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'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few' Seventy-five years on the unforgettable words of Winston Churchill ring as powerfully as they did in August 1940 when the young men of the RAF stood as the last line of defence against Hitler's far more powerful Luftwaffe.This emotional yet factual book describes the three and a half months (10 July 31 October 1940) battle day-by-day and covers the essential details of every one of the 540 young pilots who died in this critical campaign that saved Britain from invasion by the Nazis.Thanks to the authors painstaking research we are given a short biography of each pilots and learn of their actions and the manner of their deaths, their squadrons and planes.The result is a unique record and fitting memorial of the courage and sacrifice of this select band of heroes. The text is enhanced by photographs of the individuals themselves.
The Battle of Britain has held an enchanted place in British popular history and memory throughout the modern era. Its transition from history to heritage since 1965 confirms that the 1940 narrative shaped by the State has been sustained by historians, the media, popular culture, and through non-governmental heritage sites, often with financing from the National Lottery Heritage Lottery Fund. Garry Campion evaluates the Battle’s revered place in British society and its influence on national identity, considering its historiography and revisionism; the postwar lives of the Few, their leaders and memorialization; its depictions on screen and in commercial products; the RAF Museum’s Battle of Britain Hall; third-sector heritage attractions; and finally, fighter airfields, including RAF Hawkinge as a case study. A follow-up to Campion’s The Battle of Britain, 1945–1965 (Palgrave, 2015), this book offers an engaging, accessible study of the Battle’s afterlives in scholarship, memorialization, and popular culture.
During the summer and autumn of 1940, the Germans launched their Luftwaffe campaign to gain superiority over the RAF, especially Fighter Command. They were not successful, and this defeat marked a turning point in the Allies' favour. This is the story of eight Australian fighter pilots engaged in the Battle of Britain, the first major battle of World War II (or any war) fought entirely in the air. Jack Kennedy, Stuart Walch, Dick Glyde, Ken Holland, Pat Hughes, Bill Millington, John Crossman and Des Sheen only one of them came home.A story we take for granted, here told afresh with insight and empathy.Professor Peter Stanley, UNSW CanberraIn telling the stories of some of the Australians who flew in the Battle of Britain, Kristen Alexander has combined academic rigour with compelling personal detail. She has demonstrated that the unknowns of the Battle are as fascinating as those who gained celebrity status. This is a book for those who know much about what happened in 1940 and those who don't.... Geoff Simpson, Trustee, Battle of Britain Memorial TrustThe lives of eight Australian fighter pilots, from backyard to cockpit and beyond, lovingly and expertly told.... Andy Wright, Aircrew Book Review
Seventy-five years after the Battle of Britain, the Few's role in preventing invasion continues to enjoy a revered place in popular memory. The Air Ministry were central to the Battle's valorisation. This book explores both this, and also the now forgotten 1940 Battle of the Barges mounted by RAF bombers.
While the United States sought to remain neutral in the early years of World War II, some Americans did not. This book is the first to provide the operational records and combat reports of the three American "Eagle" Royal Air Force squadrons--units comprised of volunteer American pilots who served with the British prior to the U.S. entering the war. The records tell the story of the more than 200 pilots who, against federal law, flew with the British in their fight against Nazi Germany. While some Americans served individually in other RAF units, these three squadrons--the 71st, 121st and 133rd--were the only ones organized exclusively for Americans. They were the first of dozens of American fighter squadrons that would soar over Europe.
Professional football was officially suspended at the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. With their contracts terminated, players were free to join the Armed Forces and, by April 1940, 514 were enlisted in the Army, 84 in the RAF and 31 in the Royal Navy. Many others were involved in war work; one factory in Oldbury boasted 18 West Bromwich Albion players. Of those who joined up 80 were to die. These included English International Tom Cooper who had played for Liverpool, Derby County and Port Vale, Alan Fowler of Swindon Town who died after D Day serving with the Dorsets, and Herbie Robert of Arsenal. Many were household names as Gareth Bale and Wayne Rooney are today. In this powerful and evocative memorial book the author traces the footballing and military careers of these talented men who sacrificed all for King and Country.
Over 60,000,000 people died worldwide during the course of the Second World War and, in contrast to those slaughtered in The Great War, it was civilian populations that bore the brunt. They perished in the Holocaust, in internment camps, in bombed towns and cities and as ‘collateral damage’, in war zones, such as the Eastern Front and in Asia. Among this carnage were hundred of individuals of all nations who had competed in Olympic Games. Imagine the loss of so many of the world’s greatest sportsmen and women of the present era. The author has painstakingly researched the lives, achievements and circumstances of death of almost five hundred athletes of the period. While many were household names at the time, this exceptional work honors these fallen Olympians and reminds us of the futility and wastefulness of war.
Battle of Britain Spitfire Ace is the story of a young Canadian who in a short time, and for a brief time, mastered Britain’s most legendary war machine, the Spitfire. It is also the story of a young English woman who was for a short time his wife, and for a long time his widow, and of their son who for much of his life knew little about his father and is still learning about him. Their stories, based on their letters, diaries, and photos, unfold in richly detailed context as the setting moves from Montreal in Nelson’s youth, England in the last years of peace, the first (and largely forgotten) months of the air war against Nazi Germany, Canada during the war, and finally to post-war England. William Henry Nelson was a first-generation Canadian Jew whose family name was originally Katznelson. Like many young Canadians in the 1930s, he wanted to fly. Nelson began work in Montreal’s aircraft industry, but in 1936, at the age of nineteen, he left a humdrum life on the ground to go to England, intent on becoming a pilot in the Royal Air Force. A year later he was posted to a bomber squadron. Willie (as his family and friends called him) was also a fine athlete. He was captain of his squadron’s team in Britain’s Modern Pentathlon competitions in 1938 and 1939. While stationed in Yorkshire, he met Marjorie McIntyre. Instantly smitten, they married days before the war began. Nelson was one of the first Canadians to fly in combat over Germany, only days after the war began. The award of a Distinguished Flying Cross a few months later made him an instant hero to the Jewish community across Canada. In Britain’s desperate situation in June 1940 Nelson volunteered to retrain as a fighter pilot. Within weeks he destroyed five enemy aircraft, so becoming the only Canadian Spitfire ace in the Battle of Britain. Few fought as both bomber and fighter pilot during the Second World War, even fewer managed to excel at both. Willie Nelson was shot down on the first day of November, 1940, near the English Channel. He never saw his adversary, who may have been one of Nazi Germany’s most decorated fighter pilots. Nelson was 23 years old, and by then the father of a two-month old boy, William Harle Nelson. Marjorie took her infant son to Canada in 1941, seeking to meet her late husband’s family and provide little Bill the opportunity for a better life. She was one of the first war brides to do so. Marjorie was unprepared for the gulf in culture and class with Willie’s mother, and she was shocked by the antisemitism she encountered in Montreal. She left the city after a few months to begin her life anew, alone in a strange country. Marjorie soon remarried a Canadian, Ted McAlister. In 1957 they moved to England where Bill, having taken his stepfather’s surname, would become a prominent figure in Britain’s cultural life. Only in his thirties, however, would Bill come to learn of the family and origins of the father he never knew. On the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, the Royal Air Force Museum in London featured Nelson in its exhibit about the ‘hidden heroes,’ the Jews who volunteered to fight in the RAF in the Second World War. Nelson had said little about his Jewish identity, though it was consequential to him and to others during his life and afterwards. Over the course of his four years in England, Willie Nelson refashioned himself. But who had he become? Who was the man behind the iconic portrayals, what had been his formative influences and his guiding lights? How did he come to do what he did and what, in those last few years in England, did he live and die for?
The extraordinary personal stories of five surviving Battle of Britain pilots
Immortalized in Churchill's often quoted assertion that never before "was so much owed by so few," the top-down narrative of the Battle of Britain has been firmly established in British legend: Britain was saved from German invasion by the gallant band of Fighter Command Pilots in their Spitfires and Hurricanes, and the public owed them their freedom. Richard North's radical re-evaluation of the Battle of Britain dismantles this mythical retelling of events. Taking a wider perspective than the much-discussed air war, North takes a fresh look at the conflict as a whole to show that the civilian experience, far from being separate and distinct, was integral to the Battle. This recovery of the people's stolen history demonstrates that Hitler's aim was not the military conquest of England, and that his unattained target was the hearts and minds of British people.