Battle of Britain V.C and The Bar to the V.C

[Seaspriter]

The Battle of Britain is still considered one of the dramatic "victories" in western history. When one considers the odds: outnumbered 2 to 1 (about 4000 German planes to about 2000 British planes), Churchill was certainly correct to say so much was owed to so few. The heroism of the British, aided by Canadian, American, Czech, Australian, French and other pilots, was incredible. About 20% of all the RAF was comprised on pilots from other countries.

I seem to recall that by the end of September, 1940, when Hitler and Goering realized they could not win, they had lost half of their air force. But, if I recall correctly, at the rate of attrition, Britain could have lasted only another couple of weeks before it had run out of pilots and planes. That's the power of resolve -- Hitler figured (wrongly) that Britain could be brought into submission in 4 weeks, then he could romp over Russian equally quickly. Glad the monster goofed; glad we had heroes to protect us from monsters.