John Gillespie Magee Jr was a spitfire pilot in the RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force). He was killed in an accidental mid air collision, over England in 1941. After training in Canada he arrived in England and did conversion training to fly a Spitfire. In November 1941 he escorted bombers on a bombing raid on Lille, in Northern France. A number of Spitfires were lost, and this was his sole engagement with Luftwaffe planes. The following month, on 11th December, 1941, he hit an Airspeed Oxford training plane, as he descended through cloud cover at high speed. A witness said he saw him struggling to get out of the cockpit, and when he finally did, it was too late for the parachute to open, and he was killed on impact with the ground.
After travelling up to 33,000 feet in his Spitfire, John Gillespie Magee Jr was inspired to write a poem, and sent it, in a letter to his parents of September of that year. It is now the official poem of the RAF and RCAF.
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 untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
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