“Their Finest Hour”
In the summer of 1940, the Royal Air Force (RAF) fought off Hitler’s air force and helped prevent a Nazi invasion of Great Britain.
After conquering France and forcing the British army to retreat across the English Channel, Adolf Hitler planned to invade Great Britain. To make invasion possible, the German Air Force (Luftwaffe) began unrelenting attacks on British targets in July 1940. RAF Fighter Command bore the brunt of the battle and the responsibility for stopping the Luftwaffe.
The RAF suffered great losses but blunted the German attacks and survived. British forces skillfully organized radar, fighters, bombers, thousands of volunteer aircraft spotters, antiaircraft defenses, and tightly organized communications in a complex network.
By mid-September, it became clear that Nazi air power could not defeat the RAF, and that invasion was impossible. The RAF had won a defensive victory that made the later 1944 invasion of Europe possible.
Acknowledging the RAF’s heroics, Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously said that “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” He called the Battle of Britain “their finest hour.”
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