Jeffery Day was the most famous poet in the Royal Naval Air Service during the First World War. Born in Huntingdonshire on 1 December 1896, he was educated at Repton School before receiving a commission as a sub-lieutenant in the RNAS at the age of 18 on 21 August 1915. He was first stationed aboard the seaplane carrier Vindex where he gained a reputation as a skilled and daring flyer and was promoted to flight lieutenant on 31 December 1916.
In August 1917 he was posted as a test pilot at Royal Naval Air Station Grain before seeing operational service.
From the first he showed exceptional skill as a pilot, and was chosen for work at sea that needed high technical accomplishment. But he was dissatisfied with the comparative inactivity of the life afloat and secured his transfer to a fighting squadron on the Western Front. [Edward Hilton Young: Preface to Jeffery Day’s Poems and Rhymes]
On 19 December 1917 Day joined No. 13 Squadron RNAS, seeing action over a period of six weeks during which he destroyed a total of five enemy planes. For these actions he was awarded the DSC “for great skill and bravery as a fighting pilot”. But by the time that announcement was gazetted on 16 March 1918 Day was already dead.
On 27 February 1918, leading a flight of five aircraft, Day was shot down by six German aircraft which he attacked single-handed, out at sea. His commanding officer reported:
He hit the enemy and they hit his machine, which burst into flames; but, not a bit flurried, he nose-dived, flattened out, and landed perfectly on the water. He climbed out of his machine and waved his fellow-pilots back to their base; being in aeroplanes they could not assist him. [Jeffery Day, Poems and Rhymes, p. 8]
An air-sea search was launched within an hour and a half of him ditching, but no trace was ever found of him or his aircraft.
Day had begun writing poems during his spare time – initially writing humorous verses, he began writing longer serious poems, encouraged by his friend Edward Hilton Young. Although only three of his poems were published during his lifetime – ‘On the Wings of the Morning’, ‘An Airman’s Dream’ and ‘To My Brother’ – a collection of his poems – Poems and Rhymes – was published posthumously in 1919. The preface was written by Edward Hilton Young, himself a poet, who was introduced to Day by fellow-pilot author Erskine Childers.
Jeffery Day’s Poems:
Resources for Jeffery Day
‘The pilot poet Jeffrey Day’ Simon Davies’ blog
Poems and Rhymes on Internet Archive