While re-tracing the path of those that arrived at Utah, Sword and Juno beaches on my own this late this evening, with the sun setting a poem came to mind that once hung on the wall of a pub I knew near RAF Brize Norton.
Rather than take part in any of the numerous group flights that have been taking place in recent days commemorating the D-Day landings, I thought I might share the poem instead.
. . .
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 ever 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.
. . .
Here’s a little more about the poem and it’s author from Wikipedia:
High Flight is a 1941 sonnet written by war poet John Gillespie Magee Jr. and inspired by his experiences as a fighter pilot of the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. Magee began writing the poem on 18 August, while stationed at No. 53 OTU outside London, and mailed a completed manuscript to his family on 3 September, three months before he died in a training accident. Originally published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it was widely distributed when Magee became one of the first post-Pearl Harbor American casualties of the war on 11 December, after which it was exhibited at the American Library of Congress in 1942. Owing to its gleeful and ethereal portrayal of aviation, along with its allegorical interpretation of death and transcendence, the poem has been featured prominently in aviation memorials across the world, including that of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
. . .
While piloting a Spitfire Mk I, Magee reached 33,000 feet (10,000 m) during a training flight over Wales sometime in August 1941. He was impressed by the speed and agility of the aircraft, and moved by the experience of flying at that altitude. He wrote to his parents that he completed the poem soon after finishing training that day.
The first person to read Magee's poem later that same day in the officers' mess was fellow Pilot Officer Michael Henry Le Bas (later Air Vice-Marshal M. H. Le Bas, CB CBE DSO AFC, Air Officer Commanding No. 1 Group RAF), with whom Magee had trained.
Magee enclosed the poem in a letter to his parents, dated 3 September 1941. His father, then curate of Saint John's Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, reprinted it in church publications. The poem became more widely known through the efforts of Archibald MacLeish, then Librarian of Congress, who included it in an exhibition of poems called "Faith and Freedom" at the Library of Congress in February 1942. The manuscript copy of the poem remains at the Library of Congress.
. . .
During April and May 1942, many Hollywood stars including Laurel and Hardy, Groucho Marx, Cary Grant, Bing Crosby, and Bob Hope joined the Hollywood Victory Caravan as it toured the United States on a mission to raise war bonds. Actress Merle Oberon recited High Flight as part of this show. During the performance on 30 April 1942, at the Loew's Capitol Theatre in Washington, D.C., and before her recitation of High Flight, Oberon acknowledged the attendance of Magee's father, John Magee, and brother Christopher Magee.
Orson Welles read the poem on an episode of The Radio Reader's Digest (11 October 1942), Command Performance (21 December 1943), and The Orson Welles Almanac (31 May 1944).
High Flight has been a favourite poem amongst both aviators and astronauts. It is the official poem of the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Air Force. The poem has to be recited from memory by fourth-class cadets at the United States Air Force Academy, where it can be seen on display in the Cadet Field House. At the United States Air Force Academy Cemetery, the grave marker of Brigadier General Robin Olds is inscribed with a variant of a line from the poem: "dancing the skies on laughter silvered wings".
The poem is often read at funerals of aviators; portions of the poem appear on many of the headstones in the Arlington National Cemetery, and it is inscribed in full on the back of the Space Shuttle Challenger Memorial. It is displayed on panels at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, the National Air Force Museum of Canada, in Trenton, Ontario. It is the subject of a permanent display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, in Dayton, Ohio.
Brigadier General Robert Lee Scott Jr. included the poem in his 1943 book God is My Co-Pilot.
Astronaut Michael Collins brought an index card with the poem typed on it on his Gemini 10 flight and included the poem in his 1974 autobiography Carrying the Fire. Former NASA Flight Director Gene Kranz quoted the first line of the poem in his book Failure Is Not An Option. U.S. President Ronald Reagan used part of "High Flight" in a speech written by Peggy Noonan on the night after the Challenger disaster on 28 January 1986.
At RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, a memorial to Red Arrows pilots, Flight Lieutenants Jon Egging, killed on 20 August 2011, and Sean Cunningham, killed on 8 November 2011, bears an interpretation of the poem on a brass plaque atop a wooden plinth in front of a gate guardian aircraft outside the RAF Aerobatics Team hangar. The plaque reads "...they have slipped the surly bonds of Earth / Put out their hands and touched the face of God... / In memory of / Flt Lt Jon Egging – 20th August 2011 / Flt Lt Sean Cunningham – 8th November 2011".
In her 1 September 2018, eulogy for her father, John McCain, Meghan McCain quoted the poem at the end of her tribute. "I know that on the afternoon of August 25th in front of Oak Creek in Cornville, Arizona, surrounded by the family he loved so much, an old man shook off the scars of battle one last time and arose a new man to pilot one last flight up and up and up, busting clouds left and right, straight on through to the kingdom of heaven. And he slipped the earthly bonds, put out his hand, and touched the face of God"
Above text sourced from Wikipedia