RAF 9: RAF Fighter Command 1940
The Battle of Britain was fought between 10 July – 31 October 1940. The Blitz on Britain went on for five more years, with attacks levelling off when Nazi Germany invaded Russia in Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941. At this point, the United States was still not an active belligerent, but had become the Arsenal of Democracy. We see exactly the same role today as the people of Ukraine withstand the brutal invasion of their country, Ukraine, by Russia.
Had it not been for Air Chief Marshal Dowding, Commander in Chief Fighter Command, it is conceivable that the outcome might have been dreadfully different. Dowding was not intimidated by those in very high command. His famous letter to the prime minister, Winston Churchill, advising him not only to not give in to French demands to commit all of the fighter squadrons to France, but that if the prime minister failed to follow his advice, the consequences of that failure, well even today, causes a cold shudder. Fortunately, Churchill followed that advice, and by doing so, gave Dowding the squadrons that would have to meet what, in Churchill’s own words in a BBC broadcast … What General Weygand has called the Battle of France, is over … … I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin.
When I heard that broadcast for the first time in the 1950s it truly did put the fear of God in me. My parents explained the effect it had upon them too when they were 12 and 13.
I will never forget it. …the Battle of France is over … … and then what seemed to be an endless moment of terror and foreboding, Churchill continued I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin.
Eleven words, sixteen syllables that in the original broadcast seemed to be sixteen steps down into the very bowels of the earth.
Five enigmatic views of Britain in 1940 and the official military portrait of the man commanding Britain’s Fighter Defences.
The London Capital, defiant, forbidding, unwelcoming to the invader.
High above the clouds, a squadron of Hawker Hurricanes, the dread of Luftwaffe crews. To the horror of German pilots, RAF pilots were uncivilised! They flew head-on, full frontal attacks.
Well, that is what you do when the peace and freedom of your country are invaded.
Without the grace and beauty to the eye of the Supermarine Spitfire, nevertheless, more Hurricanes formed the order of battle each day. Their payload was frightening, the men who flew them, ruthless, and no less so than the women pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary who delivered Hurricanes and Spitfires, with no protection, to RAF Stations, often flying below or around the endless Dogfights high over Britain.
Then a glimpse of the type of patterns being formed in the skies high above Big Ben, London. This is what the children look on from the safety of their open trench.
The same lines traced over Southampton, Plymouth, Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight, Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester and all our east coast ports, cities and towns.
Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, Air-Officer-Commanding-in-Chief Fighter Command.
He it was who defied Churchill, and persuaded the prime minister to cease sending squadrons to France when, alas, the outcome and the Fall of France was inevitable. Dowding paid the price though. It is what happens in the corridors of government far removed and out of touch with the people who elected them to high office.
The last image is Castle Street junction with Lord Street, Liverpool, the city that took care of me for so many years (2003-2017).
It took me a while to recognise the skyline, and then following the overhead tramline cables defiantly remaining in place and taking my eye line round the corner … Good God! That’s where I sit enjoying coffee opposite the Victoria Memorial on the corner from Castle Street into Lord Street …
They remind us all, the free world over, of what the People of Ukraine are going through, and moreover what they are doing on our behalf.
I will be blunt.
If we fail to back them to the hilt, then we shall have far more to worry about than Food Banks and the Cost of Living Crisis.
That man in the Kremlin with that man in Beijing is intent on world domination, the construction of a new world order … …
What?
You can’t see what I’m saying?
Imagine if Adolf Hitler had won.
20 August 2023
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by Kenneth Webb
