Finest hour that defines us for time everlasting

The Battle of Britain halted Germany's progress and Hitler's aim of invading Britain. ANDY SAUNDERS tells the story of how The Few became the heroes of a nation

- ANDY SAUNDERS

THAT the defeat of Germany and victory in Europe was possible at all in 1945 was not something that hinged solely upon the success of D-Day and the subsequent relentless advances on Germany from the west as the Soviet Union closed in from the east. Instead, it was a victory that owed everything to the first body blow of the war dealt to what had hitherto seemed to be an apparently invincible German military machine. That body blow was the Battle of Britain.

It was something that 'held the line' and made possible all that would follow on an arduous road to the defeat of Nazi Germany. However, Britain's earlier defeat in Europe during 1940 had seen the withdrawal from Dunkirk of the British Expeditionary Force; an event acknowledged by the Prime Minister as a military disaster as well as a great deliverance. However, the PM was at pains to point out that wars were not won through defeats.

With Churchillian aplomb, his speech of June 18, 1940 set the scene for what lay ahead, coining the phrase "Battle of Britain" for the very first time.

"What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin," Churchill said. "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."

He ended: "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 stirring stuff and Britain, her Empire and her allies, needed it to stiffen resolve in dark days. That Churchill should have made his speech on June 18 was prescient, for the following day the Luftwaffe launched its first major bombing raid against the British Isles.