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Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II
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.
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I won't comment on historical analysis via DVD extra's.
It most certainly was a victory and a very, very important one.
No Trafalgar wasn't a final battle if was very much a 'sub conflict' (to use your term), it was a battle where both (three sides really) sides took heavy losses (both during and after the battle) and one that safeguarded the UK from invasion. I think the comparison is very apt even down to the fact that Trafalgar is IMHO has greater 'cultural' recognition than Waterloo and Hastings.
Regards Mike