The Final Frontier

Since the days of the Wright brothers we’ve built increasingly complex machines to carry ourselves into the sky. The Marine Corps recently announced the deployment of the MV-22 Osprey, a cross between a helicopter and a fixed wing plane. The Osprey is difficult to fly and dangerous to land, having claimed several lives during its test program. Aircraft and even starships are complicated devices worthy of our respect, and no one knew this better than Montgomery Scott of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Scotty’s expertise in aeronautical engineering is widely acknowledged, but many don't know that James Doohan served as a pilot during World War II. Originally a captain in the Royal Canadian Artillery, Jimmy was machine-gunned at Normandy on D-Day. Following his convalescence he was assigned to 43 Operational Training Unit, Andover, England, where he earned Air Observation Post Pilot’s wings. Doohan’s intended assignment was to direct artillery fire from the air, but his unit was posted to Holland, where he flew non-combat missions for the 666 AOP squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Jimmy had already been shot six times, so nobody complained, least of all Doohan.

Five years earlier, hundreds of Americans knowingly broke the law with the tacit approval of the U.S. government when they crossed into Canada to join the Royal Canadian Air Force. America was officially neutral at the time, but many Americans, including a young man named John Gillespie Magee, Jr. heard about the Battle of Britain and decided to forego a formal invitation to fight the Nazis.

Magee was only 18 years old when he entered flight training, and in less than a year was assigned to 412 Fighter Squadron at Digby England, where he flew the Supermarine Spitfire. He quickly rose to the rank of Pilot Officer while flying missions over France and England. Shortly before Magee was killed in a mid-air collision at the age of 19, he composed this famous poem which came to mind Saturday as I watched a rocket carry the remains of Captain James Doohan into space:

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 untresspassed sanctity of space,

put out my hand and touched the face of God.

James and John both risked their lives fighting tyranny, and young men and women still climb into dangerous machines today, slipping the surly bonds of earth to defend liberty. Like Magee, some will not come home alive. I like to think though that for one glorious moment Saturday, John’s soul and the souls of all pilots who’ve given their lives for just causes met their brother James when he soared into the sanctity of space, and that together they all joined hands, and touched the face of God.