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Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – Where are Replacements to be Found?

August 4, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history, people by Editor

3 August 1940 During the first phase of the air battle in July, Dowding’s Fighter Command, although desperately short of pilots, had beaten the tide. By 3 August 1940, Dowding had 708 aircraft and 1,434 pilots, as against 587 aircraft and 1,253 pilots on 30 June. Time, however, was not working in his favour. Dowding [...]

Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – Aces Meet

July 25, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, Spitfire Mk. I, history, people by Editor

24 July 1940 Margate was a seaside town which for over a century had attracted crowds of Londoners by its wide beaches and amusement facilities. In the morning of 24 July 1940, the weather was still cloudy with patches of rain, but the veil of fog which during previous days had covered the gray shallow waters of the Thames Estuary was finally dispersed by light wind. This day, Margate seaside promenade would provide [...]

Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – Death of the Defiant

July 23, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, Defiant, history by Editor

19 June 1940 In the early afternoon hours of 19 June, No. 141 Squadron was sent out from Hawkinge to intercept a formation of German Bf 110s which were reported to dive-bomb shipping over the Channel. Unusually for this very wet July, the day was bright and perfectly clear, with no clouds in sight and [...]

Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – “Sparta had Weapons”

July 22, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history by Editor

22 July 1940 One of the legends of the Battle of Britain is that of the Home Guard – “Dads’ Army”, a force of volunteers which played crucial role in keeping the country’s morale and vigilance in the times of crisis. The story of the Home Guard started on the evening of 14 May 1940, [...]

Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – The Czechs

July 16, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, Hurricane, history by Editor

12-16 July 1940 At Duxford, the largest and best equipped RAF station in No. 12 Group, the Czechs arrived. A new fighter squadron was to be formed entirely with foreign personnel. The Royal Air Force needed as many trained aircrew as it could muster. No. 310 (Czechoslovak) Squadron, as the new unit was to be [...]

Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – “I’ve Never Seen Anything So Good as This”

July 14, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history, people by Editor

13-14 June On these days, one could sit all day on top of the medieval walls of the Dover Castle and watch the steam ships slowly passing through the Straits of Dover. It was said that on a clear day, a sharp-eyed spectator armed with binoculars could read the clock on a belfry in Calais. [...]

Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – Has it Started Yet?

July 12, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history by Editor

10-11 July 1940 10 July 1940 is today recognized as the date when the Battle of Britain officially began. Or did it? Looking through yesterday’s press news commemorating its 70th Anniversary, I was amused to see the variety of interpretations of what actually happened on that day. “On this day in 1940, the Germans begin the [...]

Stories of the Battle of Britain – A Hole in the Sleeve

July 6, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, Spitfire Mk. I, Variants & Technology, history by Editor

5 July 1940. About the rise of heavily-armed fighters and the difficult development of a cannon-armed Spitfire.

Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – The Tomato Raid

July 1, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history by Editor

28 June – 3 July 1940 On the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey,  warm breeze was announcing the usual onset of summer.  The potato season finished early that year and many of the farmers were busy trimming the thick hedgerows along the roads in preparation for the year’s first Visite de Branchage – wayside [...]

Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – The Great Escapes

June 23, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history, people by Editor

19-23 June 1940 British evacuation from the continent was finally complete and, overall, a success: some 144,000 returned to UK. Left behind in France were aviators and air force personnel of the subdued nations – Poles, Czechs, Belgians, Dutch. Up until the Armistice they were considered as friends and potential combatants alongside the French Army. Now [...]

Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – Prelude to the Blitz

June 22, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, Spitfire Mk. I, history by Editor

19 June 1940 19 June was the day when, for the first time since the beginning of German offensive in the West, Luftwaffe bombers appeared in force over Britain. During the Phoney War, the auxiliary Spitfire fighter squadrons based in Scotland saw more action than any other units within Fighter Command, either in the UK [...]

Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – “We’re in the finals!”

June 18, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history by Editor

18 June 1940 The French had surrendered. The newly appointed French Prime Minister Philippe Pétain had broadcast that “with a broken heart” he requested Armistice on the previous night. In London there was considerable excitement over the news, and people everywhere were heard discussing it. Novelist George Orwell noted that there was such a rush [...]

Stories of the Battle of Britain 1940 – Lancastria

June 18, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history by Editor

17 June 1940 At about seven o’clock in the morning of 17 June, the ground personnel of No. 73 Squadron embarked on a boat in Saint Nazaire harbour. The area was crowded with British troops – the remnants of the British Expeditionary Force in France. This force still counted tens of thousands of men, including [...]

This Week in the Battle of Britain 1940 – The Last Hurricanes in France

June 17, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history by Editor

14-18 June 1940 After the order of final withdrawal, Dowding’s last remaining units in France, Nos. 1, 73 and 501 Squadrons together with other surviving RAF contingent were heading for home. It is perhaps not widely known that the RAF continued to operate from French bases for a considerable period after the evacuation of the main [...]

This Week in the Battle of Britain 1940 – Preparing for Armaggedon

June 15, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history by Editor

14 June 1940 In France, chaos was increasing with every hour. Paris fell, and RAF gave order to its remaning squadrons on the continent to withdraw immediately. But over the Kent countryside, still distant from the turmoil of war, nothing was breaking the quiet atmosphere of a warm early summer. The sun stood high over [...]

This Week in the Battle of Britain 1940 – “The Two Dictators Have United”

June 13, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history by Editor

11 June 1940. Clement Attlee holding the position of Lord Privy Seal addressed the House of Commons explaining the British government’s position on the events of the week.

This Week in the Battle of Britain 1940 – Mussolini’s Junk War

June 12, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history, people by Editor

10-24 June 1940 On 10 June there was no longer any hope of defending the French capital. Paris was declared an open city, and the French Government fled to Bordeaux. On the same day, Italy declared war on France and Britain. Easily perceived as an act of loyalty to the 1939 Pact of Steel with [...]

This Week in the Battle of Britain 1940 – HMS Glorious and the Fate of No. 46 Squadron

June 10, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history, vessels by Editor

8 June 1940. Aircraft carrier HMS Glorious was sunk by the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off Norwegian Coast. Another RAF fighter squadron lost.

This Week in the Battle of Britain 1940 – Dunkirk Over: Triumph or Defeat?

June 6, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history by Editor

6 June 1940

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This Week in the Battle of Britain 1940 – “We Shall Fight Them on the Beaches”

June 5, 2010 in 1940, Battle of Britain, history, people by Editor

4 June 1940

On this day, 70 years ago at 3:40pm, Churchill rose in the House of Commons to report on current war situation. His long speech of that moment would go to history as one of his best: the “We shall fight them on the beaches” speech.

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