[luckodeirish]

My understanding is that this young man wrote this and then mailed it to his parents, and was killed in action before they got it in the mail. Might just be folklore, but that's the was I always heard it.

[elbucko]

Might just be folklore, but that's the was I always heard it.

Not folklore. McGee, a Flight Lieutenant in the RAF, wrote it while flying a Spitfire. The family has the envelope he wrote it on. John McGee was killed in 1941 in a mid-air collision with a British military transport, an "Anson". The poem was carried by Apollo 11 Astronaut, Michael Collins as a tribute to the poems author. Collins read it out loud as he circled the Moon in July of 1969..