The intense aerial struggle that took place in the skies over southern England during the high summer and early autumn of 1940 - now immortalised in the nation's history as the Battle of Britain - was primarily a triumph for the RAF Fighter Command. In the four months that the battle raged, a total of 3,080 pilots - for the most part eager young men - fought a daily contest of wits, skill and matchless courage with an equally skilled and determined opponent, the Luftwaffe. For the Germans it was simply another stage in their fanatical leader's grandiose plan of world domination. For the RAF the conflict was a desperate defence of its homeland and heritage.
By June 1940, the remnants of the RAF in France had found their way back to England. At Fighter Command's headquarters at Bently Priory, Stanmore, Air Chief Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding was already preparing for the inevitable aerial onslaught against Britain by the Luftwaffe. His task appeared hopeless. The German military machine now occupied countries in a semi-circle around Britain's east and south coasts, stretching from Norway to western France. All were potential springboards for an intensive bombing assault on the United Kingdom. Intelligence reports gave the Luftwaffe's estimated strength as well over 2,000 operationally fit aircraft, some 60 per cent of which were bombers. Against this array, Dowding could only produce about 1,200 trained pilots and just over 800 aircraft - of which less than 600 aeroplanes were considered first-line machines. Fighter aircraft production was already receiving top priority, but trained pilots were in desperately short supply.
Operations against England were started by the Luftwaffe on the night of June 5-6, a modest bombing raid against airfields near the east coast. They became more intensive in late June with a series of daylight attacks against Allied merchant shipping in the English Channel. Fighter Command was forced to retaliate in some strength, and the consequent clashes gave the confident Luftwaffe its first inkling of the fierce defence they were to encounter during the coming months. Flying some 600 sorties each day, the RAF fighter pilots became accustomed to the sight of layer upon layer of black-crossed opponents, odds never before met in the history of air warfare. The young pilots of the RAF began flying four or five sorties each day, desperately flinging themselves against formations of 100 or more Luftwaffe bombers, heavily escorted by jagdstaffeln (fighter units) of Messerschmitt Bf109's and Bf110's. It soon became a policy to 'ignore' the fighter escorts and concentrate on downing the bombers wherever humanly possible. The strain on the Spitfire and Hurricane pilots mounted swiftly, with physical and mental limits being reached within weeks of such continuous combat.
The preliminary month of fighting - from July 10 to August 10 - resulted in the loss of 227 Luftwaffe aircraft against RAF losses of 96. These figures did not account for the many other German bombers which returned to their French airfields bullet-riven, seriously damaged, and often bearing dead or seriously wounded crews. What such figures do reveal is the determination, skill and valour of the fighter pilots in tackling frightening odds and winning the battle of attrition in the air. Principal targets for the Luftwaffe in the early days were the RAF fighter bases, but fortunately the Luftwaffe's intelligence wasn't particularly good and lacked precise information as to which were the key RAF bases. Though most airfields received raids of high intensity during August and September, a great deal of German effort was spent on bombing minor, even relatively unimportant targets, leaving Fighter Command to continue the fight, if only with slender ground organisations intact.
In the 14 days from August 24 to September 6, the main period of assault against Fighter Command airfields, the RAF lost 103 pilots killed and 128 seriously injured, with an overall loss of 466 Spitfires and Hurricanes. The grim pace of the endless fighting was taking a stark toll of Fighter Command machines and, more importantly, pilots. Exhausted and depleted squadrons were being continually rotated with ostensibly 'fresh' squadrons from the quieter sectors in the north, but the limits of human endurance were approaching fast. Then, fortuitously for Fighter Command, Goering ordered a complete switch in tactical objectives. From September 7 all efforts were to be chanelled into devastating London by day and night. In fact London had already received isolated raids, but this new directive provided a measure of relief to the hard-hit Fighter Command operational structure, though only a modicum of ease to the pilots who were now called upon to defend the nation's capital.
One major reason for this new decision was the depradation being caused by the squadrons of RAF Bomber Command, who, almost nightly, were raiding French ports and even Berlin itself. Hitler's avowed intention to invade Britain still held, and during late August and early September many French and Dutch porta were filling with a host of invasion barges intended to convey the landing forces. 'Operation Sea Lion' - the code name for the invasion, had been set for September 15, on the assumption that Goering's boast that his Luftwaffe would crush the RAF would be implemented. Phot reconnaisance by the RAF revealed the gradual build-up of the invasion fleet and Bomber Command set out to nullify the threat. Night after night Hampdens, Whitleys and Wellingtons unloaded their bombs over the tightly packed barge concentrations, creating havoc.
Sunday, September 15 - the date originally planned for Germany's invasion of Britain, now postponed - saw the air struggle reach its peak. Throughout the day the Luftwaffe despatched hundreds of bombers in wave after wave, protected above by Messerschmitt Bf109 fighters, all heading for London. Their crews were under the illusion, prompted by faulty German intelligence, that RAF Fighter Command was virtually a non-effective force by now. This illusion was cruelly shattered when the Luftwaffe neared London. Throughout the afternoon more than 300 Hurricanes and Spitfires hacked the unwieldy bomber formations to shreds, taking a bloody toll in the process. By evening 56 German bombers had been destroyed, while several dozen others had wearily limped back to their bases, nursing dead engines, dangling undercarriages, bullet-riven fuselages, and dead or dying crew members. From London to the Channel, the afternoon was a constant battle scene, with RAF fighters and their opponents weaving fantastic contrail patterns of grim beauty in the cloudless blue skies. No German formation remained unmolested; few German machines were left totally unscathed. The cost to the RAF was 26 pilots killed. At the end of the day the jubilant RAF pilots totted up their claims, and a figure of 185 German aircraft brought down was eventually announced, a tally understandably overestimated in the heat of fierce combat. Whatever the true figure, it was undeniably Fighter Command's greatest single day of success, despite the five-to-one odds encountered. This date remains today as Battle of Britain Rememberance Day, on which annual commemorations are made in tribute to the fighter pilots of 1940.
During the rest of September the assault on London continued by day and night, but with gradually reducing impact. The pace of air fighting remained as fierce as before, but the transition from day to night bombing - necessitated mainly by weather conditions as autumn gave way to winter - brought little relief to the beleaguered citizens of London and its suburbs. During September Luftwaffe bombers dropped just over 7,000 tons of high explosive and incendiary bombs on the capital. This figure increased to more than 9,000 tons in the month of October. By November, however, the threat of invasion had finally receded. Indeed, Hitler himself cancelled Operation Sea Lion on October 12. The 'thin blue line' of Dowding's fighter pilots had convincingly quashed any hope of a German occupation of Britain forever. In achieving this they had suffered apalling losses. Of the 3,080 pilots who flew at some period of the battle, 481 had been killed, captured or were in unknown graves, while a further 422 had been wounded or seriously injured. Of the survivors, more than 800 were to die in action during the remaining war years. Beyond these tragic statistics were the many pilots whose potential future greatness, skill and experience was to be denied Fighter Command during the subsequent years of combat. From the battle rose many of the RAF's most prominent leaders of the war - 'Sailor' Malan, Roland Tuck, Douglas Bader; Max Aitken - the list is long. And it should never be forgotten that nearly 500 of Dowding's pilots were not British, but had come from every corner of the world to join the fight against Nazism - from Poland, France, Belgium, Canada, New Zealand, Czechoslovakia, South Africa, Rhodesia, Australia, Jamaica, Palestine, Ireland and the USA. It must remain a simple fact that the Battle of Britain was not won solely in the air. Many thousands of men and women on the ground, each in their own manner, had contributed to the final victory. Yet their collective endeavours and sacrifices were towards one purpose - support and implicit faith in the handful of young men who daily placed their lives in jeopardy to preserve their homeland and inheritance. It is to those men that the accolade of posterity must be given. As Winston Churchill said in one of his most famous speeches on August 20, 1940: 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few'.