Miles Jeffery Game Day DSC

Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom)

The Distinguished Service Cross is the third level military decoration awarded to officers, and other ranks, of the British Armed Forces, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and British Merchant Navy and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries.The DSC, which may be awarded posthumously, is...

 (born 1 December 1896 - died 27 February 1918) was an English war poet

War poet

A War poet is a poet writing in time of and on the subject of war. The term, which is applied especially to those in military service during World War I, was documented as early as 1848 in reference to German revolutionary poet, Georg Herwegh.-Crimean War:...

, killed in an air battle towards the end of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 over the sea. The account of his death by his commanding officer stated

" he was shot down by six German aircraft
which he attacked single-handed, out to sea. He
had out-distanced his flight, I think because he
wished to break the [enemy's] formation, in order
to make it easier for the less experienced people
behind him to attack. 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 [not sea-
planes] they could not assist him."

He was born in St. Ives, Huntingdonshire, and educated at Repton School

Repton School

Repton School, founded in 1557, is a co-educational English independent school for both day and boarding pupils, in the British public school tradition, located in the village of Repton, in Derbyshire, in the Midlands area of England...

. He joined the Royal Naval Air Service

Royal Naval Air Service

The Royal Naval Air Service or RNAS was the air arm of the Royal Navy until near the end of the First World War, when it merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps to form a new service , the Royal Air Force...

, being commissioned in 1914 and rising to an acting rank of flight-commander. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross

Distinguished Service Cross (United Kingdom)

The Distinguished Service Cross is the third level military decoration awarded to officers, and other ranks, of the British Armed Forces, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and British Merchant Navy and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries.The DSC, which may be awarded posthumously, is...

a newspaper report stated "He destroyed several enemy machines in a short space of time, and in addition had numerous indecisive engagements." It is said that he wrote poetry whilst flying, but as he wrote in a notebook, describing his attempt to write a verse about his first flight,"...anyhow, why write verses when you might be flying?"

Works

• Poems and Rhymes (1919) Text available from http://www.archive.org/stream/poemsrhymes00dayj/poemsrhymes00dayj_djvu.txt