The Most Dangerous Enemy Quotes

“History was always present for Churchill. He understood, perhaps, that the essence of history is the present, for the present is nothing other than what the past has made it, only those most essential elements of the past being retained in the present. That is what makes them essential. One’s understanding of the past is therefore a constituent part of one’s understanding of current events and a guide as to how to act in it.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“revealing pilot’s-eye view of the Spitfire and the 109 is given by Squadron Leader Paul Day in the Yorkshire TV production on the Spitfire in the series Equinox, written by Brian Johnson, Uden Associates, Channel Four 1990.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“dogfight’ is ‘Kurvenkampf’’ i.e. turning fight.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“The main object of the dogfight was to get on the opponent’s tail – hence the name. The German word for”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“Shakespeare gave Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt, when the King addresses his men as ‘we few, we happy few, we band of brothers’. Churchill was wont to compare the fighter pilots with knights.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“Eagle had indeed revealed what Churchill, no less, was to characterise as the essence of war: ‘a catalogue of mistakes and misfortunes’6.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“A full and painstaking account of the day’s fighting, from which this summary is largely derived, is given by Alfred Price in the work which gave this day its name. First published in 1979, it remains one of the best books yet written about the Battle of Britain.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“Later in the war, I flew in the Middle East over desert. You’d look down and there was a lot of sand. It meant nothing to me. But flying over Kent and Surrey and the green fields of southern England and the Thames Estuary – that was home. The fact that someone was trying to take it away or break it up made you angry.30 Who the Hell do these Huns think they are flying like this over OUR country in their bloody bombers covered with Iron Crosses and Swastikas?31”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“I’d say there was no chivalry at all. You mean between the German Air Force and the British? I’d say absolutely none. Not as far as I was concerned. I hated them. They were trying to do something to us. They were trying to enslave us.28 During the Battle of Britain was the only time I really felt … a territorial possession. One used to look down and see one’s own country, one’s own people, and see these hideous great hordes of aircraft flying over. One thought, ‘Bloody hell’, you know – one can’t possibly allow this to happen.’29”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“Hitler had to be defeated, because if he won: All courage will die out of the world – the courage to love, to create, to take risks, whether physical, intellectual or moral. Men will hesitate to carry out the promptings of the heart or the brain because, having acted, they will live in fear that their action may be discovered and themselves cruelly punished. Thus all love, all spontaneity will die out of the world. Emotion will have atrophied. Thought will have petrified. The oxygen breathed by the soul, so to speak, will vanish, and mankind will wither.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“verray, parfit gentil knyght’.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“Most of them kept going because they had a job to do, and they were the only ones who could do it. The closest thing to heroism was displaying humour:”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“The thing that sticks out in my mind was the laughter. Some of the things we laughed at might be regarded as a bit macabre. ‘Old so-and-so ended up on his back and they had to get a crane to lift his aircraft to get him out.’ The fact that old so-and-so was in hospital was neither here nor there. It was still a hell of a laugh. We didn’t take ourselves too seriously. If anybody was heard waxing a bit heavy, and asking if any of us would survive another week, he’d be laughed out of the room. It was taboo to admit that you were in any sort of personal difficulties. We were kids, but at the same time at the top of our profession. We were demonstrating that we were better than the enemy and were saving our country.19 Professional pride and technical skill, about which Wellington’s officers cared little, were important, but if you tried to out-do your colleagues they would usually find a way of taking you down a peg or two.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“Indeed the degree of psychic and somatic fulfilment offered by a life filled with ‘beer, women and Spitfires’ seemed to most who enjoyed it then, and to many who contemplate it now, to leave little wanting. The RAF was not a hunting fraternity, but a flying club, the best flying club in the world.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“When you were nineteen, you couldn’t give a monkey’s”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“It was just beer, women and Spitfires, a bunch of little John Waynes running about the place.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“I came to know and like some Germans later on. But I hated the enemy then for what they tried to do to Johnnie Cock and what they did to Johnnie Dewar, our squadron leader, later in the battle. He parachuted out, but when we found his body, it was riddled with bullets. Some of our people say what wonderful men the German pilots were personally. But I still feel that men who could shoot boys in parachutes are not people I want to know.14”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“The word for ‘fighter’ in German is ‘Jäger’ (‘hunter’), and the Luftwaffe’s tradition was that of a hunting club. The war was a wonderful opportunity for the gifted few to engage in a dangerous but exhilarating sport. At the beginning of the war trophies were collected. Mölders and Galland actually went hunting in their spare time, and after Galland had visited to Berlin at the end of September to collect Oak Leaves to add to his Knight’s Cross for forty victories, he joined Göring and Mölders for a deer hunt at the Reichsjägerhof in East Prussia. It was seen as an entirely appropriate way for the three of them to be spending their time.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“Kanal’ means ‘sewer’ as well as ‘channel’. ‘Kanakafü’ has echoes of ‘Kacke’, a baby word for faeces.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“give up their sweeps and act as escorts for Fink’s bombers. This would keep Kent free of Messerschmitts and keep the Messerschmitts tied to the role of protecting rather than hunting, which was quite a different kettle of fish. Fink assured Osterkamp that the Stukas would attract a lot of British fighters, which would give him the opportunities he was looking for, but Osterkamp disagreed. Escorting Stukas meant staying close to them and chasing off fighters which approached. Hunting meant operating freely and seeking out the enemy.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“response entirely off its own bat.29 When asked about an official reply, Churchill responded that he had no intention of replying to Hitler himself, as he was not on speaking terms with him.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“This was enacted on the 27th, with the appointment of ‘Onkel’ Theo Osterkamp as ‘Jagdfliegerführer 2’, in charge of the fighter forces of Airfleet 2, most of which arrived at the Pas-de-Calais in the last week of July, and Werner Junck as his opposite number at Airfleet 3. Acronyms being de rigueur in the Luftwaffe, Osterkamp was actually known as ‘Jafü 2’.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain

“Kanalkampfführer’ – Channel Battle Leader.”
― Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain