Battle Of Britain Day

[BobKowalski]

The stylised pictures of the era are so much better than selfies of today - I suppose it was the fact that film and development costs meant you had to pose and make the shot count - no looking at it and thinking "nah delete. Hey lads - up against the plane again a minute eh? And Carneby...do that 1000yd stare into the distance that you do so well".

Carneby definitely has that ‘look’ down to a fine art :)

Funnily enough I had to google him after seeing this, really brought it home, made it more personal. Blokes from all walks of life doing their bit and thank god they did.

 

[Two Gun Bob]

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old, Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning We will remember them.

 

[bluethrunthru]

Not just the pilots who won it either - ground crew - my uncle Ray's Dad was ground crew with Coastal Command. Suffered terrible PTSD and took his own life in the 50's and my Dads aunt was a plotter - sadly by the time I kind of realised she was suffering dementia so I never got any detail just family hearsay as to where she served.

The Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF) and the Battle of Britain | Military History Matters

The Women's Auxillary Air Force demonstrated Incredible strength and bravery and proved absolutely vital to British victory in the Battle of Britain.

www.military-history.org

 

[bluethrunthru]

Bravest of the brave....life expectancies of those Who served up there was shocking , tragic that we missed out on the 75th anniversary this year hopefully we’ll go all out and celebrate and remember the fallen in 2025 for the 80th anniversary . ( and in-between) .

You also need to see the same for like Bomber Command and the USSAF Bomber fleet and even the German U-Boat flotilla - lots of young men went into branches of services on both sides where the odds were mightily stacked against them - read Spike Milligans war diaries - comical but there is a dark tone beneath them of death and anguish - and he was in a "safer" branch of the war as it were. In bombers - our and US they tended to have a tour of duty that if you survived you were stood down but statistically you wouldn't survive a tour.....

 

[KS55]

Such an enormous weight to be placed on their shoulders;

"Save the world..." even if they didn't know it at the time.

Because without the victory in the Battle of Britain, there would be no second front to relieve the Soviets. There would have been no D-Day, no liberation of 'Fortress Europa'.

I'm in absolute awe of everyone who was involved with the effort.

Not only that, but Hitler's invasion of Britain would only have been possible with air supremacy. The battle of Britain ensured that we did not have to 'fight them on the beaches.'

 

[Ancient Citizen]

At one stage of the Battle, life expectancy averaged 2 weeks. 19 year old lads, with a few hours flying training making 4/5 sorties a day, were the first to go, on average, those who survived becoming experienced very quickly.
Interesting about the choice of fighters, Douglas Bader swore by the Hurricane, which was capable of taking a lot of punishment, but Spitfires terrified a lot of the Luftwaffe.

 

[Man_City_Loyal]

Enjoyed the itv program with David Jason last night on BoB and with the RAF.