Levels of Detail Applied.

And lo! I dreamed... I was in Rickmansworth; except this Rickmansworth was a very hilly town (think San Francisco) full of beautiful Georgian architecture. I entered a lovely old pub and ordered a pint. Above the bar, all exposed beams and horse-brass, were black & white photos and illustrations, water-colours, of de Havilland Mosquito fighter-bombers during WW2 at a local RAF base. There were crests of the four squadrons flying from there - one of them was Polish. 

I took a close look at one of the paintings. It was not meant to be photorealistic, rather impressionistic it was - spindly light machine gun barrels poking out of the nose were a salient feature of this artwork. I started chatting to the barman and to several older blokes sat around the bar about the Mosquito mementoes, about its service with the RAF during the war (the dream felt like it was set in the 1980s, so there were folks with memories from the days). I asked them in particular if they could remember the Polish airmen...

I woke up and dozing in bed (it was only half-past six), I thought back to my childhood memories of this wartime aircraft. Along with the Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster, the Mosquito was one of the most iconic British WW2 warplanes, capturing the imagination of postwar schoolboys, featuring in books, comics and films. 

My first contact with this twin-engined fighter-bomber would have been in the Airfix catalogue (I'd certainly built the kit by the time I was seven or eight - around the time the film 633 Squadron with its stirring theme-tune came out), and numerous books about WW2 aircraft borrowed from Ealing Public Libraries. I could have told you back then that the Mosquito was made out of wood, that it had two Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, it could fly at 400 miles per hour, so fast that as a bomber it needed no defensive armament, that it had a crew of two (pilot and navigator), and that (as per Airfix kit), it could carry four rockets under each wing. And the undersides of this plane were painted a colour called 'duck-egg blue'. In other words, I had gathered the most basic facts. 

Facts, but not insights. Memorising data is not the same as understanding.

That would come with time; broader and deeper understanding - historical context; the notion of military doctrine - specifically, the doctrine concerning the use of twin-engined fighters/fighter-bombers/night fighters during WW2; the importance of aerial interception radar; the impact of climate on wooden construction (did Mosquitoes come unstuck in the damp heat of the Far Eastern Theatre of Operations?); the politics of war production (determining priorities, allocating resources); aeronautical engineering (how the Mosquito was continually improved over time), and of course the feats of individual aircrew in the overall struggle against Hitler's Germany. Including Polish No. 305 Bomber Sqn, which flew Mosquitos from December 1943 until the end of the war, and Polish No. 307 Night Fighter Sqn, which flew Mosquitos from December 1942 until the end of the war.

[UPDATE 29 JAN]: I am reminded of this quote by British author, Geoff Dyers: “We were the war children. Born a decade and a half after the WW2 ended, we devoted all our energy to recreating it. If the 1930s saw a period of escalating military expenditure then the 1960s saw us imaginatively rearming. Show me a picture of any Allied or German plane and I will identify it without the aid of conscious thought. We can call this condition, common to all boys of my generation, Airfixation. There were many strands to our war experience—comics, films, toys—but the core experience is represented by Airfix. Designed to reproduce the machinery of war in miniature… Airfix provides us with all the necessary parts; if we assemble them piece by piece and glue them together we will have a model of the larger experience and process by which the War was recycled.”

As I get older, my knowledge deepens through insights gained - but it also broadens. Wikipedia, YouTube and very soon ChatGPT (as soon as it gets enough server capacity to cope with demand!) make access to knowledge so much easier - as long as you are curious to want to look it up. 

I wrote last year about Levels of Detail; how we gain in understanding as we grow and learn. The world around us - the cosmos even - continually increases in definition. Curiosity is the driver, as is observation.

This time four years ago:
Dreams of birth?

[I'm listening to the Stylistics' I'm Stone in Love with You on Martyn Jansen's most excellent Yours Sinsouly show live on West Wilts Radio; and just as I wrote that I was writing about dreams four years ago (below), the lyrics go "You might say that all I do/Is dream my life away" I type the word 'Dreams' in time with the music.]

This time five years ago:
Foggy, icy, slippery day in Jeziorki

This time nine years ago:
Hannah Arendt and the banality of evil

This time ten year ago:
Snow scene into the sun

This time 11 years ago:
More winter gorgeousness

This time 12 years ago:
New winter wear - my M65 Parka

[Yet another coincidence - my M65 Parka is still my daily winter outerwear - today I wondered when I bought it. Now I know.]

This time 13 years ago:
Winter and broken-down trains

This time 14 years ago:
General Mud claims ul. Poloneza

This time 15 years ago:
Just when I thought winter was over...