Spitfire Fighter Pilot

(Battle of Britain 1940) Hardly out of teens Boys learning ways of manhood Answering call to arms Trained with RAF Becoming Spitfire pilots One of the few giving for the many. Flying squadron sorties Six Spitfires, wing to wing Patrolling South coast and out to sea Wondering what battle is like Fearful they might die Never knowing a lover's embrace. Waiting at squadron's hanger Siren wail sending pilots running to planes Playing cards, chess, reading books Laughing, joking, keeping spirts up Putting on courageous show Never showing other pilots their fear. Siren goes and they run Climb aboard spitfires Throttles up, roaring down the runway Up and away into blue summer's sky Joining five spitfires flying formation German fighter planes coming. Pilot officer George, sees in rear-view mirror Messerschmitt 109 swooping from the sun Pulls hard back on joystick Looping the loop coming behind the German Thumb paused on the machine-gun button Ready to make his first kill. Deadly burst of tracer bullets, Sees German pilot's face Young like himself, hardly out of teens Still learning ways of manhood Knowing in other circumstances They might have met as friends. Messerschmitt spirals to the ground Black smoke billowing from cockpit Pilot in agony, struggling to slide it open Trapped with parachute on fire Plane smashes into the ground Exploding in fireball ending the young life. That night Pilot officer George Alone in his room, weeps Grieving his first kill With a young man's death Wondering if the German pilot Would have wept if he was the one killed.