identical airplanes against an enemy who operated a similar system in its air force. Some of their names are legendâGinger Lacey, Peter Townsend, Josef Frantisek, Al Deere, Douglas Bader, Richard Hillary, Stanford Tuck, Johnnie Johnson, Pat Hughes, Sammy Allard, Adolph âSailorâ Malan, John Kent, J. C. Mungo-Park, âKill âemâ Gillam, Michael Crossleyâwhile others are proud names on a stone memorial or a part of family history. More than 500 RAF fighter pilots were killed in their tubes of aluminium, but many more were wounded, some crippled, some disfigured terriblyfrom burns. Those who survived continued flying, through a further four and a half years of world war. There were 791 fewer at the end of that.
The successful and the unsuccessful, the brave and the fearful, Dowding and Park, the pilots, the ground crews, the radar plotters and the observers, the controllers, Beaverbrook, those who flew all the sorties and those who flew only one: they all played their part in the victory over evil.
For if the battle of Britain had been lost and the United Kingdom invaded, Europe would not have been liberated from Nazism. The German death camps would have multiplied, Russia would have been defeated, Japan would have conquered Asia and India, and all the commonwealth and empire countries would have fallen to the Nazis and Japan. As Churchill warned in 1940, a new dark age would have fallen upon the world.
Bless âem all.
Recommended
The Last Enemy by Richard Hillary
Leader of the Few: The Authorised Biography of Air Chief Marshal the Lord Dowding by Basil Collier
Dowding and the Battle of Britain by Robert Wright
Duel of Eagles: The Struggle for the Skies from the First World War to the Battle of Britain by Peter Townsend
One of the Few by John Kent
Film: Battle of Britain
The Royal Air Force Church, Saint Clement Danes, the Strand, London
The Battle of Britain Memorial, Runnymede, River Thames, U.K.
The Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon, Middlesex, U.K.
The surviving inns and pubs in Kent, Sussex, and Essex with pilotsâ signatures and messages preserved on their ceilings and walls
The Magna Carta Barons
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.
âArticle 39
T wo of the sons of Henry II would become king after him. Richard I was the older brother. He was a famous warrior and is better known as âthe Lion-Hearted.â He fought constantly to retake Jerusalem for Christianity and after becoming king in 1189 spent only seven months of his ten-year rule at home. In his absence, his younger brother, John, ruled as regent. When Richard was captured by the Holy Roman Emperor, John wrote a letter offering to pay £60,000 to have Richard quietly disappear. Instead, the emperor ransomed Richard back to England for £100,000âat that time, more than twice the annual income of the country. Their mother organized the ransom. Churches were ransacked for silver and gold, and rich and poor were taxed for a quarter of everything they owned. When Richard returned home, John begged him for mercy and Richard forgave him, where any other king would have had him beheaded for treason. Richard had unfinished battles in Jerusalem, and he knew there was a good chance he would die there.
Copyright © 2009 by Graeme Neil Reid
In 1199, when the news came that Richard the Lion-Hearted had been killed in a siege, John had himself crowned king of England. The one danger to his new position was the line of his older brother Geoffrey. Though Geoffrey had died, his young son, Arthur, had a strong claim to the throne. The boy was in France when John became king and was barely twelve years old, but John feared he would one day become a threat.
The successful and the unsuccessful, the brave and the fearful, Dowding and Park, the pilots, the ground crews, the radar plotters and the observers, the controllers, Beaverbrook, those who flew all the sorties and those who flew only one: they all played their part in the victory over evil.
For if the battle of Britain had been lost and the United Kingdom invaded, Europe would not have been liberated from Nazism. The German death camps would have multiplied, Russia would have been defeated, Japan would have conquered Asia and India, and all the commonwealth and empire countries would have fallen to the Nazis and Japan. As Churchill warned in 1940, a new dark age would have fallen upon the world.
Bless âem all.
Recommended
The Last Enemy by Richard Hillary
Leader of the Few: The Authorised Biography of Air Chief Marshal the Lord Dowding by Basil Collier
Dowding and the Battle of Britain by Robert Wright
Duel of Eagles: The Struggle for the Skies from the First World War to the Battle of Britain by Peter Townsend
One of the Few by John Kent
Film: Battle of Britain
The Royal Air Force Church, Saint Clement Danes, the Strand, London
The Battle of Britain Memorial, Runnymede, River Thames, U.K.
The Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon, Middlesex, U.K.
The surviving inns and pubs in Kent, Sussex, and Essex with pilotsâ signatures and messages preserved on their ceilings and walls
The Magna Carta Barons
No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his peers or by the law of the land.
âArticle 39
T wo of the sons of Henry II would become king after him. Richard I was the older brother. He was a famous warrior and is better known as âthe Lion-Hearted.â He fought constantly to retake Jerusalem for Christianity and after becoming king in 1189 spent only seven months of his ten-year rule at home. In his absence, his younger brother, John, ruled as regent. When Richard was captured by the Holy Roman Emperor, John wrote a letter offering to pay £60,000 to have Richard quietly disappear. Instead, the emperor ransomed Richard back to England for £100,000âat that time, more than twice the annual income of the country. Their mother organized the ransom. Churches were ransacked for silver and gold, and rich and poor were taxed for a quarter of everything they owned. When Richard returned home, John begged him for mercy and Richard forgave him, where any other king would have had him beheaded for treason. Richard had unfinished battles in Jerusalem, and he knew there was a good chance he would die there.
Copyright © 2009 by Graeme Neil Reid
In 1199, when the news came that Richard the Lion-Hearted had been killed in a siege, John had himself crowned king of England. The one danger to his new position was the line of his older brother Geoffrey. Though Geoffrey had died, his young son, Arthur, had a strong claim to the throne. The boy was in France when John became king and was barely twelve years old, but John feared he would one day become a threat.
Similar Books
