Quote:
Originally Posted by blackmme
Stern don't confuse the overall WW2 remembrance with the Battle of Britain. It was and is an absolute part of the national consciousness and culture. I'm sure as the Few and my parents generation pass away it will of course dim but then it will take on a different form and take it's place alongside Hastings, Trafalgar and Waterloo. (all draws?  )
Regards Mike |
Mike, I remember buying the DVD of the restored edition of Battle of Britain, inside there was a short documentary with interview to the average people on the street, and very few could give a precise definition of the Battle of Britain: many had no idea, some believed that it was how Great Britain won WW2..
I think the examples that you mentioned are bang on: Hastings, Trafalgar and Waterloo were the battles that determined a final victory of one of the sides, comparing them to the aerial battle of 1940 over the channel is a mistake, since they weren't sub-conflicts of a much wider war.
After Great Britain declared war to Germany, V-E day was celebrated in 1945, not in 1940. In the grand scheme of things the aerial Battle of Britain was an early large scale attrition war, which ended up with similar results (apart for the thousands of civilian casualties on the British side) for both sides. No matter how hard you try to think of it, you can't really think of it as a victory.
In
hindsight, considering what happened afterwards and how the war ended, you can say that it was a contributing factor to the ultimate victory, but nothing suggests that, had Hitler decided so, the Luftwaffe couldn't have carried on operations against Great Britain for longer.
Let's think of an example which might not be as emotionally linked as the BoB, think of the Battle of Kursk:
Russia lost 3 times the number of men, vehicles and aircraft that they displaced,
but they pushed back the Germans and gained territory. It's an awkward situation, cos it cost them a lot more in terms of men and resources, but they managed to push back the enemy and gain territory.
With the Battle of Britain
nothing changed.