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High Flight
by P/O J.G. Magee, Jr. RCAF No. 412 Squadron
John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was born on 9 June 1922 in Shanghai, the son of American missionaries. He spent three years at Rugby School in England and returned to the United States in 1939 to enter Yale University where his father was chaplain. In October 1940, at the age of 18, he went to Canada and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. He trained as a pilot at No. 9 Elementary Flying Training School at St. Catharines and No. 2 Service Flying Training School, Uplands. He received his wings on 22 June 1941 and was commissioned with the rank of Pilot Officer.
The sonnet HIGH FLIGHT is known through out the English-speaking world, epitomizing, as it does, the poetry and emotion of flight. It was written by a 19- year old American fighter pilot of the Royal Canadian Air Force a few months before his death.
He embarked for overseas on 5 July 1941 and as he was to be a fighter pilot, was posted to the Spitfire-equipped No. 53 Operational Training Unit. It was during this training, after a high altitude flight, that he wrote HIGH FLIGHT on the back of a letter to his mother. He said that he started composing it at 30,000 feet, inspired by the ecstasy of this experience.
P/O Magee was posted to No. 412 Squadron, RCAF on 23 September 1941 and flew operationally with that unit for two months. His death was not due to enemy action but was one of the thousands that were inevitable when the quantity and tempo of wartime flying over the UK are taken into account. Returning from a convoy patrol to his base at Wellingore, Lincolnshire he was descending through the one gap in the cloud cover when an Oxford trainer of the RAF emerged from the clouds. Neither pilot had a chance to avoid the collision and Magee's aircraft, Spitfire VB AD291 was seriously damaged. At first he attempted to bring the aircraft down and when he eventually bailed out, it was at too low an altitude for his parachute to open properly. He was killed instantly and was later buried at Scopwith Church Burial Grounds, Lincolnshire.
After his death his poem became famous and was an inspiration both to airmen and others.