This is the largest air battle in human history, and it is also a crucial battle that will determine the fate of the entire world! In July 1940, the British flew 2,000 aircraft and 2,550 German aircraft to compete in a peak duel over the English Channel for more than 4 months. So, how shocking is this air battle? Why did Britain and Germany have to fight to the death? How has this war affected the world? In this issue, I will once again tell you the story behind the largest air battle in human history, the Battle of Britain.
On the day 15 September, the Luftwaffe Second Air Fleet launched an air raid on London with 1,500 aircraft in an attempt to annihilate the RAF in one fell swoop. However, under the calm response of the British Fighter Command Commander Dowding and the 11th Brigade Commander Parker, the entire air battle ended in the defeat of the Luftwaffe.
In today's Chinese world, I am afraid that not many people have heard of Britain Air War Day, and even fewer people know About Dowding and Parker. But if I say parker is not British, you may be even more shocked, because he is a royal citizen of the British Empire from New Zealand. Parker participated in the Battle of Gallipoli in April 1915 with the New Australian Coalition as an artillery non-commissioned officer. The heavy casualties of the Allied forces on the ground battlefield made him realize that air force was the key to changing the situation on the battlefield, so he joined the Royal Flying Army in December 1916.
After the outbreak of World War II, He was assigned by Dowding to be The 11th Brigade Commander Major General Parker, responsible for the security of the airspace between London and southeast Britain. He was not only a brilliant commander, but also a brilliant air tactician. To encourage RAF pilots, Parker also frequently flew his Hurricane fighter, number OK 1, around the bases. In the face of a common enemy, the soldiers of the Commonwealth no longer distinguished between each other's nationalities, races, religious beliefs and social classes, and were closely united, which was an important reason for Britain's victory.
Parker's OK 1 Hurricane fighter in New Zealand is just as heroic as Gao's IV-1 in China. However, the foreigners who participated in the Battle of Britain were not only from New Zealand, such as Parker, but also many non-Commonwealth pilots. All the Young European Flyers whose homeland was occupied by the Nazis gathered in England in the summer of 1940 to help the Royal Air Force tide over the difficulties with their superb skills and give Britain the moral legitimacy to win the war against aggression.
A righteous war of self-defence
As an old colonialist country, Britain's impression in the minds of all countries in the world, especially in the minds of weak and small peoples, is simply terrible. Therefore, the First World War did not have a good impression of Britain for most of the non-participating countries, even some of the colonies of the British Empire that sent troops to the war, and regarded it as nothing more than a war between two imperialist blocs. Neither the Entente, represented by Britain, nor the Allies, represented by Germany, was an absolute aggressor or a resister.
After the end of world war I, Britain realized its image problem and began to relax its rule over the colonies, changing the British Empire into the British Commonwealth and transforming the colonies of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada and India into Dominions. Born on 1 April 1918, the Royal Air Force is regarded by the Commonwealth Dominions as the mother of the Air Force, and has developed its own aviation armed forces with the assistance of the Royal Air Force. However, in the eyes of non-Commonwealth members, and even the peoples who still suffered unequal treatment in Britain, the colonial image of the British Empire is still difficult to remove.
In particular, at the beginning of the establishment of the Royal Air Force, it was heavily involved in suppressing the national rebellions in the African colonies and the Middle East Trusteeship, which made people's image of Britain extremely bad. Various strategic theories to destroy enemy capitals and political and economic centers, published by World War I generals such as Tunchard, also made the Royal Air Force unpopular in European societies with strong anti-war sentiment. Therefore, Churchill made a major adjustment in 1934 to change the RAF's operational creed from offensiveism to defensiveism, which should be a political macro consideration.
After all, the battle between fighter pilots is more reminiscent of a fair duel between the knights of the Middle Ages than the bomber pilots who kill without blinking an eye. Judging from the fact that Europeans, regardless of nationality, worship the German ace of world war I pilot von Richterhofen, the image of fighter pilots is far better than that of bomber pilots. After all, fighter pilots are more engaged in defensive operations, and the offensive style is much lower, which can improve the image of Britain.
Sheltered pilots persecuted by the Nazis
Simply adjusting offensiveism to defensiveness was not enough to make people less suspicious of the British Empire, after all, Hitler came to power because of the unequal treaties imposed on Germany by the victorious powers of World War I, such as Britain and France. Both the United States and China had sympathized with Germany over Britain, so the only way to reverse this impression was to prove that Germany was a more brutal aggressor than Britain. It is not difficult to prove this, because Hitler's ambitions to purge the Jews, enslave the Slavs, and conquer all of Europe have become apparent.
After the German conquest of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and France, many air force pilots who were not willing to accept the Nazi occupation managed to escape to Britain. Most of the Czechoslovak and Polish pilots had already fought in Poland or the French and Luftwaffe before fleeing to Britain, and their entry into the Royal Air Force not only filled the battle, but also politically declared that Britain stood with the military and civilians of all the invaded countries and washed away the stigma of colonialism.
Of these, 145 Polish pilots participated in the Battle of Britain, and although they were not members of the Commonwealth, they participated more than any other Commonwealth member. The most active commonwealth member states involved in the war were New Zealand, which provided a total of 135 people. Canada, the second-largest Member of the Commonwealth, not only provided 112 pilots, but also gave many adventurous American pilots the opportunity to enter the war in Britain via Canada. In order not to violate the U.S. policy of neutrality, the American pilots who fought in the Battle of Britain also claimed to be Canadians.
The RAF pilots of the Battle of Britain, from all the countries of the Five Eyes today, and even most of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization member states, covered and defined the entire European and American free world as we know it. This made their battle with the Luftwaffe more like a battle between the West and the non-Western, between aggression and counter-aggression, and between democracy and despotism. But what about the two most heroic foreign pilots, Poland and Czechoslovakia?
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia in Central Europe was the first country to be annexed by Germany after being betrayed by Britain, even though it was the sixth largest industrial country in the world before the outbreak of World War II. Czechoslovakia inherited a vast aviation industry from Austria-Hungary, with the ability to make its own aircraft and a modest air force. However, Hitler successfully separated the Czechs, Slovaks, and Germans in the Sudetenland by manipulating the ethnic issues in Czechoslovakia, allowing the Germans to conquer Czechoslovakia without bloodshed.
The Czechoslovak pilot, who fled to France, sought to join the French Foreign Legion, expecting a chance to return to his homeland. However, it was not until September 1, 1939, with the German invasion of Poland and the French declaration of war on Germany, that Czechoslovak pilots were allowed to join the French Air Force. However, the Speed of The French surrender was so fast that the Czechoslovak pilots were unable to perform too well in the Battle of France, and they had to flee to England to seek another chance to fight.
Above: Czech pilots of the 312th Squadron of the Royal Air Force, eager to shame their history of not firing a single shot that led to the fall of their homeland, fought exceptionally heroically.
A total of 84 Czech and two Slovak pilots took part in the Battle of Britain, most of whom were assigned to the RAF's 310th and 312th fighter squadrons, flying Hurricane fighters to defend the Skies of Britain. At the cost of the lives of nine pilots, they set a brilliant record for shooting down 60 enemy aircraft. Sergeant František scored 17, setting a record for the highest foreign pilot's crash in the Battle of Britain, although the 303rd Squadron he served belonged to Poland rather than Czechoslovakia.
Although the Czechs succumbed to nazi armed occupation without firing a shot, Czech pilots were known for their bravery and good fighting in the Battle of Britain, washing away the humiliation of the Czechs for not resisting. Many of them carried out three or four missions a day, and at the peak of air combat as many as nine missions, and were even more active than the British pilots. Blackwood, the British squadron leader of the 310th Squadron, pointed out that as long as the Czech pilots flew into the blue sky, they were fully engaged in the decisive battle with the Luftwaffe.
Poland
Compared with the Czech Republic, which did not shoot a single shot, Poland's resistance to Germany can be called a song and a tear, but Poland faced not only Germany, but also the Soviet Union, which became an ally of the Nazis after the signing of the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact on August 23, 1939. The Red Army entered the war on 17 September, attacking the Polish army from the west, along with the Germans in the east. The polish generals of the three armies were brave and tenacious, but they only lasted five weeks of resistance under the joint attack of two of the world's most powerful armies.
Thousands of Polish pilots went into exile in France, hoping to return to their homeland with the support of Britain and France, but the French looked down on these allies from Eastern Europe and invested only 147 Polish pilots in the Battle of France. This figure was not even 10 percent of polish pilots in exile in France, even though Polish pilots were the best Allied pilots in the Battle of France. They shot down 52 enemy aircraft and inflicted varying degrees of damage on six others, so by the time the Battle of Britain broke out, Polish pilots had accumulated unparalleled combat experience.
By the summer of 1940, 35,000 Polish soldiers had arrived in Britain, 8,500 of whom were pilots. However, due to the influence of German propaganda and the deep-rooted racial prejudices of the British themselves, the ROYALF did not have much confidence in Polish pilots at first. Lieutenant Commander Kent of the 303 Squadron recalled:
At first I thought the Polish Air Force had only lasted three days under the luftwaffe, and I didn't think they would fare better in Britain.
The RAF established two squadrons, the 302nd and 303rd, for 145 Polish pilots, of whom 32 were distributed to the 302nd Squadron, 34 to the 303rd Squadron, and the remaining 79 to other squadrons of the Royal Air Force. If the Czech pilot František set the record for the highest individual shootdown in the Battle of Britain, then the 303rd Squadron set the record for the highest team shotdown, with a total of 201 fighters, the most outstanding performance of the squadron equipped with Hurricane fighters.
The anti-aggressive spirit that goes to the world
The Polish pilot with the most successes in the 303rd Squadron was Vitor Urbanowitz, who had shot 15 enemy aircraft. It is worth mentioning that Urbanowitz came to China in the autumn of 1943 as an exchange pilot to join the 75th Squadron of the 23rd Fighter Group of General Chennault's 14th Air Force, and also achieved the result of shooting down two Type II single-seat fighters "Zhong Kui" on December 11 of that year. The brilliant achievements of these two aircraft over Nanchang symbolize that Polish pilots also contributed to the Chinese nation's War of Resistance.
Above: The Polish pilot who won the most in the Battle of Britain, Urbanowitz, came to China in 1943 to participate in the war against Japan and was praised by General Chennault.
The anti-aggression spirit symbolized by the Battle of Britain linked the global anti-Axis forces and laid a solid foundation for the globalization advocated by the Western world today. Before the outbreak of The Second World War, there was a territorial dispute between Poland and Czechoslovakia. At the same time as the German army invaded the Sudetenland region in 1938, Poland once took advantage of the fire to occupy the Czech region of Jasin, causing the Czech military and civilians to hate Poland. It was not until the Germans attacked Poland and incorporated the Tessin region into the Nazi occupation that Polish and Czech pilots had the opportunity to share a vendetta.
If the history of fighting side by side against the Nazis could only eliminate half of the hatred of the Czech pilots against Poland, then after the victory in World War II, the two countries were betrayed by the British at the same time and were placed in the Soviet sphere of influence, which brought the pilots of the two countries closer together.
The greatest significance of the Battle of Britain was that the British united the military and civilians of all European countries to the greatest extent possible against the Nazis who tried to conquer the continent of Europa. However, compared with the indiscriminate strategic bombing launched by the RAF Bomber Command at the end of the Second World War against the Nazi-occupied areas of the European continent, it is clear that the history of the British air war is more welcomed by the people of the world, because only in that short period of six months, Britain played the role of legitimate defender.
Such a crucial war is not something that can be clearly explained in an article, and if you are still unsatisfied with this battle, I recommend that you watch the "Battle of Britain". In the book, the author describes the causes and consequences of the battle in more detail, covering all stages of the battle. The book also asks: Why did the Luftwaffe begin bombing British cities when it was so close to victory? The mistakes of both sides in the campaign were carefully dissected: the discord between the RAF commanders, the Luftwaffe only realized the importance of radar after it began to experience defeat, and so on.
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