Poems dedicated to aircraft

[pbfoot]

Seems to me there are poems from the era dedicated to different aircraft if you have any please share them here. gotta couple for the B26 to come

this one is from the guys in Ferry Command to the Mosquito which had the highest loss rate of any aircraft on the Atlantic crossing

The I Have Landed Jitters

Oh ,don't send my boy in a Mossie
For he is my Favourite son
Oh ,don't send my boy in a Mossie
What dreadful thing has he done

For he is my only boy , sir
The best son a mother e'er had
Oh ,don't send my boy in a Mossie
For they make him feel so sad

They give him the shakes and shivers ,sir
He tosses all night in his bed
And if you give him another one ,sir
T'will send him right out of his head

He's taken to drinking and girls sir
He comes home stewed to the gills
Oh ,don't send my boy in a Mossie
'Cause the thought of them gives him the chills

Sometimes he talks in his sleep sir
And as he lies tossing his head
I hear him muttering and groaning
"Please give me a Boston instead"

 

[pbfoot]

From the b26 training base in Tampa

B 26 Single Engine Procedure

If you have altitoot
Use your chute
If its on take off your bent
And a engine has gone and went
Forget the bail out alarm
Brother , you've bought the farm
Naught to do but hope and pray
For its certain death in Tampa Bay

 

[Crimea_River]

Unknown Author:


Sure we're braver than hell on the ground, all is well.
In the air it's a much different story.
As we sweat out our track through the fighters and flak,
We're willing to split up the glory.

Well, they wouldn't reject us, so Heaven protect us
Until all this shootin' abates.
Give us the courage to fight 'em and another small item:
An escort of P-38s.

 

[pbfoot]

to the B26

if you fly that B Dash Crash
Oh, if you fly that B Dash Crash
Brother,your fixin to bust your ass
Gonna kill myself .Oh Precious Me!!

If you that B twenty Six
Oh if you fly that B Twenty Six
Brother your in a helluva fix
Gonna kill myself .Oh Precious Me

Who built the fire on the downwind leg
Now, Who built the fire on the downwind leg
Some dumb student went and laid an egg
Gonna kill myself .Oh Precious Me

Now if he hits that wrong feather switch
Now, if he hits that wrong feather switch
I swear I'm gonna kill that sonnabitch
Gonna kill myself .Oh Precious Me

 

[nuuumannn]

I used to know one about the Avro Shackleton that was sung to the tune of that oldie "Bless 'em all", but for the life of me I can't remember it.

 

[A4K]

RAF Lancaster crews song to annoy the 'over paid, over sexed, and over here' USAAF B-17 crews (to the tune of The Battle Hymn of the Republic):

Fifty Flying Fortresses at Fifty Thousand Feet,
Fifty Flying Fortresses at Fifty Thousand Feet,
But they've only got one teeny, weeny bomb,
Fifty Flying Fortresses at Fifty Thousand Feet...

 

[herman1rg]

"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[8] eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

One of my favourites by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (9 June 1922 – 11 December 1941)[1][2][3] was an American[4] aviator and poet who died as a result of a mid-air collision over Lincolnshire during World War II. He was serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force, which he joined before the United States officially entered the war. He is most famous for his poem "High Flight."

Not specifically about an aircraft but still good

 

[herman1rg]

THE MAN IN THE DEAD MACHINE

High on a slope in New Guinea
The Grumman Hellcat
lodges among bright vines
as thick as arms. In 1943,
the clenched hand of a pilot
glided it here
where no one has ever been.

In the cockpit, the helmeted
skeleton sits
upright, held
by dry sinews at neck
and shoulder, and webbing
that straps the pelvic cross
to the cracked
leather of the seat, and the breastbone
to the canvas cover
of the parachute.

Or say the shrapnel
missed him, he flew
back to the carrier, and every
morning takes the train, his pale
hands on the black case, and sits
upright, held
by the firm webbing.

Donald Hall

 

[Readie]

Windhover


I caught this morning morning's minion, kingdom of daylight's dauphin,
dapple-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! Then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend; the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird--the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valor and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! And the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it; sheer plod makes plow down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.


Usually credited to the iconic and most English of fighters...the Supermarine Spitfire.

John

 

[herman1rg]

Gerard Manley Hopkins, nice one