Poetry - By/for/about aircrew

Like it. In a remarkable contrast to the very eloquent pieces of prose above, I found this little ditty in a book about wartime graphics (drawings), on the subject of DitchingThe code-word to prepare for a landing on the water was "Dinghy":

Dinghy ! Dinghy ! Prepare to ditch !
Last one out is a son of a bitch !

BC

 

Wings

Lord of land and sea and air
Listen to the pilot's prayer.
Sen him wind that is steady and strong,
Grant that his engine sings a song
Of flawless tone by which he knows
It shall not fail where'er he goes -
Landing, diving, in curve, half roll,
Grant him Oh Lord! full control -
That he may learn in heights of heaven
The rapture altitude has given -
That he shall know the joy they feel
Who ride the realms on birds of steel.

Cecil Roberts

 

An Airman's Prayer

Almighty and all-present Power,
Short is the prayer I make to Thee.
I do not ask in battle hour
For any shield to cover me.
The vast unalterable way
From which the stars do not depart,
May not be turned aside to stay
The bullets flying to my heart.
I ask no help to strike my foe.
I seek no petty victory here.
The enemy I hate, I know,
To Thee is also dear.
But this I pray: Be at my side
When death is drawing through the sky,
Almighty God, Who also died,
Teach me the way that I should die.

Sergeant/Observer Hugh Brodie, old boy and former master of Melbourne High School. Written about 1941, these lines were found in a letter to the boys of the school, among his personal belongings after he had been posted missing during RAAF operations.

Page 131, Battle Order 204 by Christobel Mattingley

 

From my father's P.O.W. "Wartime Log"

As its a song German airman used to sing it confuses me as to why its in his log.

Anyone care to translate?

 

Here's another one with a loose "airman" connection.

 

And another.

 

Excellent stuff, DL.

 

Ain't feelin' quite so good today, I'm even off me beer!
Altho' they've given me 10 days leave, I still feel kinda queer,
I've had a nasty shock you see, I've lost my biggest chum,
It happened just a week ago, and better men don't come.

My pal's a famous fighter ace, DSO and DFC,
His score of Jerry buses had just reached twenty-three.
Squadron Leader Brand, the finest bloke I've met,
Him and me was really pals, that makes you smile I bet.

Him a proper English gent, public school and Oxford Blue
And me a common Cockney bloke, just an AC2.
A Spitfire fighter pilot and his rigger, that was us
The bloke who did the scrapping and me what did his bus.

A "fighting team" he said we were, altho' he'd got three rings.
"Jimmy you're all right," he said, altho' he'd got the wings.
"You're the bloke that I depend on when I'm up there in a fight,
I can't shoot 'em down unless you fix my Spitfire right."

He was always kind and thoughtful, when my missus had a kid,
He sent a wire, a bunch of flowers, as well as fifteen quid.
I told him I was grateful, said I'd make it up to him,
He gave a crooked smile and said, "You owe me nothing Jim."

I've got a pair of silver Wings, two medals on my chest,
My name's been in the papers, there's promotion and the rest.
I've got twenty-three swastikas painted on my petrol tank
For all these things it's blokes like you I've really got to thank."

The day he'd been to see the King to get his DSO
They 'ad a lovely party, all 'is friends and the CO.
But 'e got away for just a while to buy us drinks all round,
"You can't win medals in the sky with dud blokes on the ground."

"Killer" Brand they called him, the pilot of no Wing,
What a name to give a bloke who'd never harm a thing,
Except when he was chasing Huns; Blimey then he'd fight!
You see he'd lost his sister when Jerry came one night.

The girls were crazy after him, they chased him near and far,
Made his life a misery, just like a movie star.
Wouldn't have no truck with 'em, perhaps they thought him dumb,
If they did, he didn't worry, his best girl was his Mum.

A week ago last Monday, I won't forget that day,
It was cold wet and dreary, all the sky was grey.
They took off them twelve Spitfires on an early morning sweep,
Just like a hundred other days, I waved and said "God keep".

I couldn't seem to settle down the time they was away,
I seemed to have a feeling this was going to be his day.
I waited on the airfield 'til I sighted them - and then,
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

I quickly checked them over, but his crate it wasn't there.
I asked the other pilots if they'd seen him bail and where?
They'd seen him crashing down in flames, "Tony's gone we fear."
I ain't feeling quite so good today - I'm even off me beer!

 

That is truly brilliant, DL. Says it all.

 

By F/O Kevin Wakefield RAAF while training in Canada. According to the link below, he later flew Sptifires in the UK from early 1944 to the end of the war.

Australian War Memorial» Blog Archive » “There is a sunny land far, far away …”

 

Ode to johnny

Hi Andy,
I have checked through and didn't see this.
So I hunted the net and found it.
It has always stayed in my memory, long after visions of the film faded.
Hope you like it

Cheers
Keith

 

Saw The Way to the Stars a long time ago, good film, but sadly don't remember the poem. Very poignant.

 

120 Squadron RAF ( U-Boat Busters )

Hi Andy,
A couple of bits from the Units Pocket History.
Cheers
Keith

 

Bomber Boys by David Scholes DFC

Evening shadows lengthen,
Cheery voices
Of the crews - heroes all
Echo, through the trees
NFTs are done, and tea - happy time!
On dilapidated bicycles -
Proud possessions, they go
To briefing,
Silent, listening, they sit while
They are 'genned', -
Darkness falls.
Horrid Night!
Engines suddenly
Shatter its silence.
Coloured lights - awful fairyland,
Mark the airfield.
Giant aircraft, blue exhausts,
Roll, like huge black monsters,
To the 'Taxi Post',
Split-second timing,
One by one, off they go,
Lost in blackness.
Silence.

Coffee, sandwiches, fleece-lined boots,
Men machinery, guns and charts,
High above villages, streams and towns -
Icy, moonlit sky -
Black demons,
All together.
Lie in the dark and listen.
Lie in your soft civilian beds.
Lie -
Their's is one debt
You'll for ever owe
Lie in the dark and let them go -
Lie in the dark and listen.

 

By S/L MC Bush Cotton and taken from pages 147-149 of his book Hurricanes over Burma:

The glowing sight-ring superimposed.
Guns drumming in the wings, and
the howling blast
Of wind, exhaust; terrible speed.

The curling tracers fanning out.
From the doomed enemy pieces flying and
the black smoke streaming;
Betokening fire, destruction, death.

These I have seen many times, and felt
In my bowels the squirming, throttling fear
that some day, I too,
Might be the streaking, downward falling torch.

Then in the awful melee above Rangoon,
One against ten I fight, to blast
from the sky,
The enemy; viciously swerving, twisting, turning.

As the mad dance whirls and roars,
Confusing friend and foe alike
the raging sun
Beats down oppressively, blinding hot.

With sweat pouring and hands shaking,
From constant days of fighting; sleepless nights,
the nerves unstrung,
Is this what we were born for, educated, loved?

Then sudden, falling from the fight,
My stricken craft, shuddering, smoking
from the furious impact
Of the streaming bullets, ripping metal.

Then, hellish, dreadful tearing pain;
Ah! Christ, the awful cries; not me?
Must I die thus,
Screaming downwards to oblivion.

Flesh and bone torn and scattered,
Blood on the instruments, hands, everywhere.
My foot jumping,
Shuddering off the pedal, falling, useless.

Controls firm locked! Then this is death.
Animal terror whirling the brain and then,
the sudden calm
Of reason after panic, while yet a chance exists.

The giant hand of gravity pressing.
As from the fearful dive the plane
slowly, ah, so slowly,
Straightens out below the fight.

Minutes later, with the sense darkening,
Hysterically shouting, singing, fighting pain,
my 'drome is below,
I see the runway turn and straighten.

The boundary passes quickly underneath,
The earth gathers my craft gently
to its smooth bosom.
The noise and fight is finished; and I live!

 

Can I add this to your list ?? .... not quite what you asked for Andy - but ..... !!

I Am An Air Force Wife

I've noticed in my present job there is this tiny quirk
There is no respect at all, and it's not considered work.....
Well I am here to show you another point of view
Just to give you an idea, of what WE really do........
Here is my job description, and to better Understand...
I've written it in the lingo of my Military Man.....
I am the IG complaints come to me
I am the MEDIC, I bandage skinned knees
I am the JAG and COURT MARITAL too...
I decide the punishments, how much and on who!
I am SAFETY, inspecting all the junk
I am the FIRST SHIRT checking the bunk
I am SUPPLY in charge of food and clothes
households goods and heaven only knows....
I am the SP who secures the door
I am FINANCE, but giving out more
I am SERVICES who cooks all the meals
I am TRANS in charge of the wheels
I am MWR planning all the fun
I am the BUGLER announcing the 'Day is Done'
I am the CQ and Fire Dept too,
there isn't much that I don't do...
I am the Instructor, also you see
Because everything that is learned is taught by me
I am the Flight Leader who knows his troops well
Sometimes the T.I. who really can yell

I am the 0-10 and the E-9 you see
cause everything must come through me

I'll never go to combat, but certain battles I will face
But rest assure when you deploy, count on me to guard the base

I am always on duty, I never take leave,
No Holidays off, It's hard to believe

I can never ETS, I signed on for life
My Primary AFSC is Mother, my secondary is AF Wife

For all my devotion to duty, my LES says NO PAY DUE
Because I am not paid in money, but in the words
"I LOVE YOU"

anonymous

 

Here's some poetry that will pull at your heart strings ! .... this gentleman is 81 years old and hasn't slept in a bed for some ten years - it hurts to walk and it hurts to lie down, so most of his present life is done in a chair hwell:

C. Douglas “Doug” Caffey
Charles Douglas Caffey is a disabled veteran of WWII. He served (1944-1946) in the 509th Composite Bomb Group, 58th Wing, Air Photo Unit, 20th Air Force, United States Army Air Force. It was the 509th who dropped the atomic bombs on Japan and did the atom bomb tests at Bikini in the Pacific. A chronic sufferer of PTSD since WWII, Doug is a former college dean. He started writing poetry two and a half years ago and though he doesn’t claim to be a poet, he does claim to write from the heart.

C. Douglas Caffey

 

He's been busy! Thanks, Annie.

 

Not here are the goblets glowing,
Not here is the vintage sweet;
'Tis cold as our hearts are growing,
And dark as the doom we meet.
But stand to your glasses, steady!
And soon shall our pulses rise:
A cup to the dead already-
Hurrah for the next that dies!

Anon

 

From Dudley Egles' Just One of the Many - a poem by his wife Eileen.

Fifty Years On

Dashing young heroes, tall, slim and fair,
Quick-witted, moustached, with luxuriant hair.
A pretty girl passing them brightened their eyes,
And for freedom the fough in perilous skies.

O! What has become of those gallant young men,
Grounded for fifty-odd years since then?
Where are the happy young heroes of old,
Those Air Force boys of whom legends are told?

Ah me! ask me not! 'Tis sad to relate
How those handsome young lads
Have been treated by fate.
Slim bodies have put on a fair bit of weight;
Moustaches have dropped, and the hair that of late
Was thick, dark and lustrous is almost not there,
Just a few thinning strands of fast-greying hair.

That rapier-like wit of long years ago
Has become so pedestrian, limping and slow;
But one spark remains of those long-ago men,
One memory stirs them now, as it did then.

When a pretty girl smiles at them, ah - what a sight!
Backs straighten, heads swivel, eyes smartly right,
For a glimpse of her figure, the tilt of her head;
Those boys of the old days will never be dead!