About John Gillespie Magee Jr.
John Gillespie Magee Jr. was a World War II Anglo-American Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot and war poet, who wrote the sonnet "High Flight". He was killed in an accidental mid-air collision over England in 1941. From 1935 to 1939, he attended Rugby School, where he developed the ambition to become a poet, and whilst at the school won its Poetry Prize in 1938. He was impressed by the school's Roll of Honour listing its pupils who had fallen in the First World War, which included the Edwardian poet Rupert Brooke (1887–1915), whose writing style Magee emulated. Brooke had won the school's Poetry Prize 34 years prior to Magee.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.