"Then, as if things were not already bad, Japan invaded Manchuria, then the rest of China. Spain was in a terrible civil war- drawing every nation in Europe into that nightmare, to some degree- and this turned out to be the perfect proving ground for Hitler's air force. All of us pilots who understood history and could see the signs knew that another war was coming. We did not know when or where it would start, or, to be more precise, expand, but we knew that our nation, especially our air forces, would not be ready. When the war in Spain finished, everyone sat back and relaxed, acting like, "This is it, the European problems are over," but I knew better. The Japanese were still doing their work in China, so we kind of went to sleep at the wheel, but Pearl Harbor changed all of that, I can tell you, and you know what happened. The entire military establishment was taken off guard, which I could not understand. Japan had been a constant threat to everyone, and they had blinders on the whole time."
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