High Flight

John Gillespie Magee author of High Flight

I am possibly the only living pilot to have flown operationally with John Gillespie Magee, author of World War 11’s most famous sonnet, “High Flight”.

 Two Sergeants and one Pilot Officer joined 412 Canadian Spitfire Squadron at Digby, Lincs. during  the last days of September 1941. A.P.L.Smith , and I  were the sergeants pilots and Magee was the pilot officer Smith and Magee were both killed in flying accidents while I completed two tours of operations , 26 months in 412 squadron.

Smith and I, both from Saskatchewan, received our wings at Yorkton, Sask. in June and operational training at  61 O T U at Heston,  where  Sailor Malan was the Wing Commander.

Shortly after joining, the squadron moved to a satelite grass airfield at Wellingore. Here the officers were billeted  in a rambling old house called the  Grange, while the sergeants and airmen  occupied  a  three- story stone building nearing castle-size, previously part of a large estate before being  expropriated  by the RAF. Our aerodrome was a farmer’s grass field about 800 yards square, fairly close to the southeast corner of  Wellingore village.

The squadron had four non-flying officers: an adjutant, a medical officer, and engineering officer and an intelligence officer. Hart Massey, diminutive  son of Vincent Massey, Canada’s war-time High Commisioner  in Britain and later Canada’s first native born Governor General. While attending Oxford University, just prior to the war,  Hart’s diminutive size  earned him the coxswain position  in their rowing scull when Oxford defeated Cambridge in one of their  legendary races.

 Squadron operations those days  were mainly training  flights and  long boring convoy patrols off the East coast .However occasionally the squadron would fly south to Mansion or West Malling to join two other squadrons  for a sweep over France The squadron received it’s first real baptism of fire on it’s fourth sweep on November 8 when tasked to give  withdrawal cover  to 12 Blenheim medium bombers  which were to bomb the locomotive shops  at Lille.

Briefing had been by an aging wing commander who when reaching the French coast led the wing through a poorly executed maneuver, causing  the 36  aircraft to  disintegrated into a loose beehive . Sections, pairs  and single aircraft flew around in an endless left hand orbit  and was soon attacked by  109 F’s which from time to time would down one of our spitfires. During the melee a voice believed to be that of the wing leader was heard to say “I guess I am too old for this boys”. He did  not return.

Kit Bushell, 412 squadron’s recently appointed squadron leader  and two other pilots, Owen Pickell and Ken Denkman became the squadron’s first casualties. This was Magee’s first and only operational sweep.

On December 11^th  the squadron took  part in a wing  formation exercise above cloud, with an RAF squadron from Kirton  in  Lindsay , a fighter  station  located about 18 miles north of Lincoln . When the exercise was completed  Squadron Leader Morrison  ordered the squadron into line astern and dove through a  hole in the clouds.  Unfortunately, the hole was  right in  Cranwell airfield’s circuit and Magee’s spitfire  collided with an Airspeed Oxford training aircraft.  Magee baled out but was too low for his parachute to fully open and he died in a field  near  Cranwell. The crew aboard the Oxford  also died

In February the squadron flew south to  Biggin Hill   to join more than 400 RAF  fighters providing cover for bombers and torpedo-carrying Swordfish attacking the  German battleships Scharhorst and Geisenau when they broke out  from  Brest and were making their way  up the English Channel.

The squadron’s next major  operation took place  on March 15, 1942 . Led by F/L Bill Napier 10 aircraft  attacked five German E boats near the Dutch coast. When first sighted  one aircraft was delegated to make a low pass to  positively make an identification ,friend or foe..  When the E boats opened fire Napier ordered everyone to attack. When everyone had expended all their ammunition, one boat had been sunk and the rest were dead in the water, smoking  heavily. This action earned the squadron a letter of commendation from the British Admiralty.

May 1 1942 saw 412 squadron begin  17 moves in England before embarking for France  on June 19, 1944. 

The first moves was  to  Martlesham Heath, Suffolk where we continued with convoy patrols and the odd sweep. Readiness duty served from dawn to dusk was quite arduous as double daylight saving time made a short night.

In less than a month the squadron was on the move again,  to North Weald