The poet John Magee was a young Spitfire pilot when he wrote High Flight. The son of an American Father and an English mother, he was educated in America. On the outbreak of the second world war he joined up as a volunteer in the Royal Canadian Air Force which brought him back to England as a fully-fledged pilot. It was while stationed in Britain during September 1941, that he wrote "High Flight". Two months later, on December 11th, and just three days after America entered the war, John was killed in a mi-air collision over Linconshire.