Finningley Boy
I don’t HAVE a position, I was merely postulating some possible reasons why we as a country made such a fuss of Battle Of Britain day in the 50’s 60’s and 70’s and seemingly ignore it now. I pointed out some arguments that MAY have reinforced this.
I do not have any great belief one way or the other re the RAF vs RN in the BoB, and was certainly not RAF or Fughter Command.
What some folk call “ revisionist history” is in fact the passage of time revealing truth’s and discrediting hoary old myths.Take 1956 and Suez as an example. Now we KNOW the lies and deception comitted by ourselves, the French and Israelis. I do NOT claim anything of the sort for the BoB by the way.
What undoubtedly was true about it was that at the time it was a vital fillup to morale, even though the cricket board scores and 160 not out that were so important at the time are, as we now know, palpable and untrue nonsense.
The fact that the outcome at the time was nowhere near as vital as we thought does nothing to discredit the enormous morale boost it gave us at the time, and that warm glow persisted for about 20 years. It has cooled and hardened now as we see the true perspective.
If it was as important to Hitler as we thought at the time then he could have come back in 1941 or 42 and, FW190 vs Spitfire V etc, could well have won. Or, as someone else above pointed out, he could have concentrated 100% on the night blitz that we were lising badly, or, as Danny42C pointed out, concentrated on a blockade and starved us to defeat.
He did none of these things as we simply were nit that important to him and his eyes were always looking greedily and eagerly eastward, and THAT really lost him the war.