The real cost of the Battle of Britain was much higher than we think when we look at those lost from those eligible to be classed as Battle of Britain aircrew. It was, by a Narrow Margin, that we survived this year, as shown by the book written( Dempster and Wood -The Narrow Margin). The Battle of Britain brought together a truly multinational force comprising around 1086 men at the start,( later being said to include a total of around 3000 men who flew at least 1 sortie in the period 10/7/40 to 31/10/40)) There were only, at one point around 574 British, 139 Poles, 98 New Zealanders, 86 Canadians, 84 Czechoslovakians, 29 Belgians, 21 Australians, 20 South Africans, 13 French, 10 Irish plus others from the USA, Jamaica, Palestine and Southern Rhodesia. I make this lower total around 1086 men available, of which, rarely more than 300 were ever in the air at any one time for a raid, with exceptions, of those doing the fighting in 11 Group, 10 and 12 groups also down South mainly. Of these 1086, (considerably less in number in the areas involved mostly with the day to day fighting and who bore the most losses), there was a total of around 544 killed. This shows a truer figure and a higher percentage of loss of how many men were being killed, to add to the ones lost from Squadron use who were burned, injured or taken off ops for other reasons, causing Dowding and Park to realise in mid August to September 7th, that at the rate of attrition, Fighter Command would have lost the battle, not for want of Spitfires and Hurricanes, thanks to Beaverbrook and prewar planners but down to lack of trained pilots to fill the gaps. When we consider the quality of many pre-war trained, experienced pilots, the loss also of many very effective fighter pilots of the order of Pat Hughes, Terry Webster, Ceasar Hull, Frantisek and so many others who were not replaceable and certainly not by the part-trained men who were soon shot down and not able to shoulder the task the others had been doing before, this makes the true loss of life and experienced men in this battle for Britain all the more real. Even if we think that there were 3000 men, which were never available in those numbers at any one time or all in the main area of battle in the South, then the 544 shows a loss of 1 in 6 men. The real story is that approx. half of those who started the Battle of Britain were lost if you look at numbers. In reality many of the originals, like those mentioned and many more were not there at the end of 1940 to pass on their experience or to fight again, should the Luftwaffe have carried on in 1941 rather than attacking, Malta, Greece and Russia. May we always remember these men and really reflect on how close we came to losing for lack of pilots at the time. Never in the Field of Human Conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. Paul Davies.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 10:26:04 +0000
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