Airpower Quotes - Page 3

• Is it likely that an aircraft carrier or a cruise missile is going to find a person?

  Donald Rumsfeld

  September 11, Aircraft Carriers, Air Power

  Donald Rumsfeld, United States. Dept. of Defense. Historical Office (2001). “Public statements of Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, 2001”

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• The first and absolute requirement of strategic air power in this war was control of the air in order to carry out sustained operations without prohibitive losses.

  Carl Andrew Spaatz

  Military, War, Loss

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• Air power may either end war or end civilization.

  Winston Churchill

  Military, War, Air

  Winston Churchill, Robert Rhodes James (1980). “Churchill speaks: Winston S. Churchill in peace and war : collected speeches, 1897-1963”, Atheneum

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• Air control can be established by superiority in numbers, by better employment, by better equipment, or by a combination of these factors.

  Carl Andrew Spaatz

  Military, Air, Numbers

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• A thing of orchestrated hell-a terrible symphony of light and flame.

  Edward R. Murrow

  Light, Flames, Symphony

  Edward R. Murrow (1967). “In Search of Light: The Broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow, 1938-1961”

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• How could they possibly be Japanese planes?

  Husband E. Kimmel

  Air Power, Aviation, Planes

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• There is something more important than any ultimate weapon. That is the ultimate position-the position of total control over Earth that lies somewhere out in space. That is . . . the distant future, though not so distant as we may have thought. Whoever gains that ultimate position gains control, total control, over the Earth, for the purposes of tyranny or for the service of freedom

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Lying, Space, Important

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• Such an experiment without actual conditions of war to support it is a foolish waste of time. . . . I once saw a man kill a lion with a 30-30 caliber rifle under certain conditions, but that doesn't mean that a 30-30 rifle is a lion gun.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  War, Mean, Men

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• The greatest contributor to the feeling of tension and fear of war arose from the power of the bombing aeroplane. If all nations would consent to abolish air bombardment . . . that would mean the greatest possible release from fear.

  Ernest Rutherford

  War, Mean, Air

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• Would not the sight of a single enemy airplane be enough to induce a formidable panic? Normal life would be unable to continue under the constant threat of death and imminent destruction.

  Giulio Douhet

  Airplane, Sight, Enemy

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• This strongly asserted but ill-defined license to kill without accountability is not an entitlement which the United States or other states can have without doing grave damage to the rules designed to protect the right to life and prevent extrajudicial executions.

  Philip Alston

  Accountability, United States, Air Power

  "U.N. report faults prolific use of drone strikes by U.S." by David S. Cloud, articles.latimes.com. June 3, 2010.

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• As a peace machine, it's value to the world will be beyond computation. Would a declaration of war between Russia and Japan be made, if within an hour there after a swifty gliding aeroplane might take its flight from St Petersburg and drop half a ton of dynamite above the enemy's war offices? Could any nation afford to war upon any other with such hazards in view?

  John Brisben Walker

  War, Russia, Japan

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• We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end. We are bombing Germany city by city and ever more terribly in order to make it impossible for her to go in with the war. That is our object, and we shall pursue it relentlessly.

  Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet

  War, Cities, Order

  Radio address on July 28, 1942. "Bishop George Bell: House of Lords Speeches and Correspondence with Rudolf Hess". Book edited by Peter K. Raina, api.parliament.uk. 2009.

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• Good God! This man should be writing dime novels.

  Josephus Daniels

  Writing, Men, Dimes

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• In the early stages of the fight Mr. Winston Churchill spoke with affectionate raillery of me and my "Chicks." He could have said nothing to make me more proud; every Chick was needed before the end.

  Hugh Dowding, 1st Baron Dowding

  Fighting, Air Power, Proud

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• The Air Force comes in every morning and says, 'Bomb, bomb, bomb' ... And then the State Department comes in and says, 'Not now, or not there, or too much, or not at all.'

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Morning, Military, Air

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• The cavalry, in particular, were not friendly to the aeroplane, which it was believed, would frighten the horses.

  Walter Alexander Raleigh

  Horse, Friendly, Air Power

  Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh, Henry Albert Jones (1922). “The War in the Air: Being the Story of the Part Played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force ...”, The Clarendon Press

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• It is not possible . . . to concentrate enough military planes with military loads over a modern city to destroy that city.

  John Thomason

  Military, Cities, Air Power

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• "He who wants to protect everything, protects nothing," is one of the fundamental rules of defense.

  Adolf Galland

  Defense, Fundamentals, Air Power

  Adolf Galland (1954). “The First and the Last: The Rise and Fall of the German Fighter Forces, 1938-1954”

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• Why don't we just buy one airplane and let the pilots take turns flying it.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Airplane, Flying, Air Power

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• Straying off course is not recognized as a capital crime by civilized nations.

  Jeane Kirkpatrick

  Civilized Nations, Air Power, Aviation

  Jeane Kirkpatrick's speech to the U.N. Security Council, www.upi.com. September 6, 1983.

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• The country will some day pay for the stupidities of those who were in the majority on this commission. They know as much about the future of aviation as they do about the sign writing of the Aztecs.

  Jimmy Doolittle

  Country, Writing, Stupidity

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• The weapon where the man is sitting in is always superior against the other.

  Erich Hartmann

  Men, Sitting, Air Power

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• No enemy bomber can reach the Ruhr. If one reaches the Ruhr, my name is not Goering. You may call me Meyer.

  Hermann Goring

  Names, Enemy, Bombers

  Addressing the Luftwaffe in September 1939. "August 1939: The Last Days of Peace" by Nicholas Fleming, p. 171, 1979.

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• My Luftwaffe is invincible... And so now we turn to England. How long will this one last - two, three weeks?

  Hermann Goring

  Two, Long, Three

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