Battle of Britain memorial 2017

As previously posted today is "Battle of Britain Sunday" and there is a service of commemoration for the 76th anniversary of the campaign at Westminster Abbey at 11am this morning.

This commemoration takes place on the nearest Sunday to 15th September this year, because 15th September 1940 is regarded by many historians as the climax of the campaign - it was effectively the German's last major attempt to establish air superiority.

On 14 September, Hitler chaired a meeting of the German high command staff. Recognising that the Luftwaffe had not succeeded in gaining decisive air superiority over the RAF which would have been a necessary condition for a successful invasion of Britain, Hitler reportedly asked "Should we call it off altogether?"

General Hans Jeschonnek, Luftwaffe Chief of Staff, begged for a last chance to defeat the RAF.

The German high command agreed to try to break Britain's will to fight by destroying material infrastructure, the weapons industry, and stocks of fuel and food. On 15 September, two massive waves of German attacks were launched.

Both attacks were decisively repulsed by the RAF, and the Germans lost dozens of aircraft. The exact number given varies according to which source you check but there is no reasonable doubt that the Germans came off worse and lost a lot of aircraft - the consensus view is that about sixty German aircraft were shot down compared to about 26 RAF fighters.

More to the point, nobody on either side with the faintest grip on reality - which didn't include Hermann Göring but did include most of the other senior military commanders advising the Nazi dictator - could dispute that the fight put up by fighter command on 15th September proved that the RAF was very much still in the battle and therefore the crushing victory in the air which Hitler regarded as a necessary condition to attempt an invasion had not been achieved.

Two days after this German defeat Hitler postponed indefinitely preparations for the invasion of Britain. Hence 15 September is commemorated as Battle of Britain Day.

During the Battle of Britain the RAF fighter command which had up to about 700 operational fighters available at any one point in time during the campaign was defending Britain's skies against a Luftwaffe force of about 2,550 fighters and bombers.

When Churchill referred to "the few" he was specifically singling out the pilots, both British and foreign volunteers, who flew for the Royal Air force, of whom there are 2,939 on the RAF roll of honour between 10 July and 31 October 1940. About half of these survived the four-month campaign: 544 Fighter Command pilots were killed along with about a thousand pilots and aircrew from other parts of the RAF. 

Volunteers from all over the world came to take part in the battle against fascism and the Royal Air Force roll of honour for the Battle of Britain recognises 595 non-British pilots (out of 2,936) as flying at least one authorised operational sortie with an eligible unit of the RAF or Fleet Air Arm during the period of the campaign. These included 145 Poles, 127 New Zealanders, 112 Canadians, 88 Czechoslovaks, 10 Irish, 32 Australians, 28 Belgians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 9 Americans, 3 Rhodesians and one each from Jamaica and Palestine.

The War Cabinet created two Polish fighter squadrons, Nos. 302 and 303, in the summer of 1940. These were followed by other national units, including two Czech fighter squadrons. Many of the RAF’s aces were men from the Commonwealth and the highest scoring pilot of the campaign was Josef Frantisek, a Czech pilot flying with No. 303 (Polish) Fighter Squadron. No. 303 entered battle on 31 August, at the peak of the Battle of Britain, but quickly became Fighter Command’s highest claiming squadron with 126 kills.

The debt that Britain and the free world owes to the pilots of the RAF and all those who took part in the campaign - the observer corps, air defence gunners, air raid wardens, the plotters, radar and radio operators who guided the RAF planes to intercept the enemy and all the other RAF and other personnel who served in the campaign - is incalculable. We shall not forget them.

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