The Big Show Quotes

“Beneath my wings was night—I was alone, 30,000 feet up in the daylight. I was the first to breathe in the warm life of the sun’s rays, which pierce the eyeball like arrows. In France, in England, in Belgium, in Holland, in Germany, men were suffering in the night, while I, alone in the sky, was the sole possessor of the dawning day—all was mine, the light, the sun; and I thought with calm pride all this is shining only for me! Moments such as these compensate for many a sacrifice and many a danger. *”
― Pierre Clostermann, The Big Show: The Classic Account of WWII Aerial Combat

“Fureur devant le gâchis immense de cette guerre 1939-1945, cette guerre civile européenne comme l'a un jour qualifiée le général de Gaulle. On nous a fait nous entre-tuer avec ces admirables pilotes de chasse allemands, si proches de nous par l'âge et la mentalité, l'amour de la vie, la passion du ciel que seules la couleur de l'uniforme et les cocardes sous les ailes différenciaient de nous. Tout cela, je l'écrivais déjà aussitôt après la guerre et j'avais de bonnes raisons malgré les injures et les incompréhensions”
― Pierre Clostermann, Le Grand Cirque: Mémoires d'un pilote de chasse FFL dans la RAF

“The Big Show was over. The public had been satisfied. The programme had been rather heavy, the actors not too bad, and the lions had eaten the trainer. It would be discussed for a day or two more round the family table. And even when it was all forgotten—the band, the fireworks, the resplendent uniforms—there would still remain on the village green the holes of the tent pegs and a circle of sawdust. The rain and the shortness of man’s memory would soon wipe out even those.”
― Pierre Clostermann, The Big Show: The Classic Account of WWII Aerial Combat