The eloquent words of an English RAF Flight Lieutenant best capture the tone of the times and the nature of those who put their lives on the line during one of history's darkest hours (the Battle of Britain): “Thinking now of those days, I find that what remains most clearly in my memory is not the sweating strain of the actual fighting, not the hurried meals, the creeping from bed at dawn, not even the loss of one's friends; but rather those odd stolen moments of peace in the middle of all the pandemonium - the heat haze lying lazily over the airfield while we sat, waiting to take off; that curiously lovely moment of twilight after the last Spitfire had landed, after the last engine had been switched off, and before the first night fighter took to the air, the first searchlight split the darkness and the first wail of the siren was heard again - the moment when the evening lay spread out against the sky, giving for an instant a mocking glimpse of stillness and peace before night fell suddenly like a curtain and the whole hideous cacophony of war broke out afresh. But above all, the thing which remains most clearly imprinted on my memory is the spirit which then existed - the same spirit which inspired everybody from the Station Commander to the lowest aircraft hand. For that was the first trial, the first flush of battle, and it was a great hour.”