John Nichol > Quotes

“The rare derpicus man is know to live near the himalayas, in a cave made purely of dead weevils. His native tounge is unknown, but what I've translated contains a grat amount of the words, "pootis, derp, poop, and nnnnyyyyaaaaannnn!”
― Medic

“So we had to take up the challenge or for ever lose the right to be decent, self-respecting inhabitants of a free world. It became necessary for us to forget the rules temporarily so that in the future rules could occupy a permanent, honoured place in a better way of life.”
― John Nichol, Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War 1944-45

“If we’ve been forced into a back-alley fight, are we to ignore the essential weapons of the street brawl?”
― John Nichol, Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War 1944-45

“the nose wheel glued to the white centreline as the flight engineer called”
― John Nichol, Return of the Dambusters: What 617 Squadron Did Next

“In 1941, after a year’s experience of bombing Germany, a crucial Air Ministry analysis of photographic evidence had revealed that only 22 per cent of bomber crews who claimed to have hit their target actually got within five miles of it.5 In the more heavily defended Ruhr”
― John Nichol, Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War 1944-45

“As the 1970s progressed, the Tornado began to take shape. With all three nations in harmony, the development site outside Munich grew to a workforce of almost 200 people. Three decades on from the Second World War, there had been a few stony silences in the office shared by a veteran German Luftwaffe colonel and a similarly aged RAF squadron leader.13 Into this somewhat frosty atmosphere was thrown the snippet of information that both had been fighter pilots, one in Messerschmitts, the other Spitfires. Conversation became a touch more animated when it was discovered that each had fought in the same campaign over northern Europe in the latter stages of the conflict. Logbooks were produced, dates aligned and in no time at all the whirling, twisting and twirling hand gestures favoured by fighter pilots revealed that they had indeed shared the same airspace, though fortunately neither had been on the receiving end of the other’s bullets. As one onlooker dryly observed, they were clearly both lousy shots.”
― John Nichol, Tornado: In the Eye of the Storm

“He took it for a low-altitude pass, then came back round. ‘It feels as though it’s on rails. You just sit with your hands and feet off and let the aircraft fly itself.’ Thirty-three minutes after taking off, its wheels kissed the tarmac once more. ‘It really felt like an aircraft that had been flying for many years. For a first flight it was something tremendous. The handling was perfect,’ Millett said. ‘It cannot be improved upon.”
― John Nichol, Tornado: In the Eye of the Storm

“But this was life in those days. Today we are a totally different society. We put out bunches of flowers, have little vigils, hold hands and have counsellors to tell us all what to do. It was totally different then. The world events were so monumental that you had no time to think about the people who had fallen by the wayside. If we had had today’s attitudes, we would never have won the war.”
― John Nichol, Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War 1944-45

“Major (later General) Curtis LeMay recalled the shock of fog when he flew in to a British airfield for the first time from the US. ‘Can you see the runway lights?’ the control tower asked the pilot of his aircraft, to which the pilot replied: ‘Shit, I can’t even see my copilot!”
― John Nichol, Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War 1944-45