Originally Posted by
Downwind.Maddl-Land
Your comment does your stock little favour. Extract from Churchill's 'The Few' speech :
"The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day; but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers, who will play an invaluable part in the case of invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meanwhile on numerous occasions to restrain."
And you seem to forget the coincidental Battle of the Barges being waged at great cost by Bomber Command in an effort to deny to the enemy the wherewithal to undertake a successful invasion.
James Holland's book 'The Battle of Britain' outlines this part of the campaign not just against the barges but the airfields and seaways with minelaying as well. The night campaign against the airfields was to disrupt the peace of mind and sleep of the aircrews in particular, that they could not just land and forget until next day. This is something the Luftwaffe never did. The losses by Bomber Command are quite horrendous and in particular the young age of many of the fallen and indeed injured. May the RiP.