High Flight is a 1941 sonnet written by war poet John Gillespie Magee Jr. and inspired by his experiences as a fighter pilot of the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. Magee began writing the poem on 18 August, while stationed at No. 53 OTU outside London, and mailed a completed manuscript to his family on 3 September, three months before he died in a training accident. Originally published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, it was widely distributed when Magee became one of the first post-Pearl Harbor American casualties of the war on 11 December, after which it was exhibited at the American Library of Congress in 1942. The poem is considered a fitting memorial for its author because of its gleeful and ethereal portrayal of flight and aviation (along with its allegorical interpretation