Reading so much about the Mighty Eighth has been reminding me a lot of one of my favorite poems. It’s so simple but it does so much in its small space:

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
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 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.