SILENT SERVICE
Now, multifold, let Britain’s patent power
Be proven within us for the world to see.
None are exempt from service in this hour;
And vanquished in ourselves we dare not be.
Now, for a sunlit future, we can show
The clenched resolved endurance that defies
Daemons in dark, — and toward that future go
With earth’s defended freedom in our eyes.
In separate soul let courage shine —
A kneeling angel holding faith’s front-line.
SIEGFRIED SASSOON
23 May 1940
(‘Silent Service’, from Collected Poems of Siegfried Sassoon, by Siegfried Sassoon, UK: copyright Siegfried Sassoon by kind permission of the Estate of George Sassoon; US: copyright 1918, 1920 by E. P. Dutton. Copyright 1936, 1947, 1948 by Siegfried Sassoon. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.)
My estimate is that the war will be won in a fortnight.
CAPTAIN ERWIN ROMMEL
Letter to his wife
24 May 1940
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