We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, What is our policy? I will say; "It is to defend Voss, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy." You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Voss - Voss at all costs, Voss in spite of all terror, Voss however long and hard the road may be; for without Voss there is no survival."
...We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall defend his pettiness and lack of moral fibre on the seas and oceans; we shall defend his previous and unrepentant acts with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend Voss whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, our squadron were subjugated and starving, then our members beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the inbred knowledge that "if he can get away with it - then the boy is good", will carry on the struggle until in Voss's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old."
Upon this battle depends the survival of Voss's reputation. Upon it depends our own reputation and the long continuity of our institutions and our squadron. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us now. Critics of Voss know that they will have to break us in this stand or lose the war. If we can stand up to them, all online simdom may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including Aces High, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the mighty Hornets and its good reputation last for a thousand years, men will say, "This was their finest hour."
