Inside the hangar a radio blared the same war news as the radio at the pilots’ alert shack. Everyone kept an ear tuned, waiting to hear “It’s done,” so they could go home or surrender. After Luetzow’s death, Galland had called the pilots together on the airfield and addressed the men as they stood in a line. “For us the war is over,” he said. He would no longer order anyone to take off—they could only volunteer. “Whoever wants to go home may do so,” he added. A few men thanked him and left. One cited his fiancée, another his sick parents. But someone else said, “We fight until the end.”
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