Battle of Britain Day, 2020

The why of remembering 'The Few' is more important than ever

Today is Sept. 15th - Battle of Britain Day.

In an era in which we seem to stand eternally on the precipice of danger - threatened by egomaniacal tyrants, global climactic disaster, and the invisible terror of the Covid 19 virus - I ask you with great urgency to recollect the sacrifices made in the skies over Britain in 1940. Of the triumph of hope over the tide of despair that threatened to drown the free world.

If we do not forget that such victories were possible then — we shall know that ours can yet come to pass. 

This is the true value of "Less We Forget"; the recollection of those who stood together before the greatest dangers and won. Their great legacy is not the world we inherited from them, but the inspiration to likewise stand up, and fight.

High Flight

by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

Of sun-split clouds...and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of...wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,

I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew.

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space

Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.