Ops are On
Title
Ops are On
Three Cheers for the Man on the Ground
Description
An image of three men standing around the wheel of an aircraft accompanying the poem Three Cheers for the Man on the Ground. Annotated with 'from Lancaster'.
Creator
Date
1942
Temporal Coverage
Spatial Coverage
Language
Format
One printed sheet with one b/w printed image
Conforms To
Publisher
Rights
This content is available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 International license (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0). It has been published ‘as is’ and may contain inaccuracies or culturally inappropriate references that do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the University of Lincoln or the International Bomber Command Centre. For more information, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ and https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/legal.
Identifier
MHowardHF1158144-210727-01
Transcription
Ops are on from 'Lancaster'
Three Cheers for the Man on the Ground.
Sykes. 1942.
Wherever you walk, you will hear people talk,
Of the men who go up in the air.
Of the Dare-Devil way, they go into the fray;
Facing Death without turning a hair.
They’ll raise a big cheer and buy lots of beer,
For a pilot who’s home on leave;
But they don’t give a jigger,
For a flight mech or rigger
With nothing but ‘props’ on his sleeve.
They just say ‘Nice day’ and then turn away,
With never a mention of praise.
And the poor bloody erk who does all the work;
Just orders his own beer,
And pays!
They’ve never been told of the hours in the cold
That he spends sealing Germany’s fate.
How he works on a kite, till all hours of the night;
And then turns up next morning at eight.
He gets no rake-off for working till take-off;
Or helping the aircrew prepare;
But whenever there’s trouble its ‘Quick at the Double’;
The man on the ground must be there.
Each flying crew could tell it to you:
They know what this man’s really worth.
They know he’s a part of the RAF’s heart,
Even though he stays close to the earth.
He doesn’t want glory, but please tell his story;
Spread a little of his fame around.
He’s one of the few so give him his due:
Three cheers for the man on the ground.
Three Cheers for the Man on the Ground.
Sykes. 1942.
Wherever you walk, you will hear people talk,
Of the men who go up in the air.
Of the Dare-Devil way, they go into the fray;
Facing Death without turning a hair.
They’ll raise a big cheer and buy lots of beer,
For a pilot who’s home on leave;
But they don’t give a jigger,
For a flight mech or rigger
With nothing but ‘props’ on his sleeve.
They just say ‘Nice day’ and then turn away,
With never a mention of praise.
And the poor bloody erk who does all the work;
Just orders his own beer,
And pays!
They’ve never been told of the hours in the cold
That he spends sealing Germany’s fate.
How he works on a kite, till all hours of the night;
And then turns up next morning at eight.
He gets no rake-off for working till take-off;
Or helping the aircrew prepare;
But whenever there’s trouble its ‘Quick at the Double’;
The man on the ground must be there.
Each flying crew could tell it to you:
They know what this man’s really worth.
They know he’s a part of the RAF’s heart,
Even though he stays close to the earth.
He doesn’t want glory, but please tell his story;
Spread a little of his fame around.
He’s one of the few so give him his due:
Three cheers for the man on the ground.
Collection
Citation
E Sykes, “Ops are On,” IBCC Digital Archive, accessed June 16, 2025, https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/collections/document/42753.
Item Relations
| This Item | dcterms:relation | Item: Three Cheers for the Man on the Ground |