[Christer Bergström]

Thought I'd share a very interesting article by a former Australian fighter pilot (of No. 3 RAAF Sqn) which I found on the web:

Perhaps you think that the life of a fighter-pilot was somewhat glamorous, but believe the words of one who knows. There's no glamour in this role in warfare. No, none whatsoever. You do not know what it means to live for days, weeks, months, and even years with the fear of violent death gnawing at your very guts.

You do not know the hell of aerial battle. The approach, the meeting, the seething mass of twisting turning aircraft. You haven't seen those numerous dots appear, to grow and grow in seconds and become a mass of spitting, twisting, deadly death. You haven't seen your comrades die in ones and two's, watched them plummet earthwards, balls of molten fire and mangled bodies. You haven't watched and watched in vain for that small parachute to blossom forth from the doomed machine before it strikes.

You haven't watched the vicious deadly nose of an enemy aircraft spewing a hail of leaden death, each with your name engraved, nor have you frantically kicked and skidded while passing through this stream of death; heard the thud of explosive 20-millimetre cannon shell and machine gun bullets tearing the metal of your aircraft asunder.

You haven't glanced below to gauge the tide of battle and counted those giant black pillars of smoke rising from crimson bases of fire and blood, those funeral pyres of friend and foe alike, and known some to be your friends, and thanked God that it was they and not you - then fought on to victory and landed back at base and grieved those empty dispersal bays.

You're on the ground. Rocks larger than footballs are tossed aloft like pebbles. If one lands on you, you're crushed to pulp. Your plane slows down and stops. Out and away despite shouts of Minefield. That pouring hissing fuel on the hot exhaust stubs frightens you more than mines.

You breathe again, then hum a lift to the camp, and to look like a man, ask if you'd catch the formation if you took off in another aircraft, conscious as hell of the shaking hand, the ashen face and a voice which can't hide a tremor.

You are once more a human being and not the frenzied creature, more animal than man, who rejoiced in his own continued existence, while watching his dearest friends die in agony and frantic despair but a few minutes before. You have done this again and again and once more gone back for more believing that it must be your turn next.

No, there's no glamour in being a fighter pilot.

http://www.3squadron.org.au/bg%20caldwell.htm

(Edited/shortened the original text slightly)