High Flight

On June 9, 1922, a young couple of Anglican missionairies to China gave birth to a son in Shanghai, China, and who was christened with the name John Gillespie Magee. The father was John Magee Sr., an Episcopal priest who came from a family of some wealth in Pittsburgh, PA. While in China Magee Sr. met young Faith Emmeline Backhouse, a member of the Church Missionary Society. They were married in 1921.

As young Magee grew he became a student at the American School in Nanking, China in 1929. Two years later he moved with his mother to England and spent four years as a student at St. Clare, a prepatory school for boys in Upper Walmer, County Kent, England.

He then attended the prestigious  Rugby School in Rugby Warwickshire, United Kingdom,  where he spent four years between 1935 and 1939. In 1938 Magee Jr. won the Poetry Prize in 1938 famous Rugby old boy Rupert Brooke who also won the prize 34 years earlier. His prize was for his Sonnet to Rupert Brooke which described the poet’s burial in a peaceful olive grove on the Greek island of Skyros.

In 1939, after completing his time at the Rugby School, Magee left England for the United States to lie with an aunt who lived in Pittsburgh, PA. From there he was sent to a boarding school at Avon Old Farms School in Avon Connecticut.  He won a scholarship to attend Yale University where his father was then a chaplain.

In October of 1940, at the age of 18, John Magee Jr. got sidetracked from enrolling at Yale, instead, he headed to Canada and decided to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. The Royal Canadian Air Force accepted Magee, and after his flight training and winning his wings, Magee was sent back to England as a commisioned pilot officer.

Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., along with his fellow student pilots.

MAGEE, John Gillespie, Jr., Pilot Officer, RCAF, receives his pilot's wings.

During the course of his training in the Spitfire Magee was tasked with making a high altitude flight to 30,000 feet, 'into the stratosphere'. Upon Landing, he went to his quarters and there wrote his now famous sonnet on the back of a letter he mailed to his mother on September 3rd, 1941.

The original manuscript of “High Flight,” by Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., Royal Canadian Air Force, in the collection of the Library of Congress.

If you look carefully in the lower left hand corner of this document you will see Magee's note to his parents. The famous poem is well known by pilots and aviation aficienados alike. Here is a printed version of the poem for you:

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, 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.

When Second World War Spitfire pilot John Gillespie Magee penned his poem 'High Flight', little did he know that his words would inspire legions of aspiring aviators who had a similar wish to fly their 'eager craft through footless halls of air'. 

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Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., Royal Canadian Air Force, author of High Flight. Magee was based at Llandow, South Wales, Royal Air Force Digby (Lincolnshire), and Wellingore.

Military Service Details:

• Service number: J/5823
• Age: 19
• Force: Air Force
• Unit: Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF)
• Division: # 412 Falcon Squadron (Promptus Ad Vindictam)

Untimely Death

Tragically, John would lose his life, aged 19 years, in an accident, so never know how his words would serve posterity. Roger Cole's High Flight traces the path of John Magee's achievement, revealing an incredible story of human endeavor, vision, determination and self-sacrifice.

At the age of 19, on December 11, 1940, John Magee Jr died when his Supermarine Spitfire suffered a mid-air collision in the clouds with a trainer aircraft from Royal Air Force Base Cranwell. He was one of the first US war casualities as America had only entered the war on December 7, 1941.

I hope you enjoyed this trip through some of the history of sunglasses. If you enjoyed this trip, and if you are new to this blog, sign up to receive your own weekly blog post here: Subscribe here!

Until next time, keep your eyes safe and focused on what's ahead of you, Hersch!