Figure 1.--British children had been evacuated from London and other large cities at the on set of the War in 1939, but many had returned home when no bombing raids materialized. After the fall of France in June 1940 and the Battle of Britain began, there was another wave of evacuations. The German blitz on London and other British cities began in September. Even in the relative security of their country and villiage billets, children like these often could see the German bomber formations and the dog fights taking place in the skies over Britain. Notice the boxes the children are carrying. These are their gas masks.

The Battle of Britain was the first major camapign fought in the air. The German initiated their long awaited western campaign in May 1940. Paris fell June 14 and France capitulated June 22. The fall of France meant that Britain stood alone and for a year had to valiantly fight the Germans without allies. American public opinion was decisively isolationist--against involvement in another European war. Most Europeans and Americans thought Britain would soon colapse and further resistance was futile. But the British stirred by Prime Minister Churchill did fight. The Luftwaffe quickly established bases in France and by July 10 launched preliminary strikes in what has come to be called the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe while better trained and outnumbering the RAF was ill prepared for the campaign. They did not appreciate the critical importance of the British home chain radar network. They also had no straegic bomber fleet. The air offensive was to be conducted with two engine bombers that proved highly effective in short range tactical operations, but were not well suited for longer-range strategic bombing. The Battle of Britain began in earnest on July 10 and reached intensive levels on August 13 with Luftwaffe raids on British airfields and aircraft factories. Hitler had assumed that the Luftwaffe could force the British to capitualte. He saw world politics in racial terms and in relatity wanted the British as allies or at least neutrals in his planned invasion of the Soviet Union. Unlike his strategy against the Poles, Dutch, and Belgians, there were no German terror bombing of London and other British cities. The Luftwaffe im its August campaign seriously weakened the RAF and Fighter Command was having increasing difficulty maintaining its forward air bases in Kent. Then off-course German bombers accidentally bomb London on August 23-24. RAF Bomber Command on August 25-26 mounted a small reprisal raid against Berlin. Hitler is furious and orders an immediate change in Luftwaffe tactics. Rather than completing its offensive against the RAF infrastructure, Hitler ordered a "blitz" on British cities which began in earnest on September 7. The Luftwaffe wreaked havoc on civilians in London and major English cities. An estimated 42,000 civilians were killed. Thousands of civilians were killed. Edward R. Murrow broadcasting from London ("London calling ...") described Britain's valiant resistance to rapt American radio audiences, greatly affecting American attitides toward the Hitler and the NAZIs. White British cities burned, the RAF was given a respite, allowing its forward air bases to recover from the damage done in August. As a result the RAF was able to mount increasingly costly attacks on the German bomber fleets. The Lutwaffe eventually is forced to shift to nightime raids. Night bombing made it impossible to hit actually military and industrial targets, only cities could be targetted. The British were battered, but held. It was the first German defeat of the War. The narrow, but decisive victory in the Battle of Britain changed the course of the War. The Luftwaffe eventually ended the major offensive against the British as the German military in 1941 began preparing for Opperation Barbarosa, Hitler's long awaited dream of invading the Soviet Union which at the time was a virtual German ally. As Hitler turned his evil view east toward Russia, a huge unsinkable aircraft carrier with a population willing to make virtually any sacrifice remained in his rear. For the NAZIs, the loss of the Battle of Britain was a crusing blow, not only because of the serious losses, but because it was a struggle involving scientific and technical ingenuity in which the Germans had assumed that they had a commanding lead.

German Western Offensive (May-June 1940)

The German initiated their long awaited western campaign on May 10, 1940. The British and French had anticipated that the Germans would attempt to outflank the Maginot Line by striking though Belgium. The cream of the French Army and the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) were thus positioned on the Belgian force. The Wehrmacht first attacked the Netherlands. The British anf French responded by leaving their prepared defenses and moving north to relaeve the Dutch. The Germans then they attacked France through the Belgian Ardennes. To the amazement of the French, the Panzers penetrade the Ardenees crossed the Meuses River and raced to the Channel. The British fell back on the Belgian port of Dunkirk. Hitler stopped the Panzers, allowing the British to evacuate their men and some French. The Belgians surrendered, nut the suronded French First Army continuing to fight occupying key German forces while the British evacuated. Paris fell June 14 and France capitulated June 22. The RAF was badly mauled in France. The RAF had depoyed 261 fighters and in only 10 days, 75 had been shot down in aerial combat or destroyed on the ground. An additional 120 could not be brought back to Britain because they were damaged or fuel was not available. [Gilbert, p. 319.] Overall the RAF lost 1,000 planes in France. Fortunately the pilots could be brought back. The losses in France were a quarter of the FAF's front-line fighter strength. The French pleaded for more, but Churchill, who had just replaced Chamberlain as prime minister, had to refuse knowing that the RAF now would be needed to protect Britain itself. French Prime Minister Reynaud resigned on June 16 and was replaced by Marshall Pétain, the hero of Verdun in World War I. Pétain immeduately asked for an armistace. France was out of the War and Britain now faced the Germans alone. The Luftwaffe command were encouraged by their success in France and many assumed that it could be repeated over Britain. The poor performance of the RAF in France was not do the quality of their planes, but rather to inferior training and tactics. The Luftwaffe concluded, however, that they could just as easily defeat the FAF over Britain. Victory in Poland and the West led the Luftwaffe high command to believe that they were invincable.

Strategy

Hitler had assumed that the Luftwaffe could force the British to capitualte or at least sue for peace. He assumed that the British would sue for peace because after the startling German victories, any other course of action seemed irrational. Hitler saw world politics in racial terms and in relatity wanted the British as allies or at least neutrals in his planned invasion of the Soviet Union. This may be why he stopped the panzers before Dunkirk, although many historians doubt this. Unlike his strategy against the Poles and Dutch, there was at first no German terror bombing of London and other British cities. Only later did Hitler turn to terror bombing to subdue the British. Thecfirst objective was to destroy the FAF and establish air supperority over the Channel Coast where an invasion could be mounted. Based on the RAF's perforamance in France, this did not seem like a difficult undertaking. Key to the German strategy was the element of surprise and destroyng RAF fighters on the ground. This had worked in the asault upon Poland and France where large numbers of planes were destroyed on the ground. It would also work against Russia. I am not sure how seriously Hitler ever considered an actual invasion. It is more likely that he thought that once the RAF was destroyed that the bombing of British cities would force the British to agree to a Vichy arrangement. Here Hitler did not fully assess Churchill, the RAF, or the British people. So confident was Hitler of success that on July 21 he told his top military commanders in great secrecy that he planned to invade the Soviet Union, perhaps motivated by Stalin's annexation of the three Baltic Republics on that day. He ordered General Enrich Marcks the next day to prepare the attack plan. [Gilbert, p. 333.]

Hitler

Hitler assumed that the British, after the fall of France would quickly fall into line. He told applauding audiences in Berlin that he saw no reason for the continuation of the War. He had achieved Germany's objectives in the West. He was prepared to allow Britain to retain its Empire. Britain was a country peopled largely by Germanic peoples which was key in the NAZI world view. For Hitler the real objective in the War was expansion east and after World War I, Hitler and other German officials wanted to avoid a two-front war. Thus it was deemed essential to take England out of the War. A compliant England would be of great advantage in his war on the Soviet Union. Hitler blamed the continuation of the War on Churchill. To a considerable extent he was correct. Many in the War Cabinent thought that Britain had no choice, but to seek accomodation with Hitler.

Churchill

Primeminister Churchill was having none of it. There was to be no British Vichy. As the British awaited the NAZI onslaught, Churchill told the British people, "What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin.... The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned upon us. Hitler knows he must break us in this island or lose the war.... If we fail, the whole world, including the United States, and all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister and perhaps more prolonged by the lights of a perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty and so bear ourselves that if the British Commonwealth and Empire last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'" It was the most inspired speech of World War II.

Opposing Forces

The advantages of the Luftwaffe are often overstated in assessments of the Battle of Britain. It is true that the Luftwaffe had a much larger force. In the key area of fighters, however, the German advantage was not so overwealming, especially given the fct that they fuel limitations allowed the German fighters relatively little time actully over Englnd. Even in bomber, the fact that he Luftwaffe was conceievd as a tacicl force meant that it had mostly medium monbers with short ranges. The key advantage held by the Luftwaffe was it had more well-trained pilots who persued superior tactical operaions. The Battle of Britain was the Luftwaffe's first encounter with a prepared opponent with modern aircraft.

The Luftwaffe

The Germans had a vast air armada to hurl at the British. The Luftwaffe deployed 2,355 planes, including 1,000 bombers and over 700 front-line fighters. It was the largest and most effctive airforce in the world. This was the force that had so frightned the British and French at Munich. The Luftwaffe had superbly trained and more experienced pilots. Their fighter pilots had a well-conceived tactical doctrine. The RAF was ill prepared for the campaign. They had been bloodied in France. The Lufwaffe had, however, severe weaknesses. It was conceived as a tactical air force and was ill equipped for a strategic bombing campaign, especially one at substantiall distances from their bases. The German air offensive was to be conducted with two engine bombers that proved highly effective in short range tactical operations, but were not well suited for longer-range strategic bombing. They also had no straegic bomber fleet with the ability to strike inforce throughout Britain. The ME-109 was, however, the preminent fighter in the opening years of the War. The British Spitfire was the first oposing fighter of comparable capabilities. The ME-109 had several advantages, including fuel injection and canon rather than machine guns. Its major disadvantage was its limited range which meant that over England it had only minutes of combat. Lufwaffe bombers had 6-7 hours of fuel bringing most British cities within range. Luftwaffe fighters, however, could only cover the bombers raiding southern England and even then only had fuel for a few minutes of aerial combat.

The Royal Air Force (RAF)

The British had a substantial fighter force--about 600. For the girst time, the Liftwaffe faced Spitfire squadrons which would hit the ME-109 fighter cover while the Huricanes poujced on the bombrs. The British were rapidly running their new Spitfire fighter off the production lines and training new pilots. The question was whether the RAF could hold out long enough for new fighter squandrons to come on line and for the new pilots to devlop the skills of the experienced Luftwaffe pilots. The planes were there, the critical British weakness was the nunber of trained pilots. British fighter pilots were discouraged from marriage. It was believed to take some of their dash away. The British also had some advantages. Fighting the battle over Britain meant that their fighters could be deployed more than once daily--as long as the pilots could hold out. It also mean that if a pilot bailed out, he was not lost to the War, but cold conceivably be up again in a day or so. In several cases shot down pilots were back in the air the same day. The major technical advantages the British held were unappreciated or unknown to the Luftwaffe. Even the highly competent Luftwaffe planners did not fully appreciated the importance of radar. Totally unknown to the Luftwaffe was the fact that the British were beginning to read some of their Enigma messages. [Davidion, p. 415.] The RAF also had some trained pilots from the occupied countries who with a fierce committment and who for the first time had modern fighter aircraft to fly. One of the most impoirtant groups was the Polish Kosciuszko Squadron. [Olson and Cloud]

Radar

A critical mistake made by the Luftwaffe was their failure to appreciate the critical importance of the British home chain radar network. The British by 1940 had constructed a network of 52 radar stations from Pembrokeshire to the Falklands. [Davidson, p. 415.] This was the beginning of the so called Battle of the Beams and it was to have a major impact on the outcome of the Battle of Britain. Radar was not unknown to the Luftwaffe, but in 1940 they failed to fully appreciate its significance. It allowed the RAF to effectively use its numerically inferrior forces to best advantage. [Brown] Without radar, the RAF would have required a much larger fighter force than it had. The British radar system, however, could only follow Lufwaffe formations before they crossed the Channel. Once inland the RAF had to rely on observers to track the German plains. The radar could identify RAF planes with IFF, but only about a third of the RAF fighters were so equipped when the battle began. The British defense was conducted from Oxbridge where the reports from the radar statins and ground observers were collected and evaluated and orders issued to RAF Fighter Command.

Ultra

The code name for the British effort to crack the German military Enigma cipher machines was called Ultra. It was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the War. It was conducted at a country estate called Blechley Park. With the help of the Poles the British began working on the Enigma code machines that the German military used for radio communications. Effctive German communications were part of the reason for the victories in Poland and France. The French General Staff for example was using messengers to communications. While effective, the use of messages sent by radio meant that German military communications were vulnerable. The German relying on their preceived notions of supperiority were convinced that their Enigma code could not be broken. The Germans did not know of the Allied success until well after the War. British code breakers at Bletchley Park faced different problems with the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, and Kriegsmarina code. The Luftwaffe code proved the easiest tio crack, primarily because flushed with sucess, the Luftwaffe was careless about following established procedures. The British suceeded in dechipering Luftwaffe messages by May 1940, although regular and timely decoding was not possible until the end of the year. (I have noted different assessments as to how useful Ultra was during the Battle of Britain.) Working with uncoded German radio messages also provided valuable information. This provided valuable intercepts with infornmation on force strength and targetting was available to the RAF. Dechipering Naval messages proved more challenging, but they were also eventually cracked and played a major role in the defeat of the U-boat campaign in the North Atlantic.

Commanders

The RAF

The RAF in the Battle of Britain was in the hands of competent military commanders. Fighter Command was commanded by tactiturn Scottsman Air Chief Hugh Caswall Tremenheere Dowding. He had enraged Churchill when he resisted demands to commit more RAF fighter wings to France. He was, however, a visionary proponent of all metal fighters, radar, and centarl operational control of Fighter Command. His principal tactic in the Battle of Britain was to husband FAF fighter strength. In this he was spported by New Zealander Air Vice-Marshall Keith Park, commander of 11 Group over southeast England. Leigh-Mallory, commander of 12 Group over the Midland dissented, arguing for "big wing" attacks on the Germans.

Luftwaffe

The Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain was commanded by a politican with little real professional military training. The Luftwaffe commander was Herman Goering for whom Hitler had created the unprecedented rank of Reich Marshall. Goering was one of the most powerful men in Germany. He was the Prime Minister of Prussia and held important posts in the Gestapo and economic planning. He was a noted fighter ace during World War I. He was appointed ro replace Von Rictoffen when he was killed. Goering never rose above the level of an excepional pilot, but was put in charge of the new Luftwaffe after the NAZI's seized power. He was not, however, a competent military planner, although he thought he understood modern air warfare. Like Hitler, he believed that terror bombing could subdue the British. After the fall of France he busied himself with stealing art work from terrorized Jews and museums.

British Aircraft Production

Luftwaffe planners had no inkling that the British by the time they launched the Battle of Britain were actually outproducing Germany in aircraft production as well as receiving aircraft from America. The Munich debacle had convinced the British that they had to produce an air force that could face the Lufwaffe. As a result, the British had greatly expanded production. The British by 1940 were not only producing fighters like the Spitfire that were as good as the German fighters, but thy had begun producing long-range bombers. The British had begun to construct a strategic bomber force--a force the vaunted Luftwaffe lacked. For the BritishThis ws a fact that would become increasingly clear to the Germans as the War progressed. For the British in the the Battle of Britain the question was not adequate numbers of aircraft--but sufficent trained pilots to fly the planes and engage the well-trained and experienced Luftwafe pilots.

Phases of the Battle

After the fall of France, Hitler expected the British to make peace. Whn they did not he ordered an invasion of Britain preceeded by an air campaign to establish air superority needed to cover he Channel crossing. The Luftwaffe quickly established bases in France and by July 10 launched preliminary strikes in what has come to be called the Battle of Britain. The Luftwaffe wih a series of syccessful campaigns was confident of victory. The Luftwaffe while better trained and outnumbering the RAF was ill prepared for the campaign. The Battle of Britain began in earnest on July 10 and reached intensive levels on August 13 with Luftwaffe raids on British airfields and aircraft factories. Hitler had assumed that the Luftwaffe could force the British to capitualte. The Luftwaffe im its August campaign seriously weakened the RAF and Fighter Command was having increasing difficulty maintaining its forward air bases in Kent. Then off-course German bombers accidentally bomb London on August 23-24. RAF Bomber Command on August 25-26 mounted a small reprisal raid against Berlin. Hitler is furious and orders an immediate change in Luftwaffe tactics. Rather than completing its offensive against the RAF infrastructure, Hitler ordered a "blitz" on British cities which began in earnest on September 7. The Luftwaffe wreaked havoc on civilians in London and major English cities. An estimated 42,000 civilians were killed. Thousands of civilians were killed. White British cities burned, the RAF was given a respite, allowing its forward air bases to recover from the damage done in August. As a result the RAF was able to mount increasingly costly attacks on the German bomber fleets. The Lutwaffe eventually is forced to shift to nightime raids. Night bombing made it impossible to hit actually military and industrial targets, only cities could be targetted. The British were battered, but held.

The Children's War

A HBC reader tells us, "I visited the Imperial War Museum in London during June 2005. They had a fascinating exhibition called ‘The Children’s War’. This is my recollection of the themes the exhibition dealt with. For children in Britain September 1939 was a warm sunny month. It was the end of the summer and the start of things to come. Sunday September 3 was the start of the Second World War. Most families were at home that Sunday listening to the radio. They were listening to the voice of Neville Chamberlain, the then British Prime Minister; tell the nation that Britain was at war with NAZI Germany. The War would last until 1945 but nobody knew that then. In the Second World War, British children found that they were in the front line of the war. They had to endure nightly bombing raids in which their homes were destroyed, family members and neighbours injured or killed. The first big trauma for children though was being evacuation from manufacturing towns and cities.

Operation Sea Lion

The Germans were confident that the vaunted Luftwaffe would quickly establish air superirity in the skies over southern England. The Germans gave the cross-Channel invasion the code name Opration Sea Lion. Historians debate the German intentions. Some believe that Hitler was just attempting to cow the British. he Germans asembled 2,000 vessels for the invasion. Most were river barges, hastily converted for a beach landing by having the bows cut off and and landing ramp installed.

British Pacifism

There has always been a strong pacifist element within the British political left. Pacifist activists in 1932 had erected an Anti-War Memorial monument, at Woodford Green, in Essex. It was shaped rather like a bomb. It was meant to memorialize the words of a British delegate at the League of Nations who had spoken against the banning of aerial warfare, on the grounds that Britain needed to bomb rebels on the North-West frontier of India, to keep the "tribesmen in order". The Woodford Green memorial bore the sarcastic inscription, "To those who, in 1932, upheld the right to use bombing planes". [Pankhurst] After the bombing of London, however, it would be years before British pacifists were able to again find their voice.

Outcome

Even after Hitler turned to terror bombing, at the worst of the Blitz--British morale and society never came close to collapsing. The Battle had, however, very significan consequences affecting the outcome of World War II.
Civilian casualties: The Luftwaffe killed over 40,000 Britains in the first 9 months of bombing--the peak of the Blitz. This was actually less than a tenth of the casualties that the Air Ministry had anticipated.
Lufwaffe losses: The Luftwaffe had suffered significant casulties for the first time, but they had not been so damaged that their effectiveness was seriously compromised for the upcoming campaign against Russia. The losses did mean, however, that the Luftwaffe did not have the full capabilities that German military commanders had anticipated.
Air campaign: More importantly the German failure to subdue Britain left a mortal foe that would serve as unsinkable aircraft carrier in the North Sea that would in 1942 provide an base for the greatest air campaign in history aimed at the heart of Germany. The intensity of the Blitz had removed the moral qualms about strategic vombing in Britain as well as cured the British of their timidity in the phase of the War. The British were now determined to answer the Germans in kind and then some and fight the next air campaign over Gernman cities. A new commander for Britain's Bomber Command--Bomber Harris set out to do just that. Also in 1942, with the entry of America into the War, the Amerivan 8th Air Force begin to arrive in Britain and would join the air war over Germany in 1943.
D-day: Britain's survival meant that in 1942 with the entry of America that a torrent of men and material flooded Britain to prepare for the invasion of Hitler's "Fortress Europe". Britain in 1944 was to be the launching pad for the D-Day invasion and the liberation of Europe.

Scientific and Industrial Struggle

The Battle of Britain was the first major camapign fought in the air. Very small numbers of combatants were involved. For Hitler and the NAZIs, World War II was a struggle of races and people. The victories in Poland and the West were used by NAZI propaganda as evidence that the Germans were a superior people, both in figting spirit and in scienfic skill. Many Germans actually believed the NAZI racial ideology. The Battle of Britain was the first major defeat of Hitler and NAZI Germany. The fact that the Battle of Britain was more than anything other previous battle a struggle of scientic and technical skills should have indicated to the Germans that the technical gap they enjoyed against Poland and even France was closing. One often overlooked aspect of the Battle of Britain was that by June 1940, the British were producing more fighters than the Germans. The immediate impact was limited because the Luftwaffe began the campaign with such a superority in planes. This is significant because the Germans were soon to take on the Soviets and Americans and would be overwealmed by the torrent of production by these two great industrial powers. Despite the closing technical and production gap, Hitler's response to defeat in the skies over Britain was to proceed with what he had wanted from the beginning, finally attack the Soviet Union.

Tactical Assessment

The Luftwaffe's original tactic seems well conceived and obtainable, target RAF airfields and establish air superiority over southeastern England to support an anphibious invasion. Hitler and Göring's decession to shift the battle to London and other cities in effect took the battle beyond the capability of the Luftwaffe. Hitler's focus was on terror and disctruction. He had no real concept of waaging a strategic bombing campaign. Here the Allies with a much greater bombing force were unable to seriously disrupt German industrial production until the final year of the War. Here even the British and Americans which had two decades to work out aerial strategy were unprepared for strategic bombing until well into the War. The Luftwaffe as a service when the War broke out was less than 4 years old. At the time of the Battle of Britain, not only did the Luftwaffe not have a strategic bombing force, no one, neither the Germans or Allies, knew how to conduct an effective strategic bombing campaign. [Rumpf, 41.]

Importance

The Battle of Britain was compared to other campaigns a rather small operation, but in many ways the key battle of World War II. The significance of the Battle of Britain was at the time was not fully appreciated. Even after the success of the RAF in staving off invation, Hitler still controlled virtually all of Western Europe and it was the startling German successes that still dominated headlines. Britain continued to be bombed and soon the Wehrmacht would launch the titalic struggle with the Soviet Union with another series of spectacular successes. The Luftwaffe was bloodied over Britain, but not seriously damaged. What did occur was the Germans experienced not only superiot tactics, but for the first time an opponent was able to match German technology. Even more importantly, the British scored a not fully appreciated stategic victory. Hitler's strategy was based on destroying his opponents quickly before they could unite and produce modern armaments. He succed with Poland, France, and the small countries of Western Europe (Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxenburg). Brtains's survival meant that it would not be a short war, but a longer struggle in which superior Allied resources could gradually be brought to force on Germany. The failure to defeat Britain meant that he would have a dangerous enemy in the west when he launched his invasion of the Soviet Union. It also mean that America would have time to rearm and a key ally when it entered the war. If Britain had fallen, not only could Germany focused the full force of its arms on a single ememu, but America would have had no Euroean bases from which it could strike at Germany.

Operation Barbarossa (June 1941)

The Luftwaffe eventually ended the major offensive against the British as the German military in 1941 began preparing for Opperation Barbarossa, Hitler's long awaited dream of invading the Soviet Union. Stalin's Soviet Union was at the time was a virtual German ally. The Soviet dictator had been warned of the impending German invsion, but he refused to believe the clear indicators of an impending attack. Hitler had always warned about the dangers of a two-front war. In the end his hatred of Communism and his desire for Lebesraum outweiged his caution. In addition, the cost of maintaining the huge German military machine forced his hand. He justified the invasion cliaming that the British woul hold out as long of the possibility of a Russian alliance existed and that defeating Russia was necessary to force the British to sue for peace. The Battle of Britain has seriously weaked the Luftwaffe substantailly reducing both the number of conbat planes and air crews that they were able to marshall for the invasion.

Modern Britain

Churchill after the fall of France called the Battle of Britain and the decession to fight the NAZIs alone was Britain's "finest hour". Those of us who admire the British can not but agree. Many at the time, including many on both sides of the Atlantic, were doubtful of Britain's chance of prevailing against the vaunted NAZI Luftwaffe. Altough the NAZOs remained in control of Europe, Britain's victory was critical for two reasons. First the NAZI's with limited resources could prevail only if the War was a short stryggle. The British victory had the impact of prolonging the War. Second, NAZI victories were premised on superior technology and tactical doctrine. The British victory showed that other countries were capable of building modern aircraft and implementing effective tactics. Although not apparent at the time, the battle was a major turning pont in the War. It was also the only major battle that Britain won largely on her own against the Germans. Today the Battle has become an important part of the British national story. Churchill said after the battle that "Never have so much been owed by so many to so few." That was true, but without the determination of the British people to see the War through, even the bravery of the RAF would not have been enough. The bravery of the RAF flyers and British civilians, including the evacuated children has been the subject of countless books and films as well as other tributes that can be found throughout Britain.

Sources

Brophy, John.

Brown, Louis. A Radar History of World War II (IOP Publishing, 1999).

Davidson, Eugene. The Unmaking of Adolf Hitler (Univesity of Missouri: Columbia, 1996), 519p.

Fest, Joachim C. Hitler (Vintage Books: New York, 1974), 844p.

Gilbert, Martin. A History of the Twentieth Century Vol. 2 1933-54 (William Morrow and Company, Inc.: New York, 1998), 1050p.

Pankhurst, Richard. "Ethiopia's Image Abroad: Ethiopian Place-Names and Statues in Britain Rasselas and Aida".

Olson, Lynne and Stanley Cloud. A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II (Knopf, 2003).

Rumpf, Hans. Trans. Edward Fitzgerald. The Bombing of Germany (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962), 256p.

Webs, H.G. The Outline of History: The Hole Story of Man (Doubleday & Company: Ne York, 1971), 1103p.

Created: August 22, 2002
Last updated: 5:01 PM 10/4/2005