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Old 29th March 2005, 21:38
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Ruy Horta Ruy Horta is offline
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Re: Fighter pilots' guts

Ah, I forgot to add an interesting quote from Paul Richey, who wrote the following on page 87 of this classic book Fighter Pilot:

The French CO was a tall, hard-looking man, bursting with efficiency and quite undisturbed by the numerous delayed action bombs scattered around the airfield. 'Oh, those!' he said contemptuously, they've been going off all night. One gets used to anything in time...'

Seen against this light, perhaps old Sholto Douglas was misinterpreting French cool nonchalance for inaction?

Main thing I'm trying to explain is that if there is any critique, it should be of Sholto Douglas, however to say that he had no right to judge or have an opinion on what he'd witnessed, as a senior officer, is not fair nor realistic.
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