]
Here’s one…
http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/poetry/poetry_otherwars1.html
The US Sailor with the Japanese Skull (by Winfield Townley Scott)
Bald-bare, bone-bare, and ivory yellow: skull
Carried by a thus two-headed US sailor
Who got it from a Japanese soldier killed
At Guadalcanal in the ever-present war: our
Bluejacket, I mean, aged 20, in August strolled
Among the little bodies on the sand and hunted
Souvenirs: teeth, tags, diaries, boots; but bolder still
Hacked off this head and under a leopard tree skinned it:
Peeled with a lifting knife the jaw and cheeks, bared
The nose, ripped off the black-haired scalp and gutted
The dead eyes to these thoughtful hollows: a scarred
But bloodless job, unless it be said that brains bleed.
Then, his ship underway, dragged this aft in a net
Many days and nights - the cold bone tumbling
Beneath the foaming wake, weed-worn and salt-cut
Rolling safe among fish and washed with Pacific;
Till on a warm and level-keeled day hauled in
Held to the sun and the sailor, back to a gun-rest,
Scrubbed the cured skull with lye, perfecting this:
Not foreign as he saw it first: death’s familiar cast.
Bodiless, fleshless, nameless, it and the sun
Offend each other in strange fascination
As though one of the two were mocked; but nothing is in
This head, or it fills with what another imagines
As: here were love and hate and the will to deal
Death or to kneel before it, death emperor,
Recorded orders without reasons, bomb-blast, still
A child’s morning, remembered moonlight on Fujiyama:
All scoured out now by the keeper of this skull
Made elemental, historic, parentless by our
Sailor boy who thinks of home, voyages laden, will
Not say, ‘Alas! I did not know him at all’.
All the blooming way.
by: D Hunter of 2/12th Bn
I saw a kid marchin' with medals on his chest.
He marched alongside Diggers marchin' six abreast.
He knew it was ANZAC Day – he walked along with pride.
He did his best to keep in step with the Diggers by his side.
And when the march was over the kid was rather tired.
A digger said "Whose medals son? " to which the kid replied:
"They belong to Daddy, but he did not come back
He died up in New Guinea on a lonely jungle track".
The kid looked rather sad then a tear came to his eye.
The Digger said "Don’t cry my son and I will tell you why,
Your Daddy marched with us today – all the bloomin' way.
We Diggers know that he was here, it’s like that on ANZAC Day."
The kid looked rather puzzled and didn’t understand
But the Digger went on talking and started to wave his hand.
"For this great land we live in, there’s a price we have to pay.
And for this thing we call freedom, the Diggers had to pay."
"For we all love fun and merriment in this country where we live,
The price was that some soldiers, their precious life must give.
For you to go to school, my lad, and worship God at will
Someone had to pay the price, so the Diggers paid the bill.
Your Daddy died for us my son – for all things good and true,
I wonder if you can understand the things I’ve said to you."
The kid looked up at the Digger – just for a little while,
And with a changed expression, said, with a lovely smile:
"I know my daddy marched with us today – on this, our ANZAC Day,
I know he did – I know he did – all the bloomin' way "Here is one of my favorite poems of WWII. I didn’t want to copy it onto the forum without permission so I’ll just include a link to it.
Hi Waist Gunner,
Thanks for very interesting link.
I appreciate your taste for WWII poetry.
My father wanted to follow his cousin and being already in armored regiment volunteered for Air Force. His CO forced him to stay and he finished the war in Bologna as a tanker. (well, Lancer…)
Out of 20 blokes which had been flown from North Africa to England to become a pilots, among them my dads cousin, only two survived…
I can bet that fate would not be that generous for one family.
Cheers,
Lancer44