BATTLE OF BRITAIN REMEMBERED

SEPTEMBER 15 has been designated as the date to remember the Battle of Britain when actually the battle went from July 10 to October 31,1940.

Combat between the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe had been sporadic until May 20, 1940. On that date the German invasion of the Netherlands, France and Belgium brought the RAF and the Luftwaffe into violent conflict. By the time France fell to Germany on June 22, 1940, the British had lost l,019 aircraft and l,500 air crew, many of whom were Canadian.

Sent aloft two or three times a day, the pace was tortuous for both men and aircraft. The unsung heroes during this phase and for the remainder of the Battle were the ground crews who worked tirelessly to refuel, rearm and maintain enough planes to keep the Canadians in the fight. Three members of the No. l Royal Canadian Air Force Squadron were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for their accomplishments.

Pilots from Canada, Poland, New Zealand, Czechoslovakia, Ireland, Australia, Belgium, South Africans, French, and Americans became part of the British Air Force. Canada provided pilots and ground crew and by the end of the Battle of Britain 47 brave Canadians had paid the supreme sacrifice.

The names of the pilots are inscribed in a Memorial Book which rests in the Battle of Britain Chapel in Westminster Abbey. It also has a stained glass window which contains the badges of the Fighter Squadrons which operated and the flags of the Nations which the pilot and crews belonged.

In Winston Churchill’s famous speech after Hitler conquered France he said “I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of the Christian civilization. Upon it depends our British life and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must soon be turned on us.

Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad sunlit uplands. But if we fail the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of a perverted science.

Let us, therefore, brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say “this was their finest hour.”

It is not enough to just REMEMBER them but to teach all future generations of what has gone before. This history is NOT being taught in schools so it is up to you as parents and grandparents to let your children know of the sacrifices of past generations.