Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton KCB ADC BSc FRAeS CCMI RAF, Chief of the Air Staff

The Battle of Britain was that rarest of events, a battle named before it had begun and commemorated almost before it was over. Seventy years on, the importance of it shows no sign of lessening. Rather the opposite: hardly a year goes by without the publication of some new perspective on the events of 1940.

Reviewing great events of the past is part of the historian’s invaluable business and the summer of 1940 certainly saw an epic clash. Given Germany’s naval weakness it was only through the exercise of air power that the Nazis could bring pressure to bear and either force Britain to make peace, or bypass Britain’s sea power and mount an invasion. Whichever of these paths Hitler took, air superiority over southern England and the Channel was the prerequisite. By denying that supremacy, the Royal Air Force saved Britain and ultimately laid the foundation to free Europe from the scourge of Nazism.

In this truly epic struggle, Fighter Command bore the brunt of the fighting. The Battle was won as much by technology as in the air: through the devoted efforts of ground crew, the men and women who operated Radio Direction Finding (RDF – the original name for radar) stations, operations rooms and airfields, and the work of the Observer Corps.

Yet Fighter Command did not fight alone. Coastal Command ceaselessly patrolled the approaches to our shores and the sea-lanes beyond, and photographed German activity day by day. At large cost, Bomber Command attacked and sank some 10 per cent of Germany’s invasion shipping and harassed the Luftwaffe’s aerodromes. Training Command, the aircraft industry and the civilian repair facilities provided a steady stream of pilots and aircraft to replace the often heavy losses. Medical staff cared for those injured or dying. On the ground, Anti-Aircraft and Balloon Commands played an important part, while anti-invasion preparations of huge variety and extent were put in place.

In national memory the heartland of the Battle of Britain lies somewhere in south-east England, less a specific area than a network of neighbourhoods: the Weald, the Medway towns, downland, dockland, Kentish orchards, London’s approaches, ‘Hellfire corner’ in east Kent.

During the Battle of Britain the front line was everywhere and involved everyone – Glasgow as well as Croydon, Swansea as much as Plymouth, deep countryside as well as smoky cities. By the Battle’s end, indeed, the number of civilian casualties far outnumbered those of the airmen who had been defending them.

The airmen prepared to fight tyranny in a just cause were by no means all British; in all about one-fifth of them were from countries in the Commonwealth and Occupied Europe, or neutral nations. They hailed from New Zealand, Canada, Australia, South Africa and other Commonwealth Nations, as well as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, France, the United States and Ireland.

It is with a sense of sorrow that we find that so many of the ‘Few’ died during the Battle, and that of those still living in November 1940, close on half did not survive to see the final victory for which they fought.

For their bravery and sacrifice in defence of our freedom, we will never forget them – indeed, we will remember them.

Note: The above text is attributable to ACM Sir Stephen Dalton, Chief of the Air Staff.

Photography: RAF/MOD/Crown Copyright.