'High Flight'
John
Gillespie Magee Jnr. was a US citizen, born in
Shanghai to missionary parents on 1922‑06‑09, his father a US citizen, his
mother English.
Around 1927 his parents moved back to the USA, taking JGM Jnr. with them of
course.
He and his parents then lived in the UK between 1931 and
1939, before returning again to the USA. In 1940, wanting to help in the
defence
High Flight
of the UK, which at the time was in the midst of the ‘Battle of Britain’, JGM
Jnr. crossed the border into Canada and there signed-up with the
Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF).
Oh, I have slipped
the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies
on laughter-silvered wings
On 1941-07-05 he left Canada for the UK, on HMS California. He was assigned to
412 Squadron RCAF, based at Digby,
Sunward I’ve climbed,
and joined the tumbling mirth
Lincolnshire, England, flying Spitfires.
Of sun-split clouds -
and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed
of - wheeled and soared and swung
In a letter he sent his parents, dated 1941-09-03, he included a poem which he
“thought might interest [them]”. His parents sent it to the
High in the sunlit
silence. Hov’ring there,
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which published it. That poem was of course ‘High
Flight’.
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
On 1941-12-11 Pilot Officer JGM Jr. was practicing wing formation flying when,
descending through cloud back to base, he had a mid-air
Where never lark, or
even eagle flew
collision with an Airspeed Oxford (think King Air proportions). With the port
wing and engine separated from the fuselage of his aircraft
And, while with
silent, lifting, mind I’ve trod
(Spitfire Vb, AD291 ‘VZ-H’) Magee attempted to jump from the plane, but the
combination of low altitude and high vertical descent rate
The high
un-trespassed sanctity of space,
gave insufficient time for his ’chute to open and he perished when he fell into
an open field. The solo student pilot of Oxford T1052,
Put out my hand and
touched the face of God.
Leading Aircraftsman Aubrey Griffin, was also killed.
John Gillespie MAGEE Jnr., 1941, aged 19 years.
Shortly after his death Magee’s original text of ‘High Flight’ was put on
display in the Library of Congress, DC, where it remains to this day;
Michael Collins (Command Module pilot, Apollo 11) quotes it in his autobiography
and adds “All that from the cockpit of a Spitfire. What
could he have said after one orbit? I cry that he was killed ”; James Irwin
(Lunar Module pilot, Apollo 15) took a copy of it with him down
to the Moon; it was quoted by Ronald Reagan in a service for the astronauts
lost in the Challenger disaster; it was quoted in the eulogy for
Alan Shepard. Imagine if JGM Jnr. could have foreseen that!
And, for what its worth, I have a copy of it pasted inside the cover of my
logbook,
not that I claim a status even near approaching that of any aviator
above-mentioned.
JMG Jr. is buried in the graveyard of Holy Cross Church, Scopwick, Lincolnshire,
England.
His poem is opposite – if you can read it without getting a lump in your throat,
quit flying. You’re missing the point.
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