If you are older than 40 you may remember thisor thiswhich TV stations in the 60’s and 70’s used to close out the day.
Here is his wiki. He died at 19! This was surprising as I thought for sure this would be some old retired man poet.
I knew that. When I first was introduced to the poem in HS, we talked about how the poet was a casualty of WWI and very young and I think we talked about the waste of WWI.
StG
I did not know that.
I guess the takeaway, for all the young aviators out there, is that God don’t like His face being touched.
ETA: I’m sorry, I really am. I tried to resist, but I just couldn’t.
He died in 1941, not 1914. That was the second year of WWII, long after WWI.
What surprises me is that he died in an accident. I always thought he was killed in combat.
Ignorance fought!
I also thought he was Canadian, but nope. He was an American who volunteered for service in the RCAF while the United States was still neutral.
I’m not old enough to recall those sign-outs, but I recognize some of the words from President Reagan’s address to the nation following the Challenger explosion.
Reagan was criticized at the time for referring to Magee as American instead of Canadian. Turns out he was right after all.
Thinking of John McCrae (“In Flanders’ Fields,” arguably the most famous WWI poem) who died in WWI? He also died of non-combat causes (pneumonia), but wasn’t particularly young.
I did not know that the Nanking guy was Magee’s father.
Correction: I see he died 11 December 1941. That would make it, what, just over three months into its third year.
Who, me? 
No, but StG may have been.
LOW FLIGHT
Oh, I’ve slipped the surly bonds of earth
And hovered out of ground effect on semi-rigid blades;
Earthward I’ve auto’ed and met the rising brush of non-paved terrain
And done a thousand things you would never care to
Skidded and dropped and flared
Low in the heat soaked roar.
Confined there, I’ve chased the earthbound traffic
And lost the race to insignificant headwinds;
Forward and up a little in ground effect
I’ve topped the General’s hedge with drooping turns
Where never Skyhawk or even Phantom flew.
Shaking and pulling collective,
I’ve lumbered The low untresspassed halls of victor airways,
Put out my hand and touched a tree.
—Anonymous
A poem for helicopter pilots.
Joyce “Trees” Kilmer was also killed in WWI:
Yep.
Knew that too.