Exactly 70 years ago today, British World War II leader Winston Churchill stood up and addressed Parliament to hail the efforts of the aircrew who were fighting overhead in what was known at ‘The Battle of Britain’.
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few," he famously pronounced in the midst of his speech.History tells us that outnumbered British air power, including Polish, Canadian and New Zealand pilots among others, defied the odds to withstand the German Luftwaffe and a possible invasion.
When I was a child I remember my father listening to Churchill’s speeches on a gramophone record which he shared with us. He made me aware of what a magnificent orator he was. It was his speeches to the nation that maintained moral in pretty much the only country not to have been invaded by the Germans.
I was born 12 years after the end of World War II, and it already seemed like ancient history to me as I grew up. But I now realise just how little time separated me from this terrible war. Had we lost, none of us would be here today.
