““Here on the Eastern Front, whenever we carried out our low-level attacks immediately in front of our comrades on the ground – dropping our bombs singly on the gun emplacements and machine-gun nests that were holding up their advance, and then strafing the enemy’s trenches until our ammunition was exhausted – we could actually see the results. We saw our troops getting to their feet and dashing forwards, often waving up at us as they did so, to storm the Soviet lines that we had been attacking only moments earlier. That was it! Here we had finally come to understand what our close-support missions really meant to our comrades on the ground. Without our help, how much more blood would those troops have had to shed in order to achieve their objectives? We were needed here like we had never been needed before. This knowledge made us all the more determined to give of our best. It also made it that little bit easier to accept our inevitable losses.””
