Every soldier must know, before he goes into battle, how the little battle he is to fight fits into the larger picture, and how the success of his fighting will influence the battle as a whole.

The first duty of a leader is opti­mism. How does your sub­or­di­nate feel after meet­ing with you? Does he feel uplifted? If not, you are not a leader.

My own definition of leadership is this: The capacity and the will to rally men and women to a common purpose and the character which inspires confidence.

Air power is indivisible. If you split it up into compartments, you merely pull it to pieces and destroy its greatest asset - its flexibility.

Why does soldiers leave the protection of his trench hole in the ground and go forward in the face of shot and shell? It is because of the leader who is in front of him and his comrades who are around him. Comradeship makes a man feel warm and courageous when all his instincts tend to make him cold and afraid.

Every soldier must know, before he goes into battle, how the little battle he is to fight fits into the larger picture, and how the success of his fighting will influence the battle as a whole.

Rule 1, on page I of the book of war, is: "Do not march on Moscow". Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good. That is the first rule. I do not know whether your Lordships will know Rule 2 of war. It is: "Do not go fighting with your land armies in China". It is a vast country, with no clearly defined objectives...