This song appeared in Airways magazine along with my story "IMC Inside the Cockpit" in September 2013.
In Ernest K Gann’s Day
– Words by Mark L Berry and Music by Mike Skliar
– Performed by Mike Skliar
Lyrics
V1
In the thirties and forties
His flights were called sorties
In Liberator Bombers
And DC-2s
He earned his wings
Beside Captains like Kings
The High and the Mighty
Made him pay his dues
Then war brewed in Europe
So he went and signed up
To help out our country
In the Air Transport Command
He earned a promotion
To fly ‘cross the ocean
Now as a captain
With a steady hand
Ernest K Gann
Wore epaulets
And flew across the ocean
Well before jet
V2
But Fate is a Hunter
A blood-thirsty butcher
And every pilot
Was all too aware
It took skill and luck
To fly through the muck
And with wings full of ice
Just to stay in the air
That was before radar
But still he found Gander
And then on to Greenland
With barely a map
Bluie West One
Was never any fun
Tucked into fiords
As a dire one-way trap
Ernest K Gann
Wore epaulets
And flew across the ocean
Well before jets
V3
Then on to Iceland
A dark lonely island
With no navaids to follow
He dead-reckoned his way
On my first ocean crossing
I can’t help but thinking
How much has changed
Since back in his day
Without laser-ring gyros
Those pilots were heroes
They crossed the cold ocean
Without GPS
Those early days of aviation
Have my admiration
Because every flight
Was a lethal game of chess
Ernest K Gann
Wore epaulets
And flew across the ocean
Well before jets
In the thirties and forties
His flights were called sorties
In Liberator Bombers
And DC-2s
A pilot, an author
A gentleman of adventure
There was never a man
Like Ernest K Gann
