James Holland

You can pick their brains during kind of while you're having some chow and listening on some briefings.

Then the first mission you do will be a milk run over to France where the danger is kind of pretty minimal. And you can build up your experience. So by the time you're actually sent over on a mission to Berlin or Bremen or the Ruhr or whatever, you're absolutely in the business. So qualitatively and quantitatively, you are just vastly superior to anything the Luftwaffe's got.

Then the first mission you do will be a milk run over to France where the danger is kind of pretty minimal. And you can build up your experience. So by the time you're actually sent over on a mission to Berlin or Bremen or the Ruhr or whatever, you're absolutely in the business. So qualitatively and quantitatively, you are just vastly superior to anything the Luftwaffe's got.

Then the first mission you do will be a milk run over to France where the danger is kind of pretty minimal. And you can build up your experience. So by the time you're actually sent over on a mission to Berlin or Bremen or the Ruhr or whatever, you're absolutely in the business. So qualitatively and quantitatively, you are just vastly superior to anything the Luftwaffe's got.

Then the first mission you do will be a milk run over to France where the danger is kind of pretty minimal.

And you can build up your experience.

So by the time you're actually sent over on a mission to Berlin or Bremen or the Ruhr or whatever, you're absolutely in the business.

So qualitatively and quantitatively, you are just vastly superior to anything the Luftwaffe's got.

The Luftwaffe by that stage, in contrast, 1940, new pilots coming to frontline squadrons with 150, 170 hours in their logbooks. Less than 100, 100, 90, 92 hours, something like that. It's not enough. And they're just being flung straight into battle, and they're getting absolutely slaughtered. And they're also, because their machines are quite complicated, there's no two-seaters, really. So...

The Luftwaffe by that stage, in contrast, 1940, new pilots coming to frontline squadrons with 150, 170 hours in their logbooks. Less than 100, 100, 90, 92 hours, something like that. It's not enough. And they're just being flung straight into battle, and they're getting absolutely slaughtered. And they're also, because their machines are quite complicated, there's no two-seaters, really. So...

The Luftwaffe by that stage, in contrast, 1940, new pilots coming to frontline squadrons with 150, 170 hours in their logbooks. Less than 100, 100, 90, 92 hours, something like that. It's not enough. And they're just being flung straight into battle, and they're getting absolutely slaughtered. And they're also, because their machines are quite complicated, there's no two-seaters, really. So...

The Luftwaffe by that stage, in contrast,

1940, new pilots coming to frontline squadrons with 150, 170 hours in their logbooks.

Less than 100, 100, 90, 92 hours, something like that.

It's not enough.

And they're just being flung straight into battle, and they're getting absolutely slaughtered.

And they're also, because their machines are quite complicated, there's no two-seaters, really.

So...

No two-seater trainers.

No two-seater trainers. So the first time you're flying in your Focke-Wulf 190 or your Messerschmitt 109, it's this horrendous leap of faith for which you as a young, bright Luftwaffe fighter pilot know that you're not ready for this. And it can bite you. Something like a... a Messerschmitt 109, has a very high wing loading. So it's very maneuverable in the air, but it's got these tiny wings.