Adam Makos > Quotes

“Franz’s father gave him a lesson. “Always do the right thing, even if no one sees it.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call

“Of the twenty-eight thousand German fighter pilots to see combat in WWII, only twelve hundred survived the war.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call

“Von Faulhaber had authored “With Burning Concern” in 1937, and in 1941, von Galen had spoken out so vehemently against The Party and the Gestapo that the British had copied his sermons and dropped them from planes across Europe.* German soldiers, civilians, and occupied peoples read them, including the future Pope John Paul II, who found a flyer in Krakow, Poland.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call

“Don't worry," he said. "We fight our best when we're losing.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II

“It was disgusting to watch how the Third Reich died,” wrote a German sergeant. “None of its leaders came to the foxholes to defend it to the last man as they had promised. They all abandoned their posts and fled, afraid of being held responsible, or cowardly died by suicide.”
― Adam Makos, Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II

“You fight by rules to keep your humanity”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II

“There was no going forward—in front of the column, from the slope of a field, ten German tanks blasted away. There would be no retreat—behind the American column, another five German tanks shot down from a hilltop, silhouetted by the moon. The woods were a killing zone too. The tree line blinked with small-arms fire from SS infantry stationed at both ends of the route. With nowhere to run, all that remained for most Americans was to hide.”
― Adam Makos, Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II

“Vatican’s secretly composed message to all of Germany’s Catholics. On Palm Sunday, 1937, the letter had been read by every priest, bishop, and cardinal across Germany to their congregations and three hundred thousand copies had been disseminated. Drafted by Munich’s Cardinal von Faulhaber and Pope Pius XI, it told German Catholics in carefully veiled terms that National Socialism was an evil religion based on racism that stood contrary to the church’s teachings and every man’s right to equality. It made reference to “an insane and arrogant prophet” without naming Hitler.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call

“Words can have all the power in the world or—none at all. That’s up to you.”
― Adam Makos, Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice

“Can good men be found on both sides of a bad war?”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call

“the twenty-eight thousand German fighter pilots to see combat in WWII, only twelve hundred survived the war.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call

“Rooney elevated Kellner’s leg, which was “a blur of gore and bone,” according to an onlooker. A tanker removed his shirt and tied the sleeve around Kellner’s thigh in an attempt to stem the bleeding. As Rooney held him, Kellner stared back at the newsman blindly. But the tourniquet was too little, too late. Kellner died in his fellow soldier’s arms. “I had never been present before at the moment someone died,” Rooney would write. “I didn’t know whether to cry or throw up.”
― Adam Makos, Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II

“Harper unlocked a drawer in his desk and removed a bottle of Vat 69 whiskey and two shot glasses. He uncorked the bottle while explaining that policy permitted him to give each crewman a shot to loosen his tongue before reviewing a tough mission.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call

“they knew that you would someday read this book, even if they were not around to read the final copy themselves. This book is their gift to us.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call: The Incredible True Story of Heroism and Chivalry during the Second World War

“Bill Hey’s tenure as a Sherman commander had lasted just eight days in combat.”
― Adam Makos, Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II

“Their code said to fight with fearlessness and restraint, to celebrate victories not death, and to know when it was time to answer a higher call.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call: The Incredible True Story of Heroism and Chivalry during the Second World War

“plenty of questions about the prudence of war and the person we call the enemy. But mostly it begs a question of goodness.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call: The Incredible True Story of Heroism and Chivalry during the Second World War

“Hitler and The Party took over Germany after 56 percent of the country had voted against them.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call

“Behind our gun position we dug a depression that a couple of guys could lay in. That depression would fill with water, and at nighttime, when you wanted to take a nap, two guys would crawl in that water and their bodies would keep it warm. There was a drawback to that because your skin would all shrink up. SID”
― Adam Makos, Voices of the Pacific: Untold Stories from the Marine Heroes of World War II

“Franz tipped his wing and looked down on the P-38 he had wounded. It was circling downward, its engine coughing black smoke. Suddenly the hood of its canopy tumbled away in the slipstream. The pilot stood in the cockpit then dove toward the rear of the wing. The draft sucked his body under the forked tail. He free-fell from twelve thousand feet, passing through the clouds. “Pull it!” Franz shouted at the American, urging him to open his chute. When the pilot’s parachute finally popped full of air, Franz felt relief. The pilot drifted lazily downward while his P-38 splashed into the sea. Franz flew lower and saw the P-38 pilot climb into a tiny yellow raft against the whitecaps. Franz radioed Olympus to tell them to relay the American’s position to the Italians. He guessed they were seventy kilometers west of Marettimo and asked if the island could send a boat to pick up the man. For a second, Franz considered hovering over the man in the raft like an aerial beacon to steer a boat to the spot, but he shook the thought from his mind. It would put him at risk. If a prowling flight of enemy fighters found him, Franz knew he, too, could be shot into the sea. Franz and Willi departed the scene, leaving the pilot in his raft to fate. As they flew away, Franz wished the man a strong westerly wind. The American who looked up from the raft was Second Lieutenant Conrad Bentzlin, a young man from a large Swedish-American family in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He was quiet and hardworking, having taught himself English in high school. He had paid his way through the University of Minnesota by working for the government’s Civilian Conservation Corps program, cutting firebreaks in the forests of northern Minnesota. Among his buddies of the 82nd Fighter Group, Bentzlin was known as “the smartest guy in the unit.” Far from shore Bentzlin floated alone. A day later, another flight of P-38s flew over him and, through a hole in the clouds, saw him waving his arms from a raft. But he was in the middle of the sea and they could do nothing. Bentzlin would never be seen again.*”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call

“on”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call

“When someone calls you a 'nigger', then you feel sorry for him... You have to pity him because his mind has such a sorry way of expressing itself.”
― Adam Makos, Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice

“There’s holes in the fuselage big enough to climb through,”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call

“Always assume the best of people. But if a guy proves he's no good, then don't hesitate to give him what he deserves.”
― Adam Makos, Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice

“Enemy flak is usually inaccurate...but when you start taking hits you'll have to call it accurate”
― Adam Makos, Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice

“As the throbbing plane warmed up Charlie silently prayed, or, as he referred to it, conducted "a short briefing with my third pilot.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call: An Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II

“A blast of heat hit his face. He flopped onto his cot, closed his eyes, and fell into an instant sleep. In the evening he went to the mess tent. He passed through the line and saw that dinner was the same as lunch—a tin of Italian beef his comrades called “Mussolini’s Ass.” Back home Franz had been picky and would tell his mother, “I’ll pass on anything that flies or swims.” Little did he know how he would come to regret those words.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call

“When I first phoned the World War II bomber pilot named Charlie Brown, all I wanted was thirty minutes of his time. But what I found was a beautiful story worth every minute of eight years.”
― Adam Makos, A Higher Call: The Incredible True Story of Heroism and Chivalry during the Second World War

“Words can have all the power in the world or — none at all. That’s up to you.”
― Adam Makos, Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice

“acquired”
― Adam Makos, Spearhead: An American Tank Gunner, His Enemy, and a Collision of Lives in World War II