I bought Clostermann's book, "The Big Show."
On hearing of Walter Nowotny's death, Clostermann writes:
>Walter Nowotny was dead. Our adversary in Normandy and in the German skies had died two days before in the hospital. That evening in the [R.A.F.] mess his name was often on our lips. We spoke of him without hatred and without rancor. Each one of us recalled his memories of him, with respect, almost with affection. It was the first time that I heard, openly expressed, that curious solidarity among fighter pilots which is above all tragedies and all prejudices.
>We too, of course, were involved with less noble fighting...all those immoral, inhuman jobs we had to do because we were soldiers and because war is war. We could rise above all this today by saluting a brave enemy who had just died, by saying that Nowotny belonged to us, that he was part of our world, where there were no ideologies, no hatred, and no frontier. All those chaps that evening felt that comradeship, and as for those who shrug their shoulders, they just can't know -- they weren't fighter pilots.
Just reminded me of the respect with which Hartmann spoke of Litvyak (Sanya) and Pokryshkin (Sasha).
