Most of you probably know that I am a huge fan of World War II. Ever since my parents started telling me about it when I was 6 (and I learned that my dad was in it), I’ve read hundreds of books, millions of words, and watched every movie I could find on the subject (of which there have been many).
Needless to say, I’m terribly proud of our fighting men in that war. The Army, Navy, Air Force (okay, Army Air Corps), and Marines. Some of the battles they fought were about as dramatic as warfare can get. Midway. Guadalcanal. Tarawa. Saipan. Iwo Jima. The Philippines. Okinawa…and that’s just the Pacific war. The European war was much more complex, but the battles were equally spectacular.
So, as a proud American who wasn’t even born until 3 years after it ended, I salute all those American fighting men and women for their accomplishments.
But…probably the single most critical battle of WWII in Europe was fought more than a year BEFORE the United States became involved, and it was at least equal in drama and desperation to any battle that followed. I believe it was the single most important air battle in history, because if the good guys had lost, the USA alone would never have been able to win that war.
I’m talking about the Battle of Britain. You’ve all heard of it, but do you realize how critical that battle was? It lasted from the middle of July to the end of October, 1940. Three and a half months; Hitler wanted to invade Britain, but the Royal Air Force had to be eliminated first. The German Luftwaffe tried very hard to eliminate it, but ultimately failed. A few hundred young pilots, mostly English but also a few Polish, French, Norwegians, Anzacs, and even a Yank or three, climbed into their cockpits every day and rose to meet the waves of bombers and fighters that crossed the English Channel from France, first to destroy RAF installations, and later to blast London into rubble.
Wave after wave, sometimes four or five waves in a day. The Germans had lots of planes and pilots (at least for a while), but the Brits were running on a shoestring, working overtime to replace lost planes and train new pilots. British production managed to keep up, but barely; every time the Germans were sure the RAF was finished, they arrived over England to find fresh squadrons waiting for them. Thanks to a new technology called Radar, the Brits knew when the Germans were coming, from which direction, how high, and how fast. They could estimate the size of the attacking squadrons, and by the time the Germans reached the coast, British Spitfires were already circling above them, waiting to pounce.
The Germans, flying over hostile territory, lost every pilot who was shot down, either to death or capture. Many young British pilots were also shot down and killed, but those who survived returned to the fight, often later the same day. Those young men dragged themselves into their cockpits day after day, hour after hour, often with no sleep, not enough food, and no time off. They had to fight or die, but it was England they were dedicated to protect, and protect it they did. Their actions inspired Prime Minister Winston Churchill to say of them, “Never in the field of human conflict was SO MUCH owed by SO MANY to SO FEW.”
And he was right. But that “so many” includes not only the British people, it also includes the entire Western world. All Americans, Canadians, Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders, India, and all of Europe owe an unpayable debt to those few hundred young pilots. They not only saved Britain, they saved us all. They saved the entire world. If they had lost, Hitler would have invaded Britain and, even though Britain might still have won, the ultimate outcome might have been much worse than it was.
In all likelihood, if Hitler had actually invaded Britain, it seems unlikely he would have invaded Russia; and if he did, it would have been much later, possibly years later, which would have spelled disaster for the Allies—it was the Russians who tied the Nazis down and killed them wholesale while America geared up for war, but Stalin would likely never have attacked Hitler on his own. It was Hitler’s stupidity that led to the invasion of the USSR, and that was his ultimate undoing. He did it in 1941 precisely because the Battle of Britain had thwarted his schedule, so he moved up his timetable.
And the rest is history.
So…the next time you hear about “The Blitz” or the Battle of Britain, take a moment and give thanks to those young men, most of them now either dead or in their 90s, who gave their everything to win the most dramatic air battle of all times. Without them, the world would be a very much worse place now.
Private Thoughts 