Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee RCAF
 "Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth ............. put out my hand, and touched the face of God". Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee. 412 Squadron RCAF "High Flight" 412 Squadron Spitfire. From a painting by Keith Ferris Courtesy of: Brooks Aviation Art |
| Born of an American father and English mother, John Gillespie Magee gave up studies at Yale University to join the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940. He was station at RAF Wellingore, a satellite station of RAF Digby, with 412 Squadron RCAF when he wrote "High Flight". The poem encompasses his thought and feelings of the freedom of flight, and in particular, the exhilaration he felt after a flying in the Spitfire. |
| Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee was tragically killed in a mid-air collision on 11 December 1941 when his Spitfire collided with another aircraft; he was just 19 years old. He is buried, along with other RCAF colleagues, in the graveyard in Scopwick village, 2 miles from RAF Digby, where, each year on Remembrance Sunday, personnel from RAF Digby join the members of Scopwick village church in remembering these airmen who died so far from home. |
| "High Flight" is truly an aviators poem, and as such, was quoted by President Reagan in his tribute to the crew of the Challenger spacecraft, who like John Gillespie Magee had; |
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" ...... slipped the surly bonds of Earth... |
"High Flight" "Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earthand 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 thro' footless halls of air. Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue, I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace where never lark, nor 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. |
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