John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

People who love aircraft and flying, usually come to memorise this poem, know it by heart—even if they don't care much for other literature. Bookworms just downright love it, pilots print and display it; motivators quote it.

Author Magee said:

"It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished shortly after I landed."

High Flight

by John Gillespie Magee Jr., 1922-1941

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silver 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 windswept 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.

These words were written in England in 1941 by Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr., an American student pilot, born in Shanghai, China to an American father and a British mother, Anglican missionaries.

Daniel and Caleb Nixon visiting John Magee's grave site.

His father, John Gillespie Magee, was from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania whose family was of some wealth and influence—there is thePittsburgh Magee Hospital and the Magee Building. Magee Sr., disregarding family wealth, chose to become an Episcopal priest and was sent as a missionary to China and there met his wife, Faith Emmeline Backhouse.

John Jr. began his education at Nanking (1929-1931). In 1931 he sailed with his mother to Britain where he continued his education, first at St. Clare's near Walmer, Kent (1931-1935) and then at RugbySchool (1935-1939) winning the Rugby School's poetry prize in 1938.

In 1939 he sailed back to the USA to live with his aunt in Pittsburgh and attended Avon Old Farms School in Avon, Connecticut. He earned a scholarship to Yale University where his father was then a Chaplain, but did not enroll, choosing instead to begin flight training.

Magee Jr., crossed the Canadian border illegally in 1941 to serve in the Royal Canadian Air Force. In this poem, the BritishSupermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft he flew, is rhapsodically evoked.

"An aeroplane," he wrote home while undergoing basic training inCanada, "is not to us a weapon or war, but a flash of silver slantingthe skies; the hum of a deep-voiced motor; a feeling of dizziness; it is speed and ecstasy." Of his flying, his instructor noted, "Patches of brilliance; tendency to over-confidence."

Magee trained at several air bases. Among these was No. 2 SFTS (Service Flying Training School) located at Uplands, Ottawa. While there, part of the movie "Captains of the Clouds" was filmed. John sent a letter to his parents and wrote about news and things in general. He also gives a list of films that, if his parents should see. One is "Captains of the Clouds." This is a film made at Uplands in which I took part in formation flying, etc. "The film starred Jimmy Cagney and Alan Hale.(Alan Hale was the father of the Alan Hale who starred as The Skipper in the television series "Gilligan's Island.")

Magee in 412 Squadron Spitfire VZ-L

Magee flew a Spitfire Mk V with the RCAF's 412 Squadron from Digby, Lincolnshire, from June 30, 1941. In early September, he wrote to his parents after a high altitude test flight. "I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed. I though it might interest you."

On the back of the letter was "High Flight," written on September 3rd, exactly two years after Great Britain had declared war on Germany. On December 11, 1941, three days after the US entered WWII, Magee was killed in a flying accident close to RAF Tangmere. A farmer saw his Spitfire drop from the sky, and watched as Magee bailed out. His parachute failed to open. His grave is in the quiet church yard of Holy Cross, Scopwick, Linconshire. In icily precise lettering, a white military tombstone reminds us he was just nineteen years old.

Magee's idealistic poem has become an immortal item in aviation legend.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.'s Tombstone

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