Dick & everyone, here's yet another version, taken from my dad's WW II army song book, "Give Out! Songs of, for and by the Men in the Service." I can't do ABC notation but have created a midi file. Dick, if I e-mail you the midi file can you put it up? I put it up on our web page but can't get it to play.

A POOR AVIATOR LAY DYING

A poor aviator lay dying
At the end of a bright summer day.
His comrades had gathered around him
To carry his fragments away.

The airplane was piled on his wishbone,
His Hotchkiss was wrapped round his head;
He wore a sparkplug on each elbow,
'T was plain he would shortly be dead.

He spit out a valve and a gasket
And stirred in the sump where he lay,
To mechanics who round him came sighing,
These brave parting words did he say:

"Take the magneto out of my stomach,
And the butterfly valve off my neck,
Extract from my liver the crankshaft,
There are lots of good parts in this wreck.

"Take the manifold out of my larynx,
And the cylinders out of my brain,
Take the piston rods out of my kidneys,
And assemble the engine again!"