Quoted By:
>Walter Nowotny was dead. That evening in the [RAF] mess his name was often on our lips. Each of us recalled 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 beyond all prejudices.
>We too, of course, were engaged in the less noble aspects of fighting...all those inhuman, immoral jobs we had to do because we were soldiers and because war is war. But we could rise above all that 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 frontiers. All those chaps that evening felt this instinctively, and as for those who shrug their shoulders, they just can't know -- they aren't fighter pilots.
At his tomb, Allied pilots carved Nowotny's gravestone:
>Here on 8 November 1944, following 258 aerial victories, the recipient of the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds, Major Walter Nowotny, fell for his people and his fatherland
The brotherhood of pilots stretches beyond all nationalities and ideologies. The sky connects us.
