Fear and courage are brothers, warring within the soul. One will hasten death to you; one will reap a darker toll.


“Monsters. Almost cartoonishly evil-looking, like in the campy space movies of old. Only these looked far more sinister, more deadly, and more … well, just obviously evil than anything he’d ever seen. Mottled green and black skin, dripping with mucus in some places and hairy in others. And ugly. Faces that bore a striking resemblance to what he imagined the offspring of a crocodile with a human baby-like face who’d had sex with a tortoise would look like, except the offspring had contracted leprosy, been badly burned, and beaten with a spiked club, and whose now open wounds had developed gangrene and only semi-”
― Liberty
― Liberty
“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”
― Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War 1944-45
― 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”
― Spitfire: A Very British Love Story
― Spitfire: A Very British Love Story
“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.”
― Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War 1944-45
― 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?”
― Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War 1944-45
― Tail-End Charlies: The Last Battles of the Bomber War 1944-45
Steve’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Steve’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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