Steve Mistwalker

“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

“Nerves got the better of the most experienced pilots during Rhubarbs. On one occasion, two of Robertson’s fellow 111 Squadron pilots flew over the Channel up into cloud then came down and slipped over the coast. They spotted a train and shot it up before heading back home. They were surprised on return to be called into the Station Commander’s office. What had they been shooting at? A train. Did they damage it? Yes, quite a bit. Did they realise the train they’d shot up was heading to Margate?16”
― John Nichol, Spitfire: A Very British Love Story

“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

“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