TFH 9/15: The Royal Air Force

What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. -- Winston Churchill, June 18, 1940.

Throughout the summer of 1940, the Battle of Britain raged over the skies of our mother nation. Hitler's goal was to destroy what remained of Britain's defenses after the disaster in France, particularly the Royal Air Force.

On September 15, 1940, Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe launched a massive air attack on London with the goal of drawing out the fighters of the Royal Air Force, destroying them, and establishing air superiority over the British Isles in preparation for invasion.

1,120 Nazi aircraft - 500 bombers and 620 escorting fighters - stormed the skies. All that stood before them were 630 fighters of the RAF's Fighter Command.

These were the days of Britain standing alone - and they stood valiantly. The brave pilots of the RAF beat back  the Nazi assault, and convinced Hitler that the invasion of Britain - Operation Sealion - was impossible.

The gallantry of the RAF was not lost on Churchill. On August 20, 1940 he delivered one of his most famous speeches, "The Few":

The great air battle which has been in progress over this Island for the last few weeks has recently attained a high intensity. It is too soon to attempt to assign limits either to its scale or to its duration. ...

The enemy is, of course, far more numerous that we are. But our new production [of aircraft] already, as I am advised, largely exceeds his [Hitler's], and the American production is only just beginning to flow in....We believe that we shall be able to continue the air struggle indefinitely...

The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

This day is celebrated as Battle of Britain Day in our mother nation, and we cheer all those who defended the skies against tyranny throughout the air battle. A finest hour indeed!