All language subtitles for greatest.events.of.world.war.ii.in.hd.colour.s01e02.1080p.web.x264-stout-eng

The fate of Western Europe
hangs in the balance.

Wave after wave of Nazi bombers
head for London.

Hitler believes
Britain is on its knees.

Intelligence reports
were coming through

that the British must be down
to their last 200 fighters.

The RAF scramble
every available fighter

to defend the capital city.

It will be a battle to the death.

You had to be a killer.

You had to have that killer instinct.

You open fire at 200 yards,

by the time you've finished,
you were breaking away at 50 feet.

If the Nazis defeat the RAF…

a seaborne invasion
of the British Isles can begin.

The Battle of Britain is one
of the most heroic clashes

of World War II.

Now, rare footage from around the world,
expertly restored in full color,

tells the story
as you've never seen it before.

10th May 1940.

Hitler shocks the world
by launching blitzkrieg attacks

against the Netherlands,
Belgium, and France.

Mobile panzer divisions
sweep all before them…

with close aerial support
from the German Air Force,

the Luftwaffe.

The Luftwaffe is seen very much
as the kind of spearhead of blitzkrieg.

Psychologically, it seems all powerful.

There are Stukas that dive down
with banshee wailing sirens,

bringing terror and mayhem.

As the crisis unfolds,

Winston Churchill is appointed
British Prime Minister.

British troops sent to France to protect
their last remaining ally in Europe

are forced into a humiliating retreat.

The shock of the defeat
is absolutely enormous,

and the British Expeditionary Force
finds itself cornered

against the one surviving channel port,
which is Dunkirk.

Despite a miraculous evacuation…

the German war machine
appears unstoppable.

Britain and her empire stand alone
against Hitler's armies.

But Hitler, long an admirer of Britain,
is unsure about a potential invasion.

The Nazis, I think, were astonished

to have taken France
as quickly as they did.

It kind of left Hitler with a problem:
what to do next.

Hitler's long-term plan was always
to go after the Soviet Union.

He was quite happy
to make peace with Britain.

Effectively, he would be offering
the British immunity from invasion.

Some members
of Churchill's war cabinet

continued to push for a deal with Hitler.

But the Prime Minister stands firm.

Churchill refused to negotiate.

He refused to parley.
"I will not talk to that man," he said.

Churchill's attitude to Hitler
is that once you open the door,

even just a crack,
it then blows wide open.

Let's just step back,

get over the shock
of this terrible defeat that's happened.

The battle of France is over.

I expect that the Battle of Britain
is about to begin.

Hitler knows that he will have
to break us in this island

or lose the war.

One thing Churchill understood
about the British people

is that they were quite sleepy
by disposition.

And not only did Churchill
galvanize everybody,

he kept alive the threat of invasion.

We shall fight on the beaches.

We shall fight on the landing grounds.

We shall fight in the fields…

and in the streets.
We shall fight in the hills.

We shall never surrender.

Churchill's genius in 1940
was that he first persuaded

the British people that they could
do something amazing,

and then persuaded them afterwards
that they had done something amazing.

Churchill's priority
is to stop an invasion.

With France now under German control,

his immediate concern
is that the German Navy

will soon have the large French fleet
at their disposal.

So he reluctantly instructs the Royal Navy
to sink the main French fleet,

anchored on the coast of Algeria.

One thousand three hundred
French servicemen are killed.

Churchill calls the attack
on a former ally

his most hateful decision.

But the French fleet can play no part
in a German invasion.

Hitler is undeterred.

For Hitler,
the army is absolutely everything.

He completely fails to realize
that the senior service in Great Britain

is not the air force or the army,
it's the Royal Navy.

He doesn't understand his enemy.

But the attack sends a clear message.

Britain is prepared to fight.

Hitler's hopes for a deal
now seem unlikely.

He knows that Churchill won't negotiate,

unless he thinks a German invasion
is a real possibility.

And while the Royal Navy
controls the seas,

Hitler's air force controls the skies.

The all-conquering Luftwaffe
can attack naval convoys in the channel…

crippling Britain's supply lines

and drawing out the enemy air force,
the RAF.

The Luftwaffe was probably
the most formidable air force

in the world at the time.

It outnumbered the RAF in terms
of frontline strength by about two to one.

Air fields are hastily
constructed in France

to launch medium-range German bombers.

They will be protected
by fighter planes…

including the formidable
Messerschmitt 109.

The Messerschmitt 109,

the single engine fighter plane
is, without question,

the best in the world
in the summer of 1940.

It can climb faster than any other plane.

When it gets into the battle area,
it can pack a bigger punch.

It's got 55 seconds worth
of machine gun fire,

and it's got cannons as well.

Luftwaffe commander-in-chief,
Hermann Göring,

orders his forces to close the channel
to British shipping.

The flamboyant Göring
is a former World War I fighter ace…

and arguably,
the closest person to Hitler.

He also has notorious taste
for the finer things in life.

Göring is the one Nazi
who really enjoys the trappings of power.

While he should have been really focusing
on the job in hand,

he's wandering around art galleries
buying up art.

Göring promises Hitler
that in just four days,

his air fleets will overcome
British defenses in the South,

and destroy the entire RAF
in four weeks.

The Germans were enormously arrogant.

They simply believed
that if they threw an air force

as strong as theirs,

Britain was going to be destroyed
by a single knockout blow.

10th July 1940.

Fighting over the channel
reaches a new intensity,

when 60 German bombers
attack a large convoy in The Channel.

The Battle of Britain has begun.

But as the British ships come into view,

the pilots see something
none of them were expecting.

Five squadrons
of the RAF's Fighter Command

are already there to meet them.

It was as if the British
had known they were coming.

Leading the head-on charge
is the one plane

that the Luftwaffe pilots fear…

Supermarine Spitfire.

The Spitfire was something
which the Germans had only experienced

as a combat adversary over Dunkirk,

where it came as a bit of a shock
because for the first time,

this was a fighter capable of meeting
the Messerschmitt 109E

on relatively equal terms.

The Spitfire was a glamorous aircraft.

It has a beauty and a charisma,
and it caught everybody's imagination.

The German bombers sink
one solitary British ship…

but lose ten aircraft.

The Luftwaffe have learned
an important lesson.

But Göring's intelligence services
don't want to hear it.

The person running
the Air Force Intelligence Agency

was a man called Beppo Schmid.

He ignored the defense system

which was crucial in enabling Britain
to defend itself from the air.

He started to encourage the belief
that the Luftwaffe could win.

Schmid tells Göring
that the Luftwaffe's fighters

are superior to Britain's
and they can produce them quicker.

Schmid's biggest problem

was that he essentially
was always telling Göring,

what Göring wanted to hear.

He wasn't really interested
in finding out the truth.

Basically, he just concocts
a crock of lies.

It is all based on the flimsiest
of intelligence.

And the picture that Beppo Schmid
presents to Göring

is one that is entirely inaccurate.

Göring's conviction
that the Luftwaffe can defeat the RAF…

plays a key part in Hitler's decision
to intensify the threat of occupation.

On 16th July, Hitler issued a directive
to start Operation Sea Lion.

To begin preparations,
and if necessary, to carry out

an invasion across the channel
of the British Isles.

He said that he was preparing this

because the British were failing
to come to terms.

Germany prepares for invasion.

River barges mass on the French coast.

They are converted into landing craft
that will transport

nearly half a million men
across The Channel.

Paratroopers start training
for air drops on key targets.

But Hitler is still hoping that Churchill
will come to his senses

and sue for peace.

On 19th July, Hitler warns Britain
to negotiate or meet the consequences.

Hitler said: "Make peace with me
and everything will be fine between us.

You've been very foolish, Britain,
to come up against me.

When I went after Poland,
it was really nothing to do with you.

You didn't have to come after me."

Within an hour
of the end of the speech,

the offer is rejected by Britain.

It's clear to Hitler
that Churchill has to learn

just how real the German threat is.

Shortly afterwards,
Hitler issued another directive

asking the Luftwaffe to intensify
the air war against Britain

in order to gain air superiority
over the landing beaches

and to make the threat of Sea Lion
that much more credible.

Hitler says
Britain's position is hopeless.

The war is won. By us.

August 1940.

Hitler tells Göring to lay the groundwork

for the total destruction
of Britain's fighter defenses.

An operation they codename,
Eagle Day.

The Luftwaffe is to bomb RAF airfields
southeast of London.

Over half of all RAF Fighter Command's
planes are based there.

On August 13th, Eagle Day dawns.

Within hours surely,
the RAF Fighter Command's ability

to resist the Luftwaffe
will be destroyed.

Eagle Day is a series
of massed attacks on key airfields

in 11 Group in the South of England.

Multiple waves of bombers,
designed to knock out

Fighter Command's ability
to continue to generate sorties

in the Far Southeast,
to then slowly roll the RAF

further and further inland,

so that the Luftwaffe could establish
their superiority over the channel.

But reports come through
of bad weather ahead.

Göring decides to postpone the attack.

On Eagle Day, some people
got the order to cancel and turn back.

Some people got the order
to cancel too late

and some people never got it at all.

The final order to launch it
in earnest only went out

at about two o'clock in the afternoon.

As the German bombers arrive
at the British coast,

the response from the RAF fighters
is swift, deadly

and a total shock
to the incoming Luftwaffe.

This wasn't the easy victory
Hitler had been promised.

Forty-seven German planes are shot down

and 86 pilots killed, missing
or captured.

The losses on Eagle Day

amounted to something that was rather
chastening for the Luftwaffe.

The dive bombers, which had appeared
to be invincible in France,

were in fact, extremely vulnerable

when subjected to the attentions
of coherent fighter defense.

Are you all right?
Did you get any of the blighters?

Yes, I got a Messerschmitt 109
and a Dornier.

The Germans had been
dangerously over confident.

Each of the armed services had been told
to prepare for the occupation, separately.

What's the Luftwaffe's plans?

"Well, Luft plans are, we're just
gonna destroy the RAF."

You know, there's no sense
of co-ordination whatsoever.

Hitler is in the Alps. I mean,
that's sort of… that's like Churchill

going to a sort of mountain
retreat in Scotland

while all this is going on.
It's spectacularly unhelpful.

It's just arrogant.

And it completely reveals
his total inability

to understand his enemy.

The Germans are also unaware

that the British have developed
sophisticated advanced warnings,

known as the Dowding system.

Stuffy Dowding is
the Commander in Chief of Fighter Command.

It is he who has overseen
the development of this

fully coordinated air defense system.

The world has just not seen anything
like this before.

At the heart of the defenses
is Chain Home,

twenty-one 360-foot radar masts
on the southern and eastern coasts,

that can detect aircraft
up to 120 miles away.

If German planes fly below their sights,

thirty smaller masts known
as Chain Home Low will spot them.

Principles of radar were well understood

by the Germans who had radar of their own.

What they did not understand

was the way in which radar
had been embodied

in an air defense system.

Once German planes
are within sight of Britain,

thirty thousand volunteers
man observation posts day and night…

Sighting enemy aircraft over the channel,
flying due west.

…tracking and reporting enemy raids.

Radar can give you warning of a formation,
but it can't give you any sense

of height or size,
so then that's supplemented

by the observer corps
who have interlocking posts

all around the coast of Britain
and inland.

They had a pair of binoculars

and this piece of equipment
called a pantograph

which looks a bit like a giant sextant.

And that would give them
rough bearing, distance and height

for the formations they were looking at.

In fact, reports of enemy raids
arrive at Fighter Command headquarters

in under 40 seconds.

The heart of this is the filter room
and the control room at Bentley Priory.

Bentley Priory is the headquarters
of RAF Fighter Command.

The filter room is what filters
the information

coming from the radar stations only.

The control room is the co-ordination
of that information

from the filter room,
from the radar station

and what is coming in
from the observer corp.

The Luftwaffe have no idea
that the RAF know they are coming,

from the moment they're airborne
above Northern France.

Hostile two, four, sugar.

And their up-to-the-minute positions

are being fed directly to Fighter Command.

The British response in the Southeast

is under the command of one man…

Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park.

While the early German attacks
had multiple leaders,

Park alone commands the 30 squadrons
scattered across the Southeast.

As Eagle Day progresses,

some German bombers inevitably
get through this defensive shield.

And several RAF airfields
in Park's 11 Group are hit.

But the planned knockout
of the RAF on Eagle Day…

turns into a drubbing for the Luftwaffe.

Compared to the 47 German losses,

the RAF lose just 13 fighters
in aerial combat.

But Beppo Schmid gives Göring
vastly inflated RAF losses,

claiming the Luftwaffe have downed
70 British planes.

Part of the problem clearly
was the intelligence

that was going back to Göring.

Our old friend, Beppo Schmid, again,
he was giving wildly inaccurate reports.

Göring wasn't getting a real picture
of what was going on.

Schmid also underestimates the speed

with which the RAF
can repair planes and runways.

Engineers rush to get damaged aircraft
back in the air.

Bomb craters in runways
are quickly filled in.

Most RAF bases are fully operational
again within 24 hours.

And British fighter planes
are being built faster than ever.

Aircraft production
has been revamped,

and it's now working round the clock,
uh, it has been streamlined.

In July 1940,
Ministry of Aircraft Production

produces 496 brand new
Spitfires and Hurricanes,

whereas the Luftwaffe only produce 240
brand new Messerschmitt 109's.

Lord Beaverbrook,
British minister of aircraft production,

introduces the Spitfire fund…

to raise money to build a plane
the nation could rally behind.

The public wanted to give money,

and not just in Britain, in…
All around the Commonwealth,

all around the world even,
people wanted to donate

to create more of these beautiful objects.

And because the aerial battles
are now over British soil,

the RAF had another distinct advantage
over the Luftwaffe.

Whilst Eagle Day
does significant damage,

the numbers of aircraft lost on the ground
doesn't translate into losses of pilots.

Those pilots, bit shaken
but unless they are badly wounded

they'll just go straight back
to the squadron

and be flying again even the next day,
with a new aircraft.

Valuable trained men
were saved and ready to fight again,

but the crews of Göring's planes
were lost to him forever.

For every aircraft lost
for the Luftwaffe,

they tend to be a total loss
of both crew and aircraft.

Those pilots were often
quite a valuable source of intelligence.

Air crew are interrogated,

and downed German planes
comprehensively investigated.

On one Heinkel bomber, they find
the code word "Knickebein"

written on a note.

Secretly recorded conversations
reveal captured airmen

using the same phrase.

They learn that Knickebein,
or "crooked leg" in English,

is a radio communications system

that allows bomber pilots
to navigate in the dark.

It's an ominous development.

The Germans are planning
to bomb Britain at night.

The Knickebein system transmitted
a series of dots and dashes.

The pilots flew a center path
between the two beams of dots and dashes.

So he knew that was the course to follow
without having to recourse to maps.

No one ever thought the Germans
would be developing a system

where you could actually
navigate at night.

There is a whole battle,
a technological, scientific battle,

that is running concurrently
with the main battle of Britain.

This is about night bombing
rather than daylight bombing.

Fighter Command's
entire defense strategy

relies on spotters and pilots
having clear sight of the enemy.

If the Germans start bombing at night,

British cities and industry
will be practically defenseless.

Meanwhile, Göring has finally
awoken to the reality

that the southeast of England
is extremely well protected.

So, he changes strategy.

Perhaps, the rest of Britain
will be more vulnerable.

On 15th August,
they launched a maximum effort.

It was pretty obvious that the south
of England was strongly defended

but it wasn't at all clear
that the north would be.

The main raid went in over Yorkshire.

It was Heinkel 111s

escorted by the BF 110
twin-engine fighter.

Over 2,000 Luftwaffe sorties
are launched across Britain.

But Göring learns another painful lesson.

This time, 75 German planes
are shot out of the sky.

The Luftwaffe call it "Black Thursday,"

Churchill, one of the greatest days
in history.

The Dowding System is just as strong
in the North as it is in the South.

It is at that point that the Germans
discovered that the radar system

went all the way around the coast

and that they weren't just facing 11 Group
and 10 Group

but there was 12 Group in the Midlands,
and 13 Group in the North and Scotland.

Göring's feared Stuka dive bombers

suffered the biggest losses.

So, he changed his plans once again.

The reason Stukas are getting decimated
is because Stukas only work

when you have complete control
of the airspace.

So, Göring started tinkering with tanks
and saying to his fighter planes,

you know, "You need to close escort
the bombers.

You need to do more escort work."

Which means there's more work
for the fighters to do,

um, and also negates
some of their strength.

This deprived them
of their main advantage

which was speed and surprise.

Instead of cruising around
at 300 miles an hour plus,

and therefore, almost by default
having the advantage

over the RAF fighters at the start
of any engagement,

the 109s were now tied down
at about 200 and 250 miles an hour,

next to the bombers, at lower altitude.

This was a huge mistake
on the part of Göring.

The RAF losses 32 fighters
on August 15th.

Planes and airfields
can be easily repaired.

But the mental strain is mounting
on pilots on both sides.

Life for the average RAF pilot
during August,

is this sort of schizophrenic existence.

When they're on duty, they'll fly
anywhere up to five or six trips a day.

They're incredibly intense.

This kind of intense combat.

And then, within half an hour,
they're back down

sitting around dispersal,
completely exhausted.

The youngest Spitfire pilot
to fight in the Battle of Britain,

Geoffrey Wellum,
has his fighter training cut short,

so he can join the war effort.

Within ten-and-a-half months
of leaving the cloistered existence

of a boarding school, I found myself
in the frontline Spitfire Squadron.

There was a lot of just sitting around
and dozing or waiting.

The tension of waiting in dispersal
was something I shall never forget.

The moment the bell rang, you sort of…

tensed up.

You've clambered into your Spitfire.
Once you're in the Spitfire,

and you could feel the engine vibrations
beneath your seat, you know,

it was up to you, then.

But once again,
British airmen have the upper hand

over Luftwaffe pilots.

To be an airman in the Royal Air Force
was a glamorous thing.

To be a pilot was still more glamorous.
And to be a fighter pilot,

was absolutely at the top
of the glamor tree.

One in five fighter pilots
actually came from overseas.

You had French, you had Belgians,
and you had a lot of Poles.

They would go drinking at night,
they would come home, two hours sleep,

and off they would go and fly.

A British pilot would go
down to the local pub,

and they'd be welcomed as heroes,

whereas the German pilots,
they just have to keep at it all the time.

In the evening, they're expected
to discuss tactics, write up reports.

If they do get a little bit time off
to go to a local bar,

they got a French barman
kind of, eyeing them up suspiciously.

There's no pat on the back.

So, from a morale point of view,
it is much tougher for the Luftwaffe.

On August 16th,
the Battle of Britain

finally sees the Luftwaffe score
some successes.

Radar picks up mass Luftwaffe formations
crossing The Channel

heading for the South Coast.

Eighty-four Stuka dive bombers,

protected by a staggering 214
Messerschmitt 109s

and 43 Messerschmitt 110s
are heading to Southampton.

Eight British squadrons intercept raids
on Portsmouth and Lee-on-Solent.

But Göring's new tactics work.

The RAF are overwhelmed
by the fighter escorts,

leaving the Stuka bombers
to wreak havoc.

Chain Home radar mast
at Ventnor on the Isle of Wight,

is hit by 22 bombs.

It will be out of action
for over a month.

A major Luftwaffe success.

And the RAF airbase of Tangmere
is badly hit.

Ten servicemen are killed
and hangars wrecked.

US airman, Billy Fiske,
engages with the Luftwaffe,

is hit and his fuel tank catches fire.

He survives but later succumbs
to his injuries.

This becomes the first official
American casualty of World War II.

There are signs
that the Luftwaffe is learning

how to bypass the RAF defenses.

One of the successes
that the Luftwaffe had

was not by weight of bombs
but by stealth.

Flying underneath the radar screen

proves to be more destructive
than some of these large ones

going in at medium altitude.

Then losses continue to mount.

On Sunday 18th August,

the date the RAF would later dub
their hardest day,

Winston Churchill rallies the nation.

Never in the field of human conflict

was so much owed by so many to so few.

The few were the RAF pilots

desperately fighting off
the planned German invasion.

Most important were those
with five or more kills to their name…

the Aces.

The Aces were very important men

because they shot down a wholly
disproportionate number of aircraft.

People who were very good shots,

who are willing to get
fantastically close,

many of them Poles and Czechs,
did brilliantly.

What is striking is the novice pilots.

Many of them went through the battle
without hitting anything.

You needed to have
those fantastic reflexes,

you needed to be willing
to get phenomenally close.

You had to be a killer.
You had to have that killer instinct.

It was all about getting your man
in the back.

Playing a very dirty game.

A lot of RAF fighters were shot down.

They never saw the aircraft
shooting at them.

They were shut down by these 109s
that were on free hunt

ahead of the bomber stream,
trying to catch the RAF fighters

as they came up
towards the incoming bombers.

Eighty percent plus of pilots
who were shot down

never saw the enemy
who were shooting at them.

The answer was never to stay still,

have a quick squirt, and then get out.

There was always the other bloke
that was gonna get killed, not you.

Despite the heroics of the RAF,

Hitler's Operation Sea Lion,
the invasion of Britain

is still planned for mid-September.

With no real intelligence,
Göring doesn't realize

how successful
his recent raids have been,

and he unnecessarily changes tactics.

The one thing they don't seem
to be well aware of,

is that they were actually
doing very well

when they were bombing the airfields.
They were making real inroads.

They were coming quite close
to 11 Group

as the group defending southeast England,
having to move out of southeast England.

But they didn't realize they'd done that.

Göring tells his exhausted pilots

to begin night bombing raids
using the Knickebein system

when RAF fighter wouldn't be around
to intercept them.

The plan now is to bomb Britain
round the clock

until Churchill submits.

Hitler had forbidden
any direct attacks on London.

This, he said, was a political act

and he wanted a decision to attack London
to be his alone.

However, one night in August,
some Luftwaffe bombers

who were trying to bomb
the old refinery at Thames Haven,

missed the target and actually
the bombs dropped on the East End.

Homes are devastated
and nine civilians die.

Whether accidental or intentional,

the raid gives Churchill the opportunity
to take the battle to the enemy.

For Churchill,
this is a fantastic opportunity.

This gives him the excuse to do
what he's been wanting to do,

urging the war cabinet
to approve for a long time,

which is to attack Berlin.

And that was a bit of a problem

because Berlin
was at the very limit of the range

of any bomber that the RAF had
at the time.

The first night raid
by British bombers on Berlin

is unsuccessful.

But days later,
eight German civilians are killed.

Yet this relatively small number

has an enormous impact on Germany.

This is a great shock
for German psychology.

Suddenly, the war is coming to them
in Germany, even in Berlin.

And it's a humiliation for Göring.
And Hitler, of course, is furious.

The narrative of the Battle of Britain

is all about Fighter Command
but actually, Bomber Command

is in operation pretty much
every single day.

They're targeting the new
German airfields in Northern France.

The Germans are being bombed
by the British every day

up in the Pas-de-Calais.

But it's the bombing of Berlin
that really unsettles the Nazis.

Hitler was at his Eagle's Nest
in the mountains at the time.

He was informed and he said,
"Right, they're hitting Berlin.

We will hit them back."

Hitler's concept was,
rather than destroy the RAF,

we will destroy the British will
to carry on.

Therefore, we'll start bombing
their cities.

If we change our tactics
to night operations

using Knickebein
when the RAF are helpless,

they won't be able to find
our bombers at night.

Hitler believes the devastation
his bombers can drop on London

will turn the population
against the stubborn Churchill.

On September 4th,
he delivers a terrifying message

at the Sportpalast in Berlin.

"If the British attack our cities,
we will wipe out theirs."

When Göring arrives on the French coast
for the very first time,

it signals an ominous shift in tactics.

On the morning of September 7th,
the Luftwaffe assembled

more than 700 aircraft
and they set off in a great wedge.

September 7th was an incredible day
for Londoners.

Terrifying, of course but, you know,

the sight of this massive air fleet
coming up the Thames,

unlike what they'd grown used to
in the previous month.

This huge raid wasn't splitting up
and going after the various airfields.

It just kept going into London.

By 4:30 p.m.,

all 21 squadrons protecting London,
take to the skies.

They've never seen an attack
on this scale before.

Dogfights ensure
over the Thames Estuary…

with over 1,000 aircraft involved.

Luftwaffe bombers
then return at night,

just as they will do for all but one
of the next 57 nights.

The Blitz has begun.

London goes up in flames.

Londoners everywhere
witness scenes like these

throughout the night.

The people there bear the brunt
of Nazi ferocity.

The London Docks
is the most important

economic trading center in the world.

And there were enormous stockpiles

of all sorts of goods
from around the world.

Things in particular like timber,
molasses, all very flammable.

So, for example the timber fire
at Surrey Docks

is one of the most intense fires
ever recorded.

Stripped the paint from fire fighting
boats on the other side of the Thames,

melted paving stones.

The following day,

Churchill visits the East End
to see the damage for himself.

Churchill memorably observed London.

It was like some giant prehistoric beast
that while it could take terrible pain,

it would take an awful lot of killing.

The poor in the East End of London
suffered terribly.

They took the worse punishment
in the Blitz.

When they found all these bombs
raining around their area,

what's remarkable is they didn't revolt.

It was a ghastly time,
and what those people suffered,

especially those at the bottom end
of the society…

was terrible.

It takes more than this to get me
out of my home.

Now go on, you got to get to work.

Evacuations of children
to the countryside increase.

Britain braces itself for a Nazi invasion.

The bombing of London
is very shocking for the people of London.

But it's really good news
for Fighter Command

because they're given a break,
they're given respite.

And after a period of bombing London,
11 Group aren't in difficulty anymore.

And if Hitler had hoped
the British would turn on their leaders,

he is disappointed.

Public opinion swings firmly behind
their steadfast Prime Minister.

By mid-September,
the Luftwaffe is no closer

to gaining the aerial dominance
they need for the successful invasion.

If it doesn't happen soon,

the occupation will have to be postponed
until the spring.

The bombing campaign
across Britain intensifies.

On September 12th, 18-year-old
Spitfire pilot, Geoffrey Wellum,

is sent into combat for the first time.

I found myself with my leader,
just the two of us,

faced with the prospect of 150 plus.

And it looked 150 plus, too.

And I thought to myself,
you know, this is a serious war.

These chaps aren't doing all this for fun.

They mean business.

If you picked one out,

particularly if he was a little bit wide
in his formation,

just pick one out and have a quick go
at him and then get out of it.

I found this Heinkel on its own
streaking back to France

as hard as it could go,

and I managed to get a good…

shot at him.

And he eventually crashed.

With the weather deteriorating,

Göring has one last chance
to prove himself.

Intelligence reports were coming through

that the British must be down
to their last 200 fighters by now.

Surely, one more push is going to do it.

The Luftwaffe knows
that the weather will very, very soon

be too unpredictable to launch
a seaborne invasion

until the following year.

When September 15th dawned,
and the weather was clear,

the Luftwaffe went for it.

September 15th
is the Luftwaffe's last roll of the dice.

…range of 4,000 miles…

…and becomes known
as Battle of Britain Day.

The first plots started coming
into Uxbridge in 11 Group,

at about 11 o'clock in the morning.

This first raid consisted
of about 145 aircraft.

For the first time,
Britain's fighters

outnumbered the Luftwaffe's,

as 275 fighters scramble.

12 Group, north of London,
launched their Big Wing,

led by squadron leader, Douglas Bader.

Fifty-six aircraft in a mass sortie
meet the incoming bombers head-on.

By 12:00 p.m.,
six German bombers have been downed,

including one memorably,
over Victoria Station in London.

This was just the prelude
and the main raid came

just after lunch time in the afternoon.

Two-six-zero, zero-nine-five…

This time there were 475 aircraft.

Three columns of Luftwaffe aircraft

attack from the most southerly route
bound for London.

Big Wing is scrambled again.

As the Germans cross the coast,

wave upon wave of RAF squadrons
are there to meet them.

The more aircraft the Luftwaffe sent over,
the more they lost.

We felt that we were on top of them.

We knew we were hurting them
by shooting down quite a lot.

The Germans lost an awful lot
of airplanes.

And in fact, the Luftwaffe…

never ever fully recovered

from the mauling it had
in the Battle of Britain Day.

In the final count,
fifty-six German aircraft are downed,

compared to 28 RAF losses.

A ratio of exactly two to one.

They're intercepted
by such a huge volume of aircraft.

And all of the RAF fighters piling in.

It's just unavoidably clear to them,
even to Göring,

that this has failed.

It brought their delusions to an end.

They had realized that the opposition
was not weakening at all.

It was just as strong as it had ever been,
if not stronger.

It was the turning point
for the Luftwaffe.

The Luftwaffe believed
that the British were defeated

and then all of a sudden,
it proved that they weren't.

Hitler losses faith
in Göring's Luftwaffe.

The landing craft and troops amassed
on the French coast are redeployed.

Operation Sea Lion is off.

It's an overwhelming victory for the RAF.

It's a massive defeat,
a catastrophic defeat for the Luftwaffe

and for Nazi Germany.

The reason Britain wins
is because Britain is fighting the battle

for which it is prepared,
and which it executes brilliantly,

but actually, the component parts
are much greater

than the narrative would have us think.

It's not just about the few,
it is also about Bomber Command,

Coastal Command…
It's also about naval power as well.

There are three names
that you need to remember.

The first is Winston Churchill.

He's the man who decided
to fight the battle.

The second is Hugh Dowding.

He's the person who created the weapon
that enabled the battle to be won.

And the third is Keith Park,
commander of 11 Group.

He's the man who wielded the weapon.

After the defeat of France
and the evacuation of Dunkirk,

the Nazi surge through Europe
had been checked.

Hitler turns his sights
towards the Soviet Union.

Against all the odds,
the RAF had been victorious.

While Britain was perhaps
in a much stronger position

than we generally suppose,

the traditional narrative of the few,
those few very young men

fighting, dying, risking their lives

to defend their country
is really at the heart of the battle,

and we should never forget that.

If it hadn't been for that
glorious legend,

that they had seen off the Luftwaffe,
then it's hard to see

how Churchill could've sustained
the will of the British people

through the very tough years
that followed.

We realized in October
that the Germans

had been denied their aim.

I was shot at three times.

And I got away with it.

I feel thankful indeed that I survived.

I feel very privileged
to have been in a position

to have defended this country
in a Spitfire in the Battle of Britain.

Re-sync & redact: BLU DUAINE
blu.duaine@protonmail.com