The Battle of Britain Page #2

And he spoke the word in every British heart, when he

said:

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may

be."

We shall fight in landing grounds,

in fields, in streets,

and on the hills."

We shall never surrender."

This was Britain in its darkest hour.

The people knew they were in for the worse

the Nazi mind could invent, yet...

..they didn't panic or run away

They patrolled and waited.

They drilled and waited.

They worked and waited.

Waited for the terror they knew was coming.

Then it came!

That is the sound that became part of life,

for every man, woman and child in Britain.

August 8th, 1940 and the battle for Britain is on.

Thirty enemy aircraft over the channel,

flying due west."

Here comes the Luftwaffe.

In dozen of flights, hundreds of planes.

Bombers, fighters, dive-bombers,

across that 21 miles of channel.

That eight short minutes of water.

Their first tactics were to bomb convoys

in the channel.

Convoys loaded with food and munitions,

bounded for the great port of London.

German fighters waited overhead for the defending

planes of the RoyalAir Force, the RAF to appear.

They didn't have long to wait.

The RAF came, facing of 6, 8, 10 to 1,

..and dove in, shouting the old hunting cry: "Tallyho!"

Phase one of the Nazi plan, called for

the RAF to be knocked out of the air...

..but the men of the RAF,

hadn't read the Nazi plan.

In the first 4days, the RAF knocked

182 German planes out of the sky

For the next week the Germans attacked the coast

cities from the Thames River to Weymouth.

Mr. Getty, take cover!"

Spitfire!"

And Hitler paid off with 180 more planes.

Then the Luftwaffe battered

the great towns of Southampton,

..Plymouth....

..trying for a knockout, before the flow

of supplies from overseas reached port.

The ports took a terrible pounding,

but they couldn't be knocked out.

Cargos went on being unloaded, with

the protection of the RAF overhead.

Battling the Spitfires and Hurricanes

in the air wasn't panning out.

So Gring switched his main attacks to the fighter

airfields, Dover,

Deal, Bucking.

Maybe he could destroy the planes

on the ground.

He bombed the air fields, and

the fields were hit...

..but the planes were saved.

For Britain, unlike Poland and

the low countries,

didn't make the mistake of bunching its planes on the

runways.

The planes of the RAF were scattered

and hidden.

Only a few on any one field, and those

in the far corners.

The Spitfires still went up to meet the enemy

In the first 10 days of the Battle of Britain, Gring

launched 26 major attacks to get command of the air

And lost 697 aircraft. The British lost 153.

And 60 British pilots bailed out.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes