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.
The Ball Turret on the B-17, B-24, and PBY-1 were so small that the gunner had to curl into an awkward fetal position to sit inside it, with his back propped against one wall, laying the guns by a sight mounted between his feet. The Ball turret is spherical and mounted ventrally, and the interior of these aircraft were unpressurized. 
 So this poor fellow is curled up inside the rotund belly of a bomber, wrapped in electrically-heated leather and wool against the freezing cold.
The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner