High Flight

No other piece of literature in aviation is as inspiring and holds the same place in the hearts of pilots as the Poem of High Flight.  Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr., a young 19-year-old World War II fighter pilot wrote the poem a few months before his death, doing what he loved, flying his Spitfire.  He was an American Citizen who gave up a scholarship to Yale and like many other young men of that period enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940 to serve in Brittan and help with their war effort.   

In September 1941 while flying a Supermarine Spitfire and climbing to 33,000 feet he was struck with awe at the beauty before him and these reflections gave him the beginnings of his poem that he wrote later that day.  The poem was written on the back of a letter he sent to his parents.

On December 11, 1941 he was killed in a mid air collision while descending through the clouds.  By the time he was able to open the canopy he was to low for his parachute to open and died on impact.

This poem captures the essence and romance that embraces a pilot’s love of flying.  He will live in the minds and hearts of all those who share his love of aviation.

Further information about the pilot and his  poem 

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'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 wind-swept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew.

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high un-trespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

                                             John G. Magee Jr.