In commemoration of V-E Day, I am posting a poem my father, a B-24 pilot, wrote during WWII. I think it is a great example of the innocence, idealism, and toughness of the young people who made the sacrifices that allow Americans and Europeans to have the freedom that we enjoy today. Tomorrow this poem will be 61 years old, same as me.
BOMBER PILOT
John H. Seward
England
15 May 1944
The constant, mighty engines pull us on,
Obliterating other sounds that press
Too feebly for attention: The waist guns,
top turret swinging just behind my head,
The rattling bomb bay doors, hydraulic pump.
“Pilot to gunner: Are your fifties charged?”
“Fighters at six o’clock and coming in!”
“Oxygen three two five, I’m all okay.”
“On course, on time, briefed altitude plus three.”
Why am I on my way with these nine men,
Brought from so many miles across the sea,
The farmer setting up his Norden sight,
The salesman plotting lines to strange locales,
And boys not out of school who fix their stare
Through ring sights for an also winged foe?
“Today we hit an air field north of Rheims,
Where ME one oh nines are fitted out.
These railroad tracks lead in from west and south.
A wood is to the right; you’ll cross two lakes.
There is some flak reported over here;
Keep to your course and you’ll get back all right.”
The lead ship tilts its wing. More throttle now
To keep us in position. Steady. Cut!
The planes bob up and down like heavy logs
In a mild stream, but smooth and graceful too,
As locomotives throbbing round a hill.
We normally would never choose to throw
Our load of high explosives on some town.
We did not want to spend our days at work
Destroying men and buildings, or our nights
In tossing, fitful slumber marred by dreams
Of spitting guns, dead engines, wings on fire.
Our thoughts are home, where now the lights are on.
Mother is reading, dad has his cigar,
And we are working on that model plane
That soon will leap and soar and grace the sky,
Not rain huge terror on a crouching foe.
We know why all of us must fight, risk death.
Democracy is threatened, Freedom cries
For champions to hurl back this cockeyed host
That talks of “Fuehrer”, “Discipline”, and “State”.
But what if I, myself, should feel the sting
Of some swift bullet, or a jagged piece
Of fragment that has burst too near the ship?
No more Democracy for me. No loving eyes.
No chance to see my heritage passed on.
No more of evening drives, of work well done.
No twilight years when children call me sire.
Must I give all to death, so some foul slime
Can profit from his politics or greed?
Am I to die so men may throw away
The chance I gave them for a decent life?
Some of us talk of fate and numbers up.
“You’ll get it when it comes and not before.
Perchance at Berlin, Osnabruck or Rheims.
Or Kansas City, Minneapolis.”
But in our hearts we know the chance we take,
Men do not crash in flames on our Main Street.
No rapid firing guns and bursting shells
Dispute our progress to the theater.
There is a spark in each of us that burns
More brightly when we do our level best
Without a thought of fate or consequences,
But rather of our courage and our faith.
To be a man one must have principles
For which his life is not too much to pay,
A part of us belonging to the race,
Which drives us where no lonely man would go.
Can he stand up again who cares not fight
When truth and justice scream from injury,
When children huddle cold behind a wall
And women beg for bread that they have baked?
Does manhood live with men who eat their slop
Without uneasiness while all the world
About them deals in lies, brutality?
Some men count life in years and mourn each eve
That sees the sun drag down another day.
too much exertion may bring death too soon.
Avoid all wrangle, rest the nerves, take pills.
Plan carefully and watch the doctor’s face.
“What do you have to boast of, senile one?”
“I’ve lived for eighty years, through strife and change,
By keeping clear of all unsettling things
And watching close my diet and my aches.”
“And how long have you lived, my dying youth?”
“I’ve seen three years of war, sir, shot and shell.
I was at Tarawa and Mandalay.
I’ve seen my buddies charge to victory.
I took a pill box once, with three GI’s.
A wounded Joe held off the Japs for us.
They got him, but we can’t forget the guy.
They fed us dog biscuits that day for lunch.
I’ve watched our flag go up at Kwajalein.
I felt our ship go down one hideous day.
I’ve seen our bombers fly majestically.
I’ve shouted as the fighters buzzed the camp.
I’ve heard the Long Toms roar and watched the trees
Shudder and bend as the projectile flew.
I’m twenty-one years old come Friday, sir.”