High Flight

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings.
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling
mirth of sun-split clouds, and done a hundred
things you have not dreamed of – wheeled
and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence.
Hovr’ring there, I’ve chased the shouting wind along,
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up, the long, delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
put out my hand, and touched the face of God. 

by John Gillespie Magee, Jr., September 3, 1941

 

High Flight

High Flight by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

High Flight

http://www.deltaweb.co.uk/spitfire/hiflight.htm  

Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
1922 – 1941

http://www.macla.co.uk/scopwick/magee.php 

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John Gillespie Magee, Junior

“…John Gillespie Magee, Junior (June 9, 1922 – December 11, 1941)^[1][2][3] was an Anglo-American aviator and poet who died as a result of a mid-air collision over Lincolnshire during World War II. He was serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force, which he joined before the United States officially entered the war. He is most famous for his poem High Flight.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was born in Shanghai, China, to an American father and a British mother who worked as Anglican missionaries.^[2][3] His father, John Magee Sr, was from a family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of some wealth and influence—there is the Pittsburgh Magee Hospital and the Magee Building. Magee senior, disregarding family wealth, chose to become an Episcopal priest and was sent as a missionary to China and there met his wife – Faith Emmeline Backhouse. Faith came from Helmingham in Suffolk, England, and was a member of the Church Missionary Society. John and Faith were married in 1921; John junior was their first-born son in 1922, followed by David, Christopher and Hugh. Proud of their origins and wanting to provide their sons knowledge of their Anglo-American roots, John and Hugh’s parents resolved to send them, when they were old enough, first to school in England and then to college in America.

John junior began his education at the American School, Nanking (1929-1931). In 1931 he moved with his mother to Britain where he continued his education first at St. Clare’s near Walmer, Kent (1931-1935) and then at Rugby School (1935-1939) winning the Rugby School’s poetry prize in 1938.

While at Rugby School, Magee met and fell in love with Headmaster Hugh Lyon’s daughter Elinor Lyon. Elinor was the inspiration for many of John’s poems. ^[4] Though John’s love was not returned, he remained friends with Elinor and her family through to the end of his life.

In 1939 he moved to the USA to live with his aunt in Pittsburgh and attended Avon Old Farms School in Avon, Connecticut. He earned a scholarship to Yale University – where his father was then a chaplain – in July 1940 but did not enroll, choosing instead to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force in October of that year.

He received flight training in Ontario at Toronto, Trenton, St. Catharines, and Uplands and passed his Wings Test in June 1941. Shortly after being awarded his Wings and being promoted to Pilot Officer, Magee was sent to Britain and was posted to No. 53 Operational Training Unit (OTU) in RAF Llandow, Wales to train on the Supermarine Spitfire. It was while at #53 OTU that Magee wrote High Flight.

After graduating from #53 OTU, Magee was assigned to the newly formed No 412 (Fighter) Squadron, RCAF,^[1] which was activated at RAF Digby, England, on 30 June 1941. The motto of this squadron was and is Promptus ad vindictam (Latin: “Swift to avenge”). Magee was qualified on and flew the Supermarine Spitfire.

Magee was killed at the age of 19, whilst flying Spitfire VZ-H, serial number AD-291. The aircraft was involved in a mid-air collision with an Airspeed Oxford trainer from RAF Cranwell, flown by Leading Aircraftman Ernest Aubrey. The two aircraft collided in cloud cover at about 400 feet AGL, at 11:30, over the village of Roxholm which lies between RAF Cranwell and RAF Digby, in Lincolnshire.^[2] Magee was descending at the time. At the inquiry afterwards a farmer testified that he saw the Spitfire pilot struggling to push back the canopy.^[2] The pilot stood up to jump from the plane but was too close to the ground for his parachute to open, and died on impact.^[2][3] Magee is buried at Holy Cross, Scopwick Cemetery in Lincolnshire, England.^[2][3] On his grave are inscribed the first and last lines from his poem High Flight:

“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth –

Put out my hand and touched the Face of God.”

Part of the official letter to his parents read: “Your son’s funeral took place at Scopwick Cemetery, near Digby Aerodrome, at 2:30 P.M. on Saturday, 13 December 1941, the service being conducted by Flight Lieutenant S. K. Belton, the Canadian padre of this Station. He was accorded full Service Honours, the coffin being carried by pilots of his own Squadron.”

His biography was written by Hermann Hagedorn in the 1942 book: ‘Sunward I’ve Climbed, The Story of John Magee, Poet and Soldier, 1922–1941.’ …”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gillespie_Magee,_Jr.

Supermarine Spitfire

http://www.world-war-2-planes.com/spitfire.html

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