Yes Beagle, but this is a thread about Movies and I'm not a film buff so I mustn't hijack it but may I just reinforce your comment?
When I joined my first sqn in 1955 there were still over 250,000 serving in RAF uniform; there were 90 fighter sqn colours I was supposed to memorise and I can't even remember whether that was just 11 Gp or 11 and 12 Gp together.
There were 15 or 18 of those sqns within a 30-40 nm radius of my station (a standard two day- and one night-fighter sqn outfit).
The station had a grand total of three Wg Cdrs and 8 Sqn Ldrs (as well as the Gp Capt Staish, of course. But we called him God in those days).
Saturday mornings were often a sortie of a Balbo of six or eight DF Interceptor sqns mixing it over East Anglia followed by a parade of anything up to 400 men on the parade square. The station must have had 1000-1200 personnel on it.
Just like you see on the movies - except for the funerals every so often. I'd helped to bury 11 pilots before I'd completed two year's aircrew service.
Not glorifying anything here or claiming "how much better it was in those days". Not at all; it wasn't, because we were paid a pittance and we were b uggered about no end but we didn't realise that there was a better way. But this may be of interest to the younger guys who would like to get a flavour for a former way of life and know that what they saw on the movies was close to reality.
{Edited because I object to being censored from using the words b uggered about. For heaven's sake it's part of the language now.}
[ 20 October 2001: Message edited by: fobotcso ]