Procopius

"Approximately seven minutes after the attack had begun, I noticed a single Spitfire arriving over the base at 2000 feet height in a port turn. Three Fw 190s were just coming in to strafe. The Spitfire, marked ZF-P [and] piloted by F/Lt. Chojnacki [of 308 (Polish) Squadron] noticed these enemy aircraft and while still in the turn fired at the rearmost from about 800 yards range, [shooting the Fw 190 down almost instantly]..."
--Sgt Strobel, 308 (Polish) Squadron, recounting events of January 1 1945. Flight Lieutenant Waclaw Chojnacki proceeded to engage four more Fw 190s at once, drawing them away from the airfield, but lost his life doing so. Shortly after Chojnacki was shot down, 308 (City of Krakow), and 317 (City of Wilno) squadrons returned to the airfield from their fighter sweep and shot down twenty-six more Fw190s, effectively annihilating II/JG1.

Chojnacki is buried in Grave IC1 in the Polish War Cemetery in Lommel, Belgium, a thousand kilometers from home.   

http://www.polishwargraves.nl/lom/0575.htm

"I'm looking at a new compressor," I said to Mrs P. "It'll be much quieter than the one I have now."

"I like the one you have now. If you got a quieter one, I wouldn't know where you were when you were airbrushing."

Exactly, I thought.

"The stories in The Magnet are signed 'Frank Richards' and the stories in The Gem 'Martin Clifford', but a series lasting thirty years could hardly be the work of the same person every week. Consequently they have to be written in a style that is easily imitated -- an extraordinary artificial, repetitive style, quite different from anything else now existing in English literature."

-- George Orwell, "Boys' Weeklies"

"Mr Orwell finds it difficult to believe that a series running for thirty years can possibly be written by one and the same person. In the presence of such authority, I speak with diffidence: and can only say that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, I am only one person, and have never been two or three."

-- Frank Richards

"We would have fought on and on and on until nothing was left."

--- Flight Lieutenant George "Ben" Bennions, 41 Squadron. Bennions lost an eye and was severely burned after being shot down in the Battle of Britain, but not before shooting down 17 enemy aircraft.

♫ Lancasters on my miiiiiind ♫

Wish there were more decal options for specific ops, like Peenemunde or Gomorrah.

Actors Waiting in the Wings of Europe

By Captain Keith Douglas, Sherwood Foresters Yeomanry (1920-D+3 1944)

Actors waiting in the wings of Europe 
we already watch the lights on the stage 
and listen to the colossal overture begin. 
For us entering at the height of the din 
it will be hard to hear our thoughts, hard to gauge 
how much our conduct owes to fear or fury.

Everyone, I suppose, will use these minutes 
to look back, to hear music and recall 
what we were doing and saying that year 
during our last few months as people, near 
the sucking mouth of the day that swallowed us all 
into the stomach of a war. Now we are in it

and no more people, just little pieces of food 
swirling in an uncomfortable digestive journey, 
what we said and did then has a slightly 
fairytale quality. There is an excitement 
in seeing our ghosts wandering…

Aristocrats: "I Think I Am Becoming A God"

By Captain Keith Douglas (24 January 1920 – D+3 1944),  Nottinghamshire (Sherwood Rangers) Yeomanry

The noble horse with courage in his eye, 
clean in the bone, looks up at a shellburst: 
away fly the images of the shires 
but he puts the pipe back in his mouth. 
Peter was unfortunately killed by an 88; 
it took his leg away, he died in the ambulance. 
I saw him crawling on the sand, he said 
It's most unfair, they've shot my foot off. 

How can I live among this gentle 
obsolescent breed of heroes, and not weep? 
Unicorns, almost, 
for they are fading into two legends 
in which their stupidity and chivalry 
are celebrated. Each, fool and hero, will be an immortal. 
These plains were their cricket pitch 
and in the mountains the tremendous drop fences 
brought down some of the runners. Here then 
under the stones and earth they dispose themselves, 
I think with their famous unconcern. 
It is not gunfire I hear, but a hunting horn.

1/72 New Decals Wish List

Op Shader Typhoons and Tornados

Baltic Air Policing Mission Typhoons and Gripens

Vietnam F-100s

1970s-1980s F-4Fs and F-104Gs

This Halifax: http://www.jstitus.info/19-07-1944.html