A Memorial Poem For the “Big Bird” Flying Tiger Flight 923
By Garret  Ahern, Dublin, Ireland

‘Big Bird’

Out from New Jersey,
Big bird spreading wings,
Trundling east-ward, in
War-cold nineteen-sixty-two.

Three-score souls and ten-
And more aboard,
Service by the
Rhine in mind.

Far beneath lies rolling
Equinoctial ocean,
Unfriendly to the stricken
Super-Constellation.

Big bird descending,
Inevitable ditching.
Frantic prayers implore –
Then impact, devastation.

Plucked from the inverted,
Overcrowded, life-raft,
The lucky greet new
Friends and shipmates.

In time, diverted,
The good ship “Celerina”
Nears its rendezvous.
Green fields plain to see.

By Galley Head, the
Helicopter’s clatter
Stampedes a flock of sheep,
Away west, wave-battered
Big bird settles,
Low in the briny deep.

© 2012, Garry Ahern

Garret Ahern, presently of Dublin, Ireland, was a member of the first Emergency Rescue Team at the brand new Cork, Ireland Airport in 1962. His team participated in the evacuation process which delivered 17 of the most seriously injured from the Swiss rescue ship, The Celerina, to Cork’s Hospitals.

Many years after the tragedy while taking an adult education course on writing he became very interested in the details of that day. He had to write a story. He remembered the incident and the name of the ship, the “Celerina,” but he couldn’t remember the name of the airline. His research unearthed a treasure of information from Irish newspapers, all of which he has made available to this website. The photo to the left was taken recently at a Memorial Pre-meeting at Cork Airport. Attending that meeting was the present head of the Cork Airport Emergency Rescue Team, all three members of the first emergency team which included Mr. Ahern, a fisherman who was contracted that day to escort a group of reports to a vantage point near the ship and helicopters, a passenger-survivor and a member of the Celerina crew that day, in 1962. In total, six persons who were present that day a full half century ago participated in the meeting.