Spitfire Fighter Pilot Poem by Colin Ian Jeffery
Spitfire Fighter Pilot
(Battle of Britain 1940)
Hardly out of their teens
Still boys learning the ways of manhood
Answering the call to arms
Trained with the RAF
Becoming Spitfire pilots
One of the few giving for the many.
Flying squadron sorties
Six Spitfires wing to wing
Patrolling the South coast and out to sea
Wondering what battle is like
Thinking fearfully they might die
Never to know a lover's embrace.
Waiting at squadron's hanger
For siren wail to send pilots running to planes
Playing cards, chess, reading books
Laughing and joking, keeping spirts up
Putting on a courageous show
Never showing other pilots their fear.
Siren goes and they run
Climb aboard their spitfires
Throttles up and roaring down the runway
Up and away into the blue summer's sky
Joining five spitfires flying in formation
German fighter planes are coming.
Pilot officer George sees in his rear-view mirror
Messerschmitt 109 swooping from the sun
And Pulls hard back on the joystick
Loops the loop coming in behind the German
Thumb paused on the machine-gun button
Ready to make his first kill.
Deadly burst of tracer bullets
And he sees German pilot's face
Young like himself and hardly out of teens
Still learning the ways of manhood
Knowing in other circumstances
They might have met as friends.
Messerschmitt spirals to the ground
Black smoke billowing from the cockpit
Pilot in agony struggling to slide it open
Trapped with his parachute on fire
Plane smashes into the ground
Exploding in a fireball ending the young life.
That night Pilot officer George lays on his bed
Alone in his room weeping silently
Grieving for his first kill
With a young man's blood on his hands
Wondering if the German pilot
Would have wept if he had been the one killed.
You wrote on a passion. I think the Finnish Air Force was first to adopt the finger-four formation during 1934–35, because their air force was small and they wanted to be more aggressive. Luftwaffe pilots in the Condor Legion in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War developed the formation independently. Four aircraft, consisting of a lead element and a second element pair, allows leaders an offensive attack role, wingmen a defensive role covering their rare.
'Up and away into blue summer's sky Joining five spitfires in formation German fighter planes are coming.' Loved this poem which was exceptionally written. I was going to write a poem on the tactical error in the RAF at the start of the Battle of Britain flying the five finger formation. The problem was the fifth aircraft in the middle got shot down as fighter spit in combat, with two pairs left and right, leader and wingman, leaving the middle pilot alone and easy prey.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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11/4/2025 3:48:11 AM # 1.0.0
Very nice battle of the heart and mind of the pilot. Youth facing the abyss and remaining steadfast for few memories, yet still cherished ones. QtR