Norman Gelb > Quotes

“There was class distinction in the RAF, as there was and still is in British society as a whole. It was said, for example, that a regular officer was an officer trying to be a gentleman, an auxiliary was a gentleman trying to be an officer and a VR was neither trying to be both.”
― Norman Gelb, Scramble: A Narrative History of the Battle of Britain

“Our squadron commander said, ‘You’ve got to shoot down four enemy planes before you’re shot down yourself because that’s what the odds are. Otherwise you’re wasting your time.”
― Norman Gelb, Scramble: A Narrative History of the Battle of Britain

“Volunteer Reserve (VR) pilots had also been weekend flyers before the war, but of an inferior social rank.”
― Norman Gelb, Scramble: A Narrative History of the Battle of Britain

“Before the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had things their own way. They had won in Spain, in Poland, in Belgium, in France. Over Britain, for the first time, they came up against something they couldn’t beat. It was not easy for them to understand that.”
― Norman Gelb, Scramble: A Narrative History of the Battle of Britain

“Britain’s position is hopeless. The war is won by us. A reversal in the prospects of success is impossible.”
― Norman Gelb, Scramble: A Narrative History of the Battle of Britain

“At about the time France caved in, I remember some of the men saying, ‘That could be the end.’ We were very worried that the government would sue for peace. The idea that this very exciting life might suddenly come to an end, and that we might all find ourselves back doing office work,”
― Norman Gelb, Scramble: A Narrative History of the Battle of Britain

“Like a number of other senior American officers, he was convinced that British overall strategy was devised not so much to defeat Germany as to preserve the British Empire, which Americans, if they thought about it at all, generally considered an iniquitous anachronism.”
― Norman Gelb, Desperate Venture: The Story of Operation Torch, the Allied Invasion of North Africa

“It is not unreasonable to suspect that much was lost that could have been saved and that much additional grief and destruction were suffered because the invasion was not launched sooner. It is not unreasonable to conclude that for all its merits, the primary achievement of Operation Torch was to delay the moment when the Allies were able to break through Hitler’s Atlantic Wall, storm into Germany, and with the Soviets, go on to bring the most murderous war in history to a triumphant conclusion.”
― Norman Gelb, Desperate Venture: The Story of Operation Torch, the Allied Invasion of North Africa

“It seemed to Secretary of War Stimson that the Navy Department “frequently seemed to retire from the realm of logic into a dim religious world in which Neptune was God … and the United States Navy [was] the only true church.”
― Norman Gelb, Desperate Venture: The Story of Operation Torch, the Allied Invasion of North Africa

“Eisenhower found the difficulties he faced “nerve-wracking. Ordinarily,” he later observed, “a commander is given, along with a general objective, a definite allocation of forces upon which to construct his strategical plan, supported by detailed tactical, organizational, and logistical programs. In this case the situation was vague, the amount of resources unknown, the final object indeterminate, and the only firm factor in the whole business our instructions to attack.”
― Norman Gelb, Desperate Venture: The Story of Operation Torch, the Allied Invasion of North Africa

“For such volunteers, there will be no question about signing or swearing an oath of allegiance to the British crown.”
― Norman Gelb, Scramble: A Narrative History of the Battle of Britain