Wings of War

The fifth of February 1944
An airman’s plane came crashing
It shook the ocean floor
Upon the plains of England
He sleeps beneath his name
He never saw the falls
Of the Niagara again

His father worked the city desk
Each day he read the list
He’d print for all the families
Of the boys who would be missed
He read one name a second time
Then walked ten blocks alone
To tell his wife her baby boy
Would not be coming home

Rest your head fallen hero
Over on that foreign shore
May you wear the wings of angels
As you wore the wings of war

The 9th day of October sixty years have passed
A fleet of marble crosses
Floats on a sea of grass
I’ve come to find my uncle
His name is hard to see
Till we rub it with some sand
From the beach at Normandy

I wish that my grandparents
Were standing by my side
They never came to Cambridge
The water was too wide
Our name will rest forever
Upon this field of stone
But in my heart my uncle
Is finally coming home

Rest your head fallen hero
Over on that foreign shore
May you wear the wings of angels
As you wore the wings of war

May you wear the wings of angels
As you wore the wings of war