Bravery of the forgotten Battle of Britain heroes

They refuelled and rearmed aircraft while dodging enemy bombs... then rescued comrades from blazing downed planes. As a new book lists the 380-plus RAF ground personnel casualties, along with their burial places, LORD ASHCROFT remembers their sacrifice 85 years on

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THEY ARE the forgotten heroes of the Battle of Britain, the aerial conflict of which Sir Winston Churchill, Britain’s wartime Prime Minister, famously said: “Never, in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many to so few.”

Understandably perhaps, it was our fighter pilots and air crew who enjoyed the bulk of the glory for their heroic deeds in the skies that enabled Britain to see off the mighty German Luftwaffe after nearly four months of battles from July to October 1940.

However, the bravery of the ground crew over this period was equally praiseworthy. These engineers, mechanics, fitters, riggers, armourers, medics and others were regularly bombed and strafed as they looked after both the aircraft and air crew around the clock at airfields all over the UK.

The statistics do not lie. During the Battle of Britain, at least 380 RAF ground personnel were killed, in addition to 544 RAF air crew. Eighty-five years on, it is time to right a wrong by highlighting the valour of those brave men — and women — on the ground, some of whom were decorated for their acts of gallantry.

August 16, 1940, for example, witnessed incredible bravery from two ground crew who went to the aid of a stricken airman, Pilot Officer William “Billy” Fiske, when his aircraft crash-landed back at RAF Tangmere, Sussex (now West Sussex).

Fiske was an intriguing character in his own right. He was an American who, before the war, had been a double Olympic gold medallist at bobsleigh, winning his first medal aged just 16. He later had the honour of being the country’s flag-bearer at the 1932 Winter Olympics.