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"And we go on fighting despite the assurance that we have lost the war. Why, then, do we go on dying? Out of despair? But there is no despair. You know nothing about defeat if you think there is room in it for despair." -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Flight to Arras Hope is the only good god present among men The rest abandoned us and went to Olympus. -- Theognis, Fr. 1135-6 They came in the night. They killed everyone. I hid in the shadows. And then it came to me: The magic sword. -- "Kill Them All", The Magic Sword You're gonna have to do better than fear You're gonna have to step out of the shadows and fight. -- The Protomen, "Keep Quiet" "This then, my lords and gentlemen, is the message which we send forth today to all states and nations, bound or free, to all the men in all the lands who care for freedom's cause. To our Allies and well-wishers in Europe, to our American friends and helpers drawing ever closer in their might across the ocean, this is the message-lift up your hearts, all will come right. Out of depths of sorrow and sacrifice will be born again the glory of mankind." -- Winston Churchill, "Speech to the Allied Delegates", 12 June 1941 I've just finished up three Eduard Spitfire IXs, and I was wondering to myself what would make a good follow-up to building three of a pretty great (but not perfect) kit of my favourite airplane of all time. Easy. Build four more. Since I have four of the quad-kit Royal boxings of Eduard Spitfires, I have plenty to spare. Poland's been much on my mind recently, as I'm currently reading Richard Lukas's The forgotten Holocaust: the Poles under German occupation, 1939–1944, and recently finished his shorter work Did the Children Cry?, about the brutality inflicted upon Polish children by the Nazis, so one of the four Spitfires I'm building will be EN526/SZ-G, Polish ace Aleksander "Gabby" Gabszewicz's first Mark IX, with the wide cannon blisters and short carb intake. I can't seem to find a photo of this aircraft, so if anyone knows of one, I'd be most grateful. In the event EN526 can't be represented by the model, I have a backup plan in the form of another Polish Spitfire. I'll also be building WZ-GJ/"Eleanor", a reverse lend-lease Spitfire LF.IXc flown by Major Garth Jared (3 + 1 probable + 1 damaged) of the 309th FS, 32nd FG in 1943. Tony recently built this aircraft, and I agree with his conclusion that it was painted in the standard Day Fighter Scheme rather than desert colours. Major Jared was a graduate of the University of California, where he met his wife Eleanor; he would later name his Spitfire after her. He served as a test pilot in the P-47 program before heading out to the front, where he was killed in action on 18 April 1944, when his P-51 was hit by flak. In addition to his wife, he left behind a year-old son, Stephen. I was able to locate Stephen on LinkedIn, but figured he would be unlikely to respond well to some weirdo contacting him with questions about his late father and so have not bothered him. My third Spitfire will be LF.IXe NH432/OU-D/"Waipawa Special", flown by Flying Officer Max Collett of 485 Squadron RNZAF. In 1993, Max Collett took the time to write a letter to a small boy in America after seeing his letter to the editor in D.C.O., the official magazine of the Spitfire Society. I've kept it ever since. It would be impossible for me to not build this aircraft. Lastly, I'll be building TB752/KH-Z/"Val", flown by Squadron Leader Henry Zary, an American of Polish descent (his birth name was Zartykiewicz) from New York City, enlisted in the RCAF in February of 1941 and remained with it throughout the war, though as an American he could have joined the USAAF and received much higher pay after his own country entered the war in December of 1941. He scored five victories, three of them in a single sortie on 25 July 1944, when he shot down two Bf109s and then, having expended all of his ammunition, caused the third to crash by skillful flying. He contracted pleurisy after the war and died in Quebec on 11 February 1946, aged 27. 20170208_223137 by Edward IX, on Flickr 20170208_223141 by Edward IX, on Flickr So far I've begun the seats. I'm doing one with the styrene seat armour for scientific reasons. 20170208_223125 by Edward IX, on Flickr