Battle of Britain

The summer time of 1940 saw World War II come to the English skies as the Royal Air Force bravely stand up to the endless attacks of Hitler’s Luftwaffe. Following a period of time identified as the ‘Phoney War’, Hitler had instructed his army to invade other European countries and there was limited opposition in Belgium, Netherlands and France.

Operation Dynamo had seen around 300,000 men of the BEF plucked to safety by a flotilla of boats who made journey over from England to Dunkirk over a number of days. So now Hitler had his sights on England. The white cliffs of Dover were clearly in view as the German High Command looked past the English Channel from Calais.

Even so, until such time as the skies over England were under German control, Hitler wasn’t able to authorise Operation Sealion – the invasion of Great Britain. With America being unwilling to join the war at this stage and her Allies overcome, United Kingdom would have to face the Germans on it’s own.

Could Britian hold on until the autumn when the weather would hold off the Germans from crossing the Channel? British destiny lay in the hands of the bold pilots of the RAF, “The Few” as Churchill later referred to them. It was not exclusively British pilots in the RAF, the Commonwealth was represented with pilots from quite a few colonial outposts like as South Africa and Rhodesia and as well Poles and even a few Americans.

Hitler despatched the Luftwaffe over to hammer UK into submission but crucially, their fighter escorts only had the fuel for a few minutes combat before they would have to go back leaving the bombers unprotected. For the very first time, the Luftwaffe were up against firm resistance and there was to be no repeat of their quick victories on the Continent. Britain’s airfields in the south east were being dealt a hammering till one night in August 1940, a German aircraft got lost and dropped its bombs over London before heading home. In retaliation, the RAF launched an air raid on Berlin.

Hitler was furious and instructed his bombers to attack London and not the RAF airfields. This was a vital turning point as it offered the Royal Air Force some much called for relief. The German Air Force was unable to gain the initiative at any point and in the middle of September, Hitler indefinitely postponed Operation Sealion. The immediate risk of attack was gone and Churchill spoke of the contribution of Fighter Command in a widely known speech “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few”.

The foremost fighter ace was Sgt Frantisek from the Czech Republic with a score of seventeen kills. He piloted a Hawker Hurricane which was the true workhorse of Fighter Command even if everybody remembers the legendary Spitfire. Sgt Frantisek was killed in action in October 1940.

The Battle of Britain was the first occasion the Germans had experienced a miltary defeat during World War II.