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 non dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
Loftier in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind forth, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the air current-swept heights with easy grace
Where never distraction, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The loftier untrespassed sanctity of infinite,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Impressions of a Pilot

Flight is freedom in its purest form,
To dance with the clouds which follow a storm;

To curlicue and glide, to bike and spin,
To feel the joy that swells inside;

To leave the earth with its troubles and fly,
And know the warmth of a clear leap sky;

So back to world at the finish of a twenty-four hours,
Released from the tensions which melted away.

Should my end come up while I am in flight,
Whether brightest day or darkest night;

Spare me your pity and shrug off the pain,
Secure in the cognition that I'd do it once more;

For each of united states is created to dice,
And within me I know,
I was born to fly.

— Gary Claud Stokor

The Copilot

I am the copilot. I sit on the right.
It's up to me to be quick and bright;
I never talk back for I have regrets,
But I have to remember what the Captain forgets.

I make out the Flight Plan and study the weather,
Pull up the gear, stand by to plumage;
Brand out the mail forms and do the reporting,
And fly the one-time crate while the Captain is courtship.

I have the readings, accommodate the power,
Put on the heaters when nosotros're in a shower;
Tell him where nosotros are on the darkest night,
And exercise all the bookwork without any light.

I telephone call for my Helm and buy him cokes;
I ever express mirth at his corny jokes,
And once in awhile when his landings are rusty
I always come through with, "Past gosh it's gusty!"

All in all I'm a general stooge,
Equally I sit on the right of the homo I telephone call "Scrooge";
I guess y'all retrieve that is past understanding,
But maybe some twenty-four hour period he will give me a landing.

— Keith Murray

Because I Fly

Considering I wing
I laugh more than than other men
I wait up an come across more than than they,
I know how the clouds feel,
What it's like to have the blue in my lap,
to wait down on birds,
to feel freedom in a affair called the stick...

who but I can piece betwixt God's billowed legs,
and experience then express mirth and crash with His stride
Who else has seen the unclimbed peaks?
The rainbow'southward surreptitious?
The existent reason birds sing?
Because I Wing,
I green-eyed no human on earth.

— Grover C. Norwood

An Airman Grace

Lord of thunderhead and sky
Who place in homo the volition to fly
Who taught his hand speed, skill and grace
To soar across man'due south dwelling place
You shared with him the Eagle's view
The correct to soar, equally Eagles exercise
The correct to call the clouds his home
And grateful, through your heavens roam
May all assembled here tonight
And all who love the thrill of flying
Recall with twofold gratitude
Your souvenir of Wings, Your gift of Food.

— Begetter John MacGillivary, Majestic Canadian Air Force

An Irish gaelic Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall come across my fate
Somewhere amongst the clouds to a higher place;
Those that I fight I practise not detest,
Those that I baby-sit I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely stop could bring them loss
Or exit them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I counterbalanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this decease.

— William Butler Yeats, 1919

I searched along the changing edge
Where, heaven-pierced now the cloud had broken.
I saw no bird, no bract of wing,
No song was spoken.
I stood, my eyes turned upwardly even so
And drank the air and breathed the light.
And so, like a hawk upon the current of air,
I climbed the sky, I fabricated the flying.

— Elizabeth J. Buchtenkirk

Alone, notwithstanding never lonely,
Serene, across mischance,
The earth was his, his only,
When Lindbergh flew to France.

— Aline Michaelis

And now 'tis human who dares assail the sky . . .
And as we come to claim our promised place,
Aim merely to repay the skilful you gave,
And warm with human honey the chill of space.

— Prof. Thomas One thousand. Bergin

The True and Cute—The Sky

Sometimes gentle, sometimes arbitrary, sometimes awful, never the same for two months together; almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tenderness, almost Divine in its infinity.

—Bayard Ruskin

Unseen Fire

This is a damned unnatural sort of war;
The pilot sits among the clouds, quite sure
Nearly the values he is fighting for;
He cannot hear beyond his veil of audio,
He cannot run across the people on the ground;
he simply knows that on the sloping map
Of sea-fringed town and country people pitter-patter
Like ants — and who cares if ants express joy or weep?

— R. North. Currey

Courage

Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows information technology non Knows no release from little things:
Knows not the livid loneliness of fear,
Nor mount heights where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.
How can life grant united states boon of living, compensate
For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare The soul's dominion?
Each time we make a selection, we pay
With backbone to behold the restless day,
And count it fair.

— Amelia Earhart

The Aeroplane

I sweep the skies with fire and steel
My highway is the cloud
I dive, I soar, aloft I bicycle
My engine laughing loud
I fight with gleaming blades the wind
That dares dispute my path
I exit the howling storm behind
I ride upon information technology's wrath.

I laugh to see your tiny world
Your toys of ships, your cars
I rove an endless road unfurled
Where the mile stones are the stars
And far below, men await and peer
For what my coming brings
I make full their quaking hearts with fearfulness
For death...is in my wings.

— Gordon Boshell, written afterward watching Battle of U.k. dogfights from the streets of London.

If you are able,
save them a place
inside of you
and save ane backward glance
when yous are leaving
for the places they can
no longer become.

Be not ashamed to say
you lot loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.

Accept what they take left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep information technology with your own.

And in that fourth dimension
when men decide and feel prophylactic
to call the state of war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
i Jan 1970
Dak To, Vietnam

Michael Davis O'Donnell is on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Panel 12W Line 040.

One More Ringlet

We toast our hearty comrades who have fallen from the skies, and were gently caught by God's own paw to be with him on High.

To dwell among the soaring clouds they've known so well earlier. From victory roll to tail chase, at heaven's very door.

As nosotros wing among them there, we're certain to caput their plea. To have care my friend, sentry your half dozen, and practise one more than roll for me.

— Commander Jerry Java, Hanoi, 1968.

Expiry is a Matter of Mathematics

Decease is a affair of mathematics.
It screeches downwardly at you from dirty white nothingness
And your life is a question of velocity and altitude,
With allowances for wind and the quick, relentless pull
Of gravity

Or else it lies curtained
In that fleecy, peaceful puff of cloud ahead.
A streamlined, muttering vulture, waiting
To swoop upon you with a rush of steel.
So your chances vary as the curves
Of your parabolas, your banks, your dives,
The scientific soundness of your choice
Of what to button or pull, and how, and when.

— Barry Conrad Amiel

Dark Plane

The midnight plane with its flying lights
looks like an unloosed star
wandering w through blueish-black dark
to where the mountains are,
a star that'southward come so close to globe
to tell each tranquility subcontract and little town,
'Put out your lights, children of globe. Slumber warm.'

— Frances Frost, a children'south lullaby

The Bombers

Whenever I come across them ride on high
Gleaming and proud in the morning sky
Or lying awake in bed at night
I hear them pass on their outward flight
I feel the mass of metal and guns
Frail instruments, deadweight tons
Awkward, slow, bomb racks full
Straining abroad from down pull
Straining away from abode and base
And endeavour to see the pilot's face
I imagine a boy who's just left school
On whose quick-learned skill and courage absurd
Depend the lives of the men in his crew
And success of the job they take to exercise.
And something happens to me inside
That is deeper than grief, greater than pride
And though there is cypher I tin say
I always look upwards as they go their way
And care and pray for every one,
And steel my heart to say,
"Thy will exist done."

— Sarah Churchill, daughter of Sir Winston.

Barnstormer

The "airdrome" was a tan stripe
in a field of grass;

I call up airplane pilot that trip
when you flew low for me
so I could meet how the cornfields
were laid out -

Exercise y'all call up pilot my friend
how we skimmed the yellow miles
on the wings of an afternoon,

Yous shouting to me in the sun
—isn't it peaceful here
—isn't it peaceful here?

— E. F. Weisslitz

The War in the Air

For a saving grace, we didn't meet our expressionless, Who rarely bothered coming
dwelling to dice
But simply stayed away out there
In the clean war, the war in the air.

Seldom the ghosts came back bearing their tales Of hitting the globe,
the incompressible body of water, But stayed up there in the relative wind,
Shades fading in the heed,

Who had no graves but only epitaphs
Where never so many spoke for never so few: 'Per ardua,' said the
partisans of Mars,
'Per aspera,' to the stars.

That was the practiced war, the state of war we won
Equally if there were no death, for goodness' sake, With the help of the
losers we left out there In the air, in the empty air.

— Howard Nemerov

Losses

In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned most in school —
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When nosotros lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When nosotros died they said , 'Our casualties were low.'

— Randall Jarrell, 1963.

The Angel

Come up now and at present my love,
And leave your dying desert to the rain.
Requite up your treasured wounds
Let become the tempting memory of the hurting.
Give up the vows yous've taken
And you lot will live
And you will learn to wing once again
And you lot volition fly.

And you will live my honey,
And run across the stars regain your starless dark.
And you will find your sunday
And know the magic meaning of its light.
All souls will be yours to cherish
Rising, falling in their earthly flight
And you will fly.

And I would love my love,
And she would seek a refuge in my eyes.
But no resource of dearest
Could keep her from the fire
Where loving dies.
And I would reach out my paw as she was
Falling, falling to her home on loftier
And she would fly.

— Ed Freeman.

U.Due south. Air Force Vocal

Off nosotros go into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high into the lord's day;
Here they come up zooming to meet our thunder,
At 'em boys, Give 'er the gun! (Give 'er the gun now!)
Down we dive, spouting our flame from under,
Off with one helluva roar!
We live in fame or go down in flame. Hey!
Nothing'll stop the U.S. Air Force!

Additional verses:

Minds of men fashioned a crate of thunder,
Sent it loftier into the blue;
Hands of men blasted the globe asunder;
How they lived God simply knew! (God just knew then!)
Souls of men dreaming of skies to conquer
Gave us wings, e'er to soar!
With scouts earlier And bombers galore. Hey!
Nothing'll finish the U.S. Air Forcefulness!

Bridge: "A Toast to the Host"

Hither'due south a toast to the host
Of those who dearest the vastness of the sky,
To a friend we send a message of his blood brother men who fly.
Nosotros drink to those who gave their all of old,
Then down we roar to score the rainbow's pot of gilt.
A toast to the host of men we boast, the U.S. Air Force!

Zoom!

Off we go into the wild heaven yonder,
Go along the wings level and true;
If yous'd alive to be a grayness-haired wonder
Keep the nose out of the blue! (Out of the blue, boy!)
Flying men, guarding the nation's border,
We'll be there, followed by more!
In echelon we carry on. Hey!
Zilch'll stop the U.South. Air Force!

— Robert Crawford

Flight Crooked

The butterfly, the cabbage white,
(His honest idiocy of flight)
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying direct,
Yet has — who knows so well as I? —
A only sense of how not to fly:
He lurches here and hither past guess
And God and hope and hopelessness.
Even the aerobatic swift
Has not his flying-crooked souvenir.

— Robert Graves, 1938

Life/Flying Balance


In a hangar at the airport, Where a brooding pilot blinks,
Deeply graven is the bulletin -- Information technology is later than you think.
The clock of life is wound only one time, And no man has the power
To tell simply when the hands will finish, at late or early on hour.
Now is the time yous own; The past's a aureate link.
Get flying now, my brother -- It's later than you lot think.

Cas Wolan

Requite me the wings, magician! So their tune
Mix with the silverish trumpets of the Moon,
And, beyond music mounting, clean outrun
The gilded diapason of the dominicus.
At that place is a clandestine that the birds are learning
Where the long lanes in heaven take a turning
And no human being yet has followed: therefore these
Laugh hauntingly across our usual seas.
I'll non be mocked by curlews in the sky;
Give me the wings, magician, or I die.

— Humbert Wolfe

First Things First

The boundary lamps were yellow blurs
Confronting the winter night
And I had checked the final send in
And snapped the function lite,
And paused a while to let the ghosts
Of bygone days and men
Roam down the skies of auld lang syne
Every bit one will now and then ...
When fancy set up me visitor
A red checked lad to stand
With questions gleaming in his eyes,
A model in his hand.

He may have been your male child or mine,
I could not conspicuously come across,
But there was no mistaking how
His eyes were questing me
For answers which all sons must have
Who builds their toys in play
Only pow'r them in valiant dreams
And fly them far away;
Then down I sat with him beside
At that place in the dim lit shed
And with the ghost of better men
To check on me, I said:

"I cannot tell you lot, sonny male child,
The future of this art,
Merely one thing I tin can show you lot, lad,
An old time pilot's eye;
And you lot may judge what flight may give
Or hold in store for yous
Past knowing how true pilots experience
Well-nigh the piece of work they do;
And merely he who dedicates
His life to some ideal
Becomes as 1 with he dreams
His future will reveal

Not ane of whose wings are grit
Would telephone call his bargain in,
Not one of usa would welsh his part
To save his bloomin' skin,
Non one would wish to walk again
Unless allowed to throw
His heart into the thing he loved
And go as he would go:
Not one would change for gold or pow'r
Nor fun nor dear nor fame
The part he played and toll he paid
In making the skillful game.

And of the living ... none, non ane
Regrets the scars he bears,
The sheer doubt of plans,
The poverty he shares,
Remitted price for one error
That checks a bright career,
The shattered hopes, the scant rewards,
The future never clear:
And of the living ... none, not one
Who truly loves the heaven
Would trade a hundred earth leap hours
For one that he could fly.

If that sleek model in your hand
Which you accept brought to me
Almost represents the affair you lot dear,
The thing you want to exist,
Then yous volition fill up your curly caput
With knowledge, fact and lore,
For there is no short cut which leads
To aviation's door;
And just those whose zeal is proved
By patient toil and volition
Shall e'er have a part to play
Or have a identify to fill up."

And of a sudden the lad was gone
On wings I could non hear,
Just from afar off came his phonation
In studied tones and clear,
A prophet's message simply told
For this is what he said
And why his mitt will someday lead
Formations overhead,
"Who wants to fly has got to know:
Now two times 2 is four:
I've got to learn the first things first!
.. I closed the hangar door."

— Gill Robb Wilson.

The Wish

Up in the heaven, a bird does soar,
High and swift
Request no more than
Its wings lift
And then fall
With purple beauty
Information technology sings a call
It is so free
And I am not
I wish I were he
and he were not.

— Major Stephen Morrell. Steve died in a skydiving accident in 1996.

The world is a depot where wingless angels pass the fourth dimension,
Waiting for the long journey domicile
Seeing a small boy, smiling in the corner, I ask him ;
'Yous must be anxious to become home ?'
'I am home' he replied ' I merely come here to play the games'

— Oliver Makin

Oh controller, who sits in tower

Hallowed be thy sector.

Thy traffic come, thy instructions be done

On the ground equally they are in the air.

Give us this day our radar vectors,

And forgive u.s. our TCA incursions

As we forgive those who cut us off on concluding.

And lead united states of america non into adverse weather,

Merely deliver u.s.a. our clearances.

Roger

Heaven Fever

I must to up to the skies again, to the white clouds and the greyness,
And all I ask is a high launch, and the chance to 'get away';
And the wing's surge, and the wind'south song, and the tranquility clouds' drifting,
And a heat-haze on the state's face up, and the warm air's lifting

I must go upward to the skies over again, for the call to soar and glide,
Is a free call, and a articulate call, that may not exist denied;
And all I ask is a sunlit day, and the bright height's gaining,
'Neath the 'new-cu' that towers to a higher place, and it's elevator maintaining

I must go upward to the skies again, to the peace of silent flight,
To the dupe's way, and the hawk'due south fashion, and the free wings' delight;
And all I ask is a friendly joke with a laughing fellow rover,
And a large beer, and a deep sleep, when the long flying'south over

— Robbie, RAE Gliding Lodge, 'Sailplane & Gliding' mag

The Airplane pilot

Someday nosotros will know, where the pilots go
When their piece of work on earth is through.
Where the air is clean, and the engines gleam,
And the skies are e'er blue.
They take flown alone, with the engine'south moan,
Equally they sweat the great beyond,
And they take delight, at the awesome sight
of the world spread far and yon.

Notwithstanding not alone, for above the moan, when the globe is
out of sight,
Equally they make their stand up, He takes their mitt,
and guides them through the night.
How near to God are these men of sod,
Who step near decease'due south concluding door?
Oh, these men are real, not made of steel,
Simply He knows who goes before,

And how they live, and love and are love,
But their love is about for air.
And with death nearly, they volition all the same fly out,
And leave their troubles there.
He knows these things, of men with wings,
And He knows they are surely truthful.
And He will give a paw, to such a man
'Cause He's a pilot too.

— Leo Hymas.

Flyer's Prayer

When this life I'thousand in is done,
And at the gates I stand up,
My hope is that I answer all
His questions on command.

I incertitude He'll inquire me of my fame,
Or all the things I knew, Instead,
He'll enquire of rainbows sent
On rainy days I flew.

The hours logged, the condition reached,
The ratings will not matter.
He'll inquire me if I saw the rays
And how He made them scatter.

Or what about the droplets clear,
I spread across your screen?
And did you see the twinkling eyes.
If student pilots bang-up?

The mode your heart jumped in your chest,
That special solo day-
Did you lot take fourth dimension to thank the one
Who vicious along the fashion?

Recall how the runway lights
Looked one night long ago
When y'all were lost and found your way,
And how-you lot notwithstanding dont know?

How fast, how far, how much, how high?
He'll enquire me not these things
But did I have the fourth dimension to sentinel
The Moonbeams wash my wings?

And did you see the patchwork fields
And moutains I did mould;
The mirrored lakes and velvet hills,
Of these did I behold?

The wind he flung along my wings,
On final almost stalled.
And did I know I information technology was His proper noun,
That I and then fearfully chosen?

And when the goals are reached at last,
When all the flyings done,
I'll answer Him with no regret-
Indeed, I had some fun.

So when these things are asked of me,
And I can reach no higher,
My prayer this day - His hand extends
To welcome habitation a Flyer.

— Patrick J. Phillips

Flight West

I hope there's a place, way up in the sky
Where pilots can go when they have to die.
A place where a guy could purchase a cold beer
For a friend and a comrade whose memory is dear.
A place where no doctor or lawyer could tread,
Nor a management-type would e'ler exist caught dead!
But a quaint little identify, kind of nighttime, full of smoke,
Where they like to sing loud, and dearest a skillful joke.
The kind of a place that a lady could get
And feel safe and secure by the men she would know.

There must be a place where old pilots go,
When their wings become heavy, when their airspeed gets depression,
Where the whiskey is quondam, and the women are immature,
And songs near flying and dying are sung.
Where you'd meet all the fellows who'd 'flown west' before,
And they'd phone call out your proper noun, as you came through the door,
Who would buy you a beverage, if your thirst should be bad,
And chronicle to the others, "He was quite a skilful lad!"

And there, through the mist, yous'd spot an quondam guy
You had not seen in years, though he'd taught you to fly.
He'd nod his quondam caput, and grinning ear to ear
And say, "Welcome, my Son, I'm proud that you're here!
For this is the place where true flyers come
When the battles are over, and the wars have been won.
They've come hither at final, to be condom and alone,
>From the government clerk, and the management clone;
Politicians and lawyers, the Feds, and the racket,
Where all hours are happy, and these good ol' boys
Can relax with a absurd one, and a well deserved residual!
This is Heaven, my Son. You've passed your last exam!"

— Captain Michael J. Larkin, TWA (Ret.), 'Air Line Pilot' magazine

In bombers named for girls, nosotros burned
The cities we had learned about in school —
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said , 'Our casualties were low.'

— Randall Jarrell, 1963.

Air Thoughts Grounded

In that location is a globe I deeply beloved,
And thither would I roam,
Where I tin can notice truthful solitude
And be at peace lonely.
And feel the living pulses
Of the thing they phone call "my kite",
The feeling of belonging
As function of it in flight.
Upwardly where the air is articulate every bit ice
In the realm of living light;
Where the silence is eternal,
Save for the vocal of flight.
In that location shimmering mount masses rear
Their rounded heads in infinite;
And I would soar above them, plough
And dive upon them. Race
Along their clear cut canyons
With speeding, weaving ease,
Then diameter into the hillside
Where swirling vapours freeze,
Blanketing the senses.
For I can spin the Globe before my optics,
and throw it o'er my shoulder,
Because I dearest the skies!

These fancies flit before me
As I watch the patch of blue,
Framed by the ward's white window
Which is my prison view.
And I call up of those I flew with,
Of those who fly no more,
Patrols and sweeps and "doggers-ho"
Above the fields of war.
The never-ending searching
Around the glaring skies:
The hunter or the hunted
Its he who has the eyes,
The skill, the nerve, the quickness,
And Lady Luck'south sugariness kiss,
It'southward he who lives to shoot the line
And claim his pretty miss!
Just at that place is eye ache to it,
There's tragedy and fear!

But who recalls the horrors
When at that place's singing, and there'south beer?
Still when the songs are concluded,
And there isn't whatever beer,
Come the shadows of the heart anguish
And agony and fearfulness,
Blanketing the glamour.
Only I can spin the Earth earlier my eyes,
And toss information technology o'er my shoulder,
And still I love the skies.
Amen.

Written by Sqn Ldr Raymond Baxter (1922 – 2006)
WWII Spitfire pilot

For all Bomber Command crews

Lie in the nighttime and listen. It's clear tonight so they're flying loftier,
Hundreds of them, thousands peradventure, riding the icy, moonlit sky.
Men, machinery, bombs and maps, altimeters and guns and charts,
Coffee, sandwiches, fleece-lined boots, bones and muscles and minds and hearts,
English saplings with English roots deep in the earth they've left below.
Lie in the dark and let them go; Prevarication in the nighttime and listen.

Lie in the dark and listen. They're going over in waves and waves
High above villages, hills and streams, country churches and little graves
And trivial denizen'due south worried dreams; very soon they'll have reached the ocean.
Lie in the dark and permit them go, theirs is a world we'll never know.
Lie in the dark and listen. And far below them volition lie the bays
And cliffs and sands where they used to exist taken for summer holidays.
Lie in the nighttime and let them go. Theirs is a world we'll never know.
Prevarication in the nighttime and listen.

Lie in the dark and mind. City magnates and steel contractors,
Factory workers and politicians, soft hysterical piffling actors,
Ballet dancers, reserved musicians, condom in your warm civilian beds.
Count your profits and count your sheep, life is passing to a higher place your heads,
Just turn over and endeavour to sleep. Lie in the dark and allow them go;
There's ane debt you'll forever owe,

Lie in the dark and listen.

Spirits in Flight
I saw them return, seven spirits in flight,
Engines fired by the sparks of the dark,
Lumbering, throbbing like a dilapidated ghost,
So thankful for a friendly coast.

Glowing and gliding, a Lanc without sound,
The rubber screams equally it kisses the ground,
Perfect touchdown on a deserted plain;
At present a cornfield, a field with no name.

Night after dark, mission afterwards mission;
Helmets, goggles, masks and ammunition,
The vii Heaven Warriors from long past,
All knowing tonight could exist their terminal.

I hear the field alive with dissonance,
Filled with brave men; some of them merely boys,
I see them walk in their suits of leather,
Slowly and proudly they walk together.

Where their Lancs rose to run across the foe,
At present the larks rising, from their nests below,
Down the runway only peace is heard,
Save for the wind and the song of a bird.

Time passes, Jan to Dec,
From spring to winter the years drift on,
Every April, every Easter, I will call up
Cliff, Al, Pete and John -- Nick, Stan and Skipper Don.

By Eddy Coward defended to his brother Cliff and the crew of Lancaster LL899 of 49 Sqdn lost 12 April 1944.

What did we earth-spring make of it? A tangle
Of vapour trails, a vertiginously high
Swarming of midges, at most a fiery angel
Hurled out of sky, was all we could descry.

How could nosotros know the agony and pride
That scrawled those fading signatures upwards there,
And the cool expertise of them who died
Or lived through that delirium of the air

Grounded on history at present, we re-enact
Such lives, such deaths. Fourth dimension, laughing out of court
The newspaper heroics and the faked
Statistics, leaves united states of america but to record.

What was, what might accept been fighter and bomber
The tilting sky, tense moves and counterings;
Those who outlived that legendary summer;
Those who went down, information technology'due south sunlight on their wings.

And you, unborn and then, what will you make of it-
This shadow-play of battles long agone?
Be sure of this: they pushed to the uttermost limit
Their luck, skill, nervus....

And they were young like you lot.

- Cecil Day Lewis

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