Can I Have Your Egg If You Don't Come Back?

"Standing around for an hour and a half before take-off, everyone is tense and no one said very much. The long practice and the waiting and the business of being kept in the dark had keyed them up to a point where one could feel that they would been better if they had stood on their toes and danced and shouted out loud, or even screamed to get rid of it, but they stood there with their hands in their pockets, smoking cigarettes and saying little.

I said to Hoppy, 'Hoppy, tonight's the night; tomorrow we will get drunk.'

We always say this, Hoppy and I, before going off on a mission. Then he jumped into a van which carried him out to his aircraft."

- Wing Commander Guy Gibson VC DSO DFC RAF, from Enemy Coast Ahead.