Originally Posted by
Deep Throat
Since this historic day in 1940, the Battle of Britain is remembered annually on 15th September. This year marks the 83rd anniversary.
On the 20 August 1940, during the high point of the Battle of Britain, Churchill addressed the House of Commons, the Country, and the Empire, to outline the war situation.
In the middle of that long speech, he created the famous nickname for the RAF fighter pilots involved in the battle: "The Few"
Not so. It bugs me that the name "The Few" has been hijacked by the fighter fraternity. Actually, the "Few" in Churchill's speech are the "British Airmen", and include all of Bomber Command as well!:
“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 by 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.”