The motto carved into the shelter at Stonefall cemetery in Harrogate, which has Air Force graves from many Commonwealth air forcesPer Ardua Ad Astra, a 1984 memorial sculpture by Oscar Nemon on University Avenue in Toronto, honouring fallen Canadian airmen and women
Not long after this, two junior officers were walking from the Officers' Mess at Farnborough to Cody's Shed on Laffan Plain. As they walked they discussed the problem of the motto and one of them, Lieutenant J. S. Yule, mentioned the phrase Sic itur ad Astra, from Virgil. He then expanded on this with the phrase Per Ardua ad Astra, which he translated as, "Through Struggles to the Stars". Colonel Sykes approved of this as the motto and forwarded it to the War Office. It was then submitted to King George V, who approved its adoption.[4]
Yule is believed to have borrowed the phrase from Sir Henry Rider Haggard's fantasy novel The People of the Mist (1894). The first chapter includes the sentence: "To his right were two stately gates of iron fantastically wrought, supported by stone pillars on whose summit stood griffins of black marble embracing coats of arms and banners inscribed with the device 'Per Ardua ad Astra'". It is possible that Rider Haggard had taken it from the Irish family of Mulvany, who had used it as their family motto for centuries, translating it as "Through Struggles to the Stars".
There is no single definitive translation, as both "ardua" and "astra" can carry a range of associations. The Royal Air Force and other Commonwealth air forces most often translate it as "Through Adversity to the Stars".[5]
