One of the RAF guys told me that to him the really brave ones were the fire wardens who stood on the roof of St Paul's during the blitz to manually douse or throw off incendiaries. Hard to imagine for those of us who have lived so safe for so long.

That's what always goes through my mind whenever I watch old war movies. It *is* hard to imagine.

~~Bonnie



>It's really a wonderful movie. I saw it in London in fall of 1970 in conjunction with the 30th anniversary commemoration. The first few dozen or so rows of the theater were roped off for RAF. I was pretty young (23) , so they all looked old to me of course. But most of them had been younger than that when they went up in the Spitfires and Hurricanes. It was pretty emotional. There were a lot of folks in the audience (including my hosts, who had been SOE) who remembered that period very very well. One of the RAF guys told me that to him the really brave ones were the fire wardens who stood on the roof of St Paul's during the blitz to manually douse or throw off incendiaries. Hard to imagine for those of us who have lived so safe for so long.
>
>
>>Great post Charles.
>>
>>We watched the movie, "Battle of Britain", a few nights ago ... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064072/
>>
>>~~Bonnie
>>
>>
>>>In a time when "leadership" and "courage" tend to mean telegenic "charisma" and self-important political posturing by celebrities addressing the like-minded and sycophantic, it doesn't hurt to remember acts of extraordinary human accomplishment in the face of genuine threat.
>>>
>>>Today is Battle of Britain day in the UK.
>>>
>>>It has long been fashionable for a certain class of insecure "intellectual" to dismiss such commemorations as jingoistic chest-thumping - lacking "nuance", celebrating outmoded ideas of patiotism, sacrifice and service.
>>>
>>>But that luxury to indulge in our modern redefinitions of "hero" and forget the meaning of real courage was bought over the skies of Britain in the fall of 1940 by Hugh Dowding and the RAF.
>>>
>>>69 years ago, a few thousand young men - and their extraordinary nation - were part of one of the truly critical moments in the history of Western civilization.
>>>
>>>Churchill, of course, had it right.
>>>
>>>Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few