Remembering Anglo-American Aviator, Connecticut Student and Poet John Gillepsie Magee, Jr.

Anglo-American Pilot John Gillespie Mcgee, Jr.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (1922-1941), whose birthday we celebrate today, was an Anglo-American aviator and pilot who composed the poem inspired by aviation flight. Here it is:

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 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.

Ray Haas is producing a video based on the life of John Gillespie Mcgee: here is a You Tube clip on the movie




Mcgee attended Avon Old Farms School in Avon, Connectiuct; then, in 1939, he was accepted on a scholarship to Yale University (where his dad was a chaplain); however he elected to cross the border to Canada to commence flight training. Within a year, he was sent to England and joined the No. 412 Fighter Squadron, RCAF, which was located at Digby, England.

On December 11, 1941, Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee was flying a Spitfire V which collided with an Oxford trainer from Cranwell Airfield. The mid-air occurred over the village of Roxholm situated between RAF Digby and RAF Cranwell about 400 feet above ground level at 11:30 AM.

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