It may 'bug' you but i disagree. At one point some years ago I would have agreed with you, not now. The
'but' is significant.
'The few' clearly refers to the fighter pilots in the previous sentences. Way before your selective cut and paste.
The edit backs your argument but in the context of the full 30 minute speech, Churchill leaves the subject of fighters, then moves onto the subject of the bombers
The Battle of Britain was still raging overhead when this speech was delivered on 20 August 1940. It was an update on the progress of the war.
The Battle of Britain had been predicted in this speech - June 18, 1940 - House of Commons - officially recognise duration as being from 10 July until 31 October 1940
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”
It was their finest hour - and I don't just mean the fighter pilots
I hope, by adding the second photo, I made reference to the ground crew.
I could add a photo of the radar operators and many other branches etc. I won't. the history is out there
I think the Battle of Britain Film does it well enough. Reference is made to the Polish pilots
I'll do it for you
