The Pilots' Paradise
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The Pilots' Paradise
During WW2 the Air Ministry allowed an author, Charles Graves, full access to a number of operational units. Graves then created seven fictional pilots whom he tracked through their flying training and then on to operational squadrons in diffferent roles. The characters and units were fictional, but the descriptions of sorties, tactics, equipment and "lifestyle" followed real life very closely. I was browsing "Seven Pilots" (the third book in the sequence) the other day, published by Hutchinson in the early '40s "in complete conformity with the authorised economy standards" (terrible paper and tiny print) when I came upon the following verses printed on the fly-leaf. Some of the idiom is very "1940s RAF" and, although I am no judge of poetry, I would not put it in the same class as "High Flight" (which is timeless); nevertheless it rings bells for me and I reproduce it below. Has anyone any idea who "O.C.C." was ?
. .The Pilots’ Paradise
. .High above Betelgeuse, they say,. .Beyond Orion’s questing eyes,. .Ten million star-strewn years away. .There hangs a pilots’ paradise.
Thither when airmen’s bodies fall. .Their spirits climb on eager wing. .To greet old comrades and recall. .Old days of earthward sojourning.
They talk of “flak”, intruders, beams,. .Of dummy runs and how to weave,. .Sorties and strikes, and tales like dreams. .Which none but airmen would believe.
From aerodromes like cloth of green. .Mid cloudless skies for ever blue. .They sport themselves; and each machine. .Is every morning bright and new.
And every pilot when he lands. .Three-pointed sweeps the glossy lawn;. .With young keen eye and strong young hands . .He climbs to meet each glowing dawn.
What dawns are those, what noonday sun. .From which no enemy descend,. .What flights when duty here is done. .To enter at your log-book’s end !
O.C.C.
[ 11 February 2002: Message edited by: Flatus Veteranus ]</p>
. .The Pilots’ Paradise
. .High above Betelgeuse, they say,. .Beyond Orion’s questing eyes,. .Ten million star-strewn years away. .There hangs a pilots’ paradise.
Thither when airmen’s bodies fall. .Their spirits climb on eager wing. .To greet old comrades and recall. .Old days of earthward sojourning.
They talk of “flak”, intruders, beams,. .Of dummy runs and how to weave,. .Sorties and strikes, and tales like dreams. .Which none but airmen would believe.
From aerodromes like cloth of green. .Mid cloudless skies for ever blue. .They sport themselves; and each machine. .Is every morning bright and new.
And every pilot when he lands. .Three-pointed sweeps the glossy lawn;. .With young keen eye and strong young hands . .He climbs to meet each glowing dawn.
What dawns are those, what noonday sun. .From which no enemy descend,. .What flights when duty here is done. .To enter at your log-book’s end !
O.C.C.
[ 11 February 2002: Message edited by: Flatus Veteranus ]</p>
