In the days before the closing of the Falaise gap, the 2 TAF averaged 1,200 sorties per day. The air war was particularly violent from August 15 through the 21st. Typhoons and Spitfires attacked the roads leading from the gap to the Seine, strafing columns of densely packed vehicles and men. Under repeated attack, some of the columns actually displayed white flags of surrender, but the RAF took "no notice" of this since Allied ground forces were not in the vicinity, and "to cease fire would merely have allowed the enemy to move unmolested to the Seine." Typhoons typically would destroy the vehicles at the head of a road column, then leisurely shoot up the rest of the vehicles with their rockets and cannon. When they finished, Spitfires would dive down to strafe the remains.
Who was not dismayed at George Herbert Walker Bush's premature "end" to the Gulf War of 1990-91?
Saddam Hussein retained his military and remained in power--so as to spare the squeamish and keep within the chalklines of the United Nations mandate and the New World Order.
Yet the war was not won--and Bush went from 91 percent approval rating to distant second place in 1992.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Highway of Death was too cruel--and what of the mass graves of hundreds of thousands?
Got your Highway of Death right here.
And here as well.
Oh you beautiful doll. . . .
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SCR522
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