Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jnr

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. Hov’ing there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through fooless halls of air…
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind swept 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.

Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jnr, was an American citizen. He was born in Shanghai, China on 9 Jun 1922 to an American Clergyman father and English mother. At the age of 9 years, John was sent to Rugby School, England and later returned to America where he entered Yale University. With the arrival of the war in Europe he cut short his education and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force to do his bit in defence of freedom and democracy. After successfully completing his flying training, he was posted to England and joined 412 Squadron, RCAF, then flying Spitfires, at RAF Digby in Jun 1941. In Sep 1941, he wrote home to his parents in America, enclosing the above poem, telling them that:

‘It started at 30,000 feet and was finished soon after I landed. I thought it might interest you’.

Sadly, Pilot Officer Magee was never to achieve ‘Ace’ status as a Pilot, as on 11 Dec 1941 his Spitfire Vb (VZH) collided with an Airspeed Oxford from RAF Cranwell close to Digby airfield. Both he and the crew of the Oxford were killed. John was just 19 years of age.

The first and last lines of ‘High flight’ were quoted by President Reagan after the deaths of seven American astronauts in the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. John Gillespie Magee is buried amongst RAF Digby’s war dead in Scopwick Church cemetery – his gravestone bears those same lines from ‘High Flight’.