Are you guys still at it?

War's over, has been for a long time, remember the dead on all sides and the lives they never had.

Don't try to rewrite history by arguing about what cannot be argued about.


And how did the luftwaffe pilots cope with their defeat? Everyone differently in his own way.

On that bases you can say
Britons 0
Romans 1

Or
Normal people 0
Hooligans and looters 1

any more wacky comparisons?

Whacky?.......OMG you really are in complete denial.

how can a country that ended up split in two and occupied by 4 different nations for decades not consider itself defeated?

I'm all outta popcorn :(

Surley success can only be measured against objective?

The German objective was air supremacy over southern England, the British objective was to stop that. So that's a victory for that particular phase.

Problem with the Battle of Britain is that at the time nobody really knew it had finished, it just sort of changed into the Blitz period.

Back to the OT, I think a lot of the LW people were disillusioned with German High Command ofter the BoB. In the same way that the RAF became disillusioned with the fighter sweeps and bomber escorts of the later years.

As for the score... Wasn't it 2-0? (tounge is firmly in cheek!)

Bingo.

It was Winston Churchill that spoke first on the radio about "the Battle of Britain", and it became the propaganda name for it, but de facto the air operations of Germany against Great Britain were just a part of the invasion plan, and the bombing of England continued up to 1945 with V1s and V2s.

The glory of the Battle of Britain is a modern phenomenon (you probably know better than me that up until the movie Battle of Britain the public opinion knew or cared little about it. So the idea was to pick up on a moment of national pride and dust it off, but it has been misinterpreted. Surely the brave RAF pilots and everyone involved deserve all the praise in the world for the fantastic effort made to stop the Germans, but the effort to repel the air offensive of 1940 doesn't mean there was a straight victory.

The propaganda was in need of a positive message, so they started claiming the victory of a battle that was perceived as such only from one side.

I dunno if I made myself clear, I reckon I should gather my thoughts and expose them in a more organic form. I am still afraid that national bias is getting in the way here. Nobody is depriving you of your pride or anything like that, it's just a case of a fair assessment of a specific part of the war.

Stern you have made some really interesting points throughout this discussion. But your comment about the glory of the Battle of Britain being a modern phenonomenon kick started by the 1969 movie is absolutely and totally wrong, laughable actually. The Battle and the 'Few' was part of the british consciousness from 1940 onward and revered.

I'll add an edit, I think you must have been trolling with that remark. Quite frankly its the same as saying to any American on the forum that everyone had forgotten about Pearl Harbor until Michael Bay made a (very, very, very bad) movie about it!

Regards Mike

Mike, I know what you mean, I found it silly myself, but it was was I was told by many people who were here in the 60s. There wasn't a lot of celebration for WW2 veterans 20 years after the end of the war.

I can't believe I am reading some of this stuff. The RAF victory in the Battle of Britain is because had the Luftwaffe succeeded the next phase was to be an invasion!

The RAF also caused massive damage to the LW but the main result was that by the end of the air battle the UK and it's Empire was still very much in the fight and the RAF was stronger than before.

At that point in time the UK and it's Empire was the only opposing force to German and it's allies. Had we lost and been invaded the USA would never have joined the war and Russia could very well have been defeated!

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