WWII

Went to Costco this afternoon to pick up a couple of things. Stopped by the book aisle. They must have had a couple of hundred different novels for sale. I noticed about eight books about WWII, I didn't see any books about any other wars, though that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I thought it was a little weird to have so many books about WWII. On the other hand I bought two of them: With Wings Like Eagles by Michael Korda and Aces High by Bill Yenne. They are both about fighter aircraft. The first one is about the Battle of Britain and the second one has P-38's on the cover. I have not heard much about the P-38. We shall see if I learn anything. There is a line by Winston Churchill quoted in the front of the first book: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." It came to me today that it wasn't just the few men who flew the planes that won the battle. They were certainly crucial, but there was a whole nation behind them. People who built the planes, people who built the tools used to build the planes, people who fed all the others. There was a vast organization behind these few who were at the tip of the spear. They made the spear sharp and more effective, but you still needed the shaft behind the spear to give it that killing thrust.

Update February 2022 replaced dead links. With Wings Like Eagles is a great book, Aces High is a dog.