"To Live Among Heroes," a medical officer's insight into the life of 609 Squadron in NW Europe 1944-45, by George Armour Bell, JP, BSC, MBCHB, FFCS for only $13.97 I couldn't pass it by. 609 flew Typhoons and slaughtered the Germans in the Falaise pocket, leading to the conclusion that the war was all but over.... but it wasn't.
So, I temporarily put down the three or four other books I have been reading, and dove in, and it has been very interesting, so far.
Lack of Moral Fibre was a term used to describe individuals who did not have physical or psychological findings to excuse what others would come to label "cowardice," and this tag was a disgrace that would lead to removal from military service.
On page 72, Bell writes: "You can imagine my anger then, when one day an Engineer Officer in the wing suggested to me that Pilot Officer Adams's (sic) excuse fr aborting a mission due to engine failure was perhaps in part due to LMF..."
"Heine" Adam, a Berlin born German Jew, was one of two German-born RAF pilots in WW II. The other was his brother. If shot down and captured by the Germans, he would have been summarily executed as a traitor. He survived the war. He won Oscars for best art direction on Barry Lyndon and The Madness Of King George and got nods for Around The World In Eighty Days, The Spy Who Loved Me and Addams Family Values
Most interesting to me, was his British Film Academy Awards for Dr. Strangelove and the Ipcress File, and his work on various James Bond films. In 1964 he designed the famous war room set for Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strangelove, although turned down the opportunity to work with Kubrick's next project 2001: A Space Odyssey after he found out that Kubrick had been working with NASA for a year on space exploration.
All of this stemming from an interest in the RAF, Jewish pilots and a trip to Powell's.
