Style
Iambic Pentameter
The basic meter of the poem is iambic pentam-
eter. An iambic foot consists of an unstressed or
lightly stressed syllable followed by a strongly
stressed syllable. A pentameter is a line that
consists of five feet. Although this is the basic
metrical pulse of the poem, the poet subjects the
lines to so many variations that few lines are
entirely regular iambic pentameter. Stanza 2,
line 13, is an example of a line that is. Another
line, stanza 2, line 9, is an iambic pentameter line
with an additional unstressed syllable at the end
of the line. This is known as a feminine ending.
One common variation is the substitution of
a trochaic foot for an iamb. A trochee is a rever-
sal of an iamb, in which a stressed syllable is
followed by an unstressed one. In line 8 there
are two trochaic feet, one at the beginning of
the line and one immediately after the caesura
(a pause that breaks up a line of poetry). The
substitution of a trochee for an iamb allows the
first syllable of the foot to stand out strongly
as the poem is read, since it is a variation on
the regular metrical base that the reader expects
to hear.
In stanza 2, line 2, after the first iambic foot,
the poet employs two successive anapests (two
lightly stressed syllables followed by a strongly
stressed syllable) to create a line of only three
feet, a trimeter.
The poet varies the rhythm of the line in
various ways, including the placing of a caesura,
indicated by a comma, semicolon, colon, or dash.
The first five lines of the poem all have caesuras
of different kinds placed in the middle of the line.
In other parts of the poem, the placing of the
caesura, when it occurs, varies.
Tone
The tone of the speaker or narrator in a work of
literature is an indication of his or her attitude to
what is being conveyed, whether it is information,
an opinion, or anything else. In this poem, the
speaker (a collective ‘‘we’’) adopts a conversational
tone, but does so in a flat manner. The speaker
does not express any emotion but maintains a
detached attitude to the account he is giving of
the airmen and their experiences during the war.
The flatness of tone suggests that the speaker is in
a sense not fully present emotionally, as if he does
not have, or permit himself to have, a fully human
response to what is going on around him.
Historical Context
The Air War in World War II
The United States entered World War II in
December 1941, following the Japanese attack
on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
The U.S. Army Air Forces played a major
part in winning the war. Early on, the emphasis
was placed on achieving air superiority over the
enemy. The theory was that the bombing of Ger-
many would destroy its economy and either lead
directly to victory or at least prepare the way for a
successful invasion with minimum casualties. The
U.S. Army Air Forces cooperated with the British
Royal Air Force (RAF) in the bombing of Ger-
many and German-occupied nations. The heavy
bombers used by the U.S. Army Air Forces were
the B-17, known as the Flying Fortress, the B-24
Liberator, and the B-29 Superfortress. Each air-
plane had a crew of ten. However, in 1943, before
the Allies achieved air superiority over Ger-
many, casualties on these bombing raids were
high (despite what the official announcement in
‘‘Losses’’ declares). According to Stewart Halsey
Ross, who cites U.S. Department of Defense sta-
tistics, an American airman in one of the heavy
bombers had only one chance in four of complet-
ing twenty-five missions without becoming a casu-
alty. The bombing raids in 1943 did little to curb
the German war effort. But this changed in
1944, when the U.S. Army Air Forces reached
maximum strength against Germany. German
transportation networks and oil refineries were
destroyed, greatly reducing Germany’s ability
to continue the war. By March 1945, 5,027 B-17s
and B-24s were being deployed against Germany.
Many of these attacks on German cities pro-
duced high civilian casualties. In a raid on Ham-
burg in July 1943 by the RAF and the U.S.
Eighth Air Force, 50,000 civilians were killed. In
February 1945, another joint British-U.S. opera-
tion bombed Dresden, resulting in the death
of an estimated 24,000 to 40,000 people. In
these bombing raids, high-explosive bombs were
dropped that resulted in firestorms that raged
uncontrolled in the stricken cities. (This is why
‘‘Losses’’ refers not merely to dropping bombs on
cities but to burning them.)
In the war against Japan, Japanese cities
were attacked in the same manner by the B-29
Superfortresses. At first the targets were indus-
trial, such as aircraft production factories, but
later the raids were directed against civilian pop-
ulations. In March 1945, 334 B-29s firebombedLosses