Churchill nailed it: 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few'

This wasn't just the Battle of Britain, this was a battle for the free world, if Britain had fallen in 1940, the Germans would have ruled Europe, leaving America with no "staging off, post to take the battle back to the Germans, not just the British, but America, and the whole world owes these heroes the life and freedoms we now take so flippantly for granted.

Tears running down my cheeks ! What wonderful, resilient people we were. My father was in the RAF and I remember him saying that no one thought we’d ever lose !

I think the best example of the British fighting spirit of the time was of a shop that had been damaged by bombs the previous night opening the next day showing a sign that read, "Slightly more open than usual".

My uncle was in the RAF and sadly lost his life the day before his 21st birthday , I wish I could have met him, my hero.

Some men went up to fight having had fewer hours flight training than it takes to pass a driving test. I always found that extraordinary.

Some of the child witnesses grew up to be very famous people. Jimmy Perry was a co writer on Dads Army, a very popular TV comedy to this day (about WW11 home guard). Nicolas Parsons was a very popular TV host, and Dame Vera Lynn was a singing icon of WW11. To hear their honest recollections, along with others, is inspiring. Glad you enjoyed it, as did I, and I learned a lot from hearing real people describe real events.

My grandma lived in London during the Battle of Britain, I once asked her how she could just ‘keep calm & carry on’ - her answer was simply ‘well what else could we do?’ - I miss her stories 😢

As a brit I feel immense pride at this point in my country's history when we stood alone against the nazi regime and I totally agree with churchills speech.however we brits also hold a huge debt of gratitude to the foreign pilots from the commonwealth and the French,Polish,Czech AND the American volunteers of the Eagle squadron who fought with the RAF at this time.brave men one and all.

My mum was in London in the front room of her house with my eldest brother who was 6 months old at the time. The air raid siren sounded but my mother had become a bit complacent and was a bit slow in getting the baby's things together and the bombs began to fall. Like one of the gentlemen in the documentary said she heard bomb explosions getting closer and one came down across the street. The blast blew in the front window my mother had my brother in her arms and tried to shield him as much as she could. My mother was showered with glass and had cuts and glass fragments down her back. My brother seemed to be ok but wouldn't stop screaming and crying. When she finally got to a hospital for treatment the nurse discovered that the reason my brother was screaming was because he had microscopic glass splinters down one side and in his leg. My moms brother who was only fifteen went missing and everybody thought the worst. So my mum still bandaged up went looking for him. She looked everywhere but had no luck looking on the streets so she went to the first aid stations and eventually found him in hospital. He had been found wandering the streets with a glass shard sticking out of his head. He had totally lost his memory and when he saw her asked in a shaky voice....Are you my mother? My uncle, mum, dad and brother survived the war and my uncle eventually got his memory back. What an insane and terrifying time to live through they were an amazing generation and I am so proud of the British people for surviving against such an evil and relentless enemy. I often think I may not even be here to tell the story if things had turned out differently!

Not only did the Germans not have an integrated air defence system then, nobody did. Such an incredible innovation that allowed the exact amount of aircraft to be directed exactly where they were needed, rather than wasting pilot, fuel and engine hours etc on flying patrols that might not find anything.

Always got me when in the movie Dowding's secretary says the American Press was questioning our kills and losses compaired to what the Germans were saying and he says 'If I'm right . they'll give up, if I'm wrong they'll be here within a week' (something like that) that's how close we came to losing / being invaded. God bless 'The Few! (Average life expectancy was four weeks, average age was 22)

Hats off to the producers, and salute to all of the airmen and ground crew who fought, and died. And I salute all of the civilians and their fortitude, and all those interviewed snd featured in this documentary - all of whom have now passed away sadly. RIP. They were the greatest generation.

Pretty sure all remaining Battle of Britain pilots have now passed away. Time has caught up with them. Modern day Britain owes them everything. I met a few when I was in the RAF they still used to come to squadron reunions.

Some of the footage is from the film Battle of Britain, real footage and reanactments. The late Nicolas Parsons was a tv presenter, the late Jimmy Perry was in The Home Guard during WW2 and in the 60s he wrote Dads Army tv series with the late David Croft among other tv comedies. I have visited numerous airfields that took part in The Battle of Britain that have become museums, industrial estates, housing estates, Britain’s biggest antiques centre, international airports and civilian airfields. RAF Duxford featured in The Battle of Britain film and was a Battle of Britain airfield and is now a museum and restoration centre. RAF Manston another Battle of Britain airfield was an international airport and waiting to reopen soon, there are two museums there unfortunately when I visited last year they were closed due to Covid-19. RAF Biggin Hill was another Battle of Britain airfield which is now an international airport, a small museum is on the site as well as The Heritage Hanger where Second World War planes are restored they have a museum on site also you have a flight in a Spitfire for £2,500 or bring nine friends and it will cost £27,500 for a flight. RAF Hawkinge is another Battle of Britain airfield which Is now a museum. The RAF Bunker in Uxbridge which features in this documentary is now a museum. The late Dame Vera Lynn a singer during WW2 and the forces sweetheart still had songs and an album in the charts a few years ago. The pilots in The RAF flying in The Battle of Britain where from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, The Caribbean, France, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Barbados, Jamaica, Newfoundland, Ireland, America, an Austrian and Poland. There is a swastika on the floor of an underground station in London. The late Tony Benn Labour MP.

I was 6 yrs old in Belfast when on April 1941 ,300 German bombers descended on the city ,in 3 waves,they left the city in rubble.. they hit the shipyards,aircraft factory and ammunition buildings,plus the residential areas. It was a horrible time to live through.I’ll always remember (I’m 87 now)the clean up the next day,the bodies being loaded on flat bed trucks,a man walking up the road carrying a girls head by the pony tail and other limbs under his arm,the men were drunk on whiskey supplied by the local pub. We had two more raids after that,it was a horrible time to be alive. Did you notice that the fighter pilots were young 18-25 years old. We owe them so much.I remember one pilot saying “ you don’t fly a spitfire you wear it”

My gran lived in Portsmouth during the war. On one occasion she was walking towards the city centre with her best friend. All of a sudden a man jumped in top of both of them bringing them all to the ground. She thought that he was going to do something inappropriate but he was actually trying to protect them as a German pilot was shooting at people walking along the road. Fortunately for them all, they were unharmed. I can only try to imagine what it was like for the civilian population and the military during the war. However, they have my absolute respect as well as my eternal gratitude for what they did and for what they went through.

There is some great old video footage of a news crew or the equivalent asking a normal housewife. She has curlers in her hair and holding a small child in her hand. Upon asking her about the German invasion, she replied "Well, I shall just fight them off, and if they decide to shoot me then they can not say I did not try"...... And that's the British spirit that won...

Jimmy Perry was one of the creators of Dad's Army. The character of Private Pike was based on his experience during the war.

The man who talked about the chicken was an actor, and so was the brother he mentioned, David Jason, who starred in Only Fools and Horses, an iconic comedy series and is very famous.

The pilots collectively known as The Few were indeed fantastic human beings. Many of them were no more than kids themselves. For instance, Tom Neil, who featured in that documentary we've just been watching, was the youngest pilot in RAF Fighter Command at the time of the battle and he was only 16 years old (he lied about his age to the Recruiting Officer) so that tells you what stuff he and his fellow pilots were made of. I was lucky enough to meet one of my heroes, a certain Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader at a Battle of Britain exhibition at the Imperial War Museum in 1974. He was the Leader of the Duxford Wing which played a big part in these air battles over London on this momentous day, and when I plucked up enough courage to ask him why it went the way it did, he told me that if Hitler and Goering had continued with their tactic of bombing the airfields in the South of England for another couple of weeks, instead of turning their focus to attacking London and other cities, the Germans would have won the Battle of Britain. The RAF were losing more aircraft than they could really afford to and, more importantly, experienced pilots that defeat was virtually inevitable. At times, the new pilots were being thrown into the battle with as little as 7 hours flying experience on Spitfires and Hurricanes, and they were going up against highly trained, battle hardened Luftwaffe pilots, many of whom had already seen action in the Spanish Civil War with the Condor Legion and the German Blitzkrieg through Poland and the Low Countries the previous year. That statement will shock many folk on this forum, it certainly did me, but it is an uncomfortable fact that should not be dismissed as being unpatriotic or un-British to mention. Thankfully for the civilised world, Hitler and Goering were inept as military strategists, and made a series of tactical blunders during the Battle of Britain and squandered a 4:1 advantage in numbers of aircraft through a basic failure to recognise the defensive importance of early warning radar to the British. Somehow, the thought that if they destroyed the radar stations, the RAF would have no time to scramble their fighters in time to be able to get to operational altitude and intercept the enemy formations as they came in didn't quite enter the minds of the German High Command. While they did attack and knock out a couple of radar stations on the Isle of Wight and Dover on Adler Tag, they didn't press the attack home sufficiently to remove that vital ability for the British to see the enemy coming early enough from the equation. So the decision by the Germans to turn their attention away from bombing the fighter stations to bombing London, did two things. Firstly, it allowed the RAF to re-organise and recover their strength and re-assess the situation. Secondly, the escorting fighters on the German side only had fuel enough for 10 minutes over London before they had to RTB to refuel and, as a result leave the bombers vulnerable to attack from our fighters who were fighting over home territory, and therefore, able to break off combat, RTB quickly to re-arm and re-fuel and go again. As Churchill said in the House of Commons, "Never in the field of human conflict has so much be owed by so many to so few", we remember those brave men and thank them for what they did, but it should also be recognised that without the Germans' tactical blunders and a whole shed-load of luck, the result of the Battle of Britain would have been completely different. It should also be recognised that the Battle of Britain was only the beginning of the beginning. The Blitz of Britain's towns and cities (76 consecutive nights of it as far as London is concerned) was about to begin, and that, my good fellow, should be the next subject you do a reaction video on because that is when you will learn about the "Blitz Spirit" that made the generation of people who lived through those days so remarkable.

These were terrible times for Britain, I wasn't born then but my both grandparents came through that, my mother and father were just babies during that time, we were fighting for our country, in a real term during that battle, on our own ground, trying to save our country from an evil enemy. Thank God we succeeded.

i was ok, until i heard about that woman, just married, being blown to the ground, but surviving because her new husband was between her and the blast and was blown on top of her. that brought tears to my eyes and a very big lump to my throat. you saw dame Vera Lynn, there. she became a Dame [the female version of being knighted] because she was what was called, 'The Force's Sweetheart'. it's a British tradition. a female singer is invited to the position and then goes out to wherever our forces are posted abroad and sings to them. i don't know if you have this over there, in the US, but the present sweetheart is Katherine Jenkins, the Welsh classical crossover singer. Wales is called 'The Land Of Song'. i love Katherine's voice and she's the loveliest person. a national treasure, for sure. if you're interested, there's a 10 minute video called Katherine Jenkins, Forces Sweetheart, A Tribute.

I've seen this documentary a couple of times and it's a great insight into WW2. My dad talked about seeing the fighters battling in the air above, but my dad's most vivid memory of WW2 is seeing his baby sister, who was asleep in her cot at the time, along with himself get blown across the room when a bomb went off across the road from his house. It blew the roof off, and all the windows out of his house. He always said that, as a young lad, it was a scary but an exciting time.

I work in the former Rolls Royce now Bentley factory where the merlin engines were made for both the spitfire and the hurricane. There is a spitfire prop on the wall as a monument and a simple plack that reads ‘To all who died and those who tried, we will never forget and here we are’ - since VW bought the factory years ago there is much mockery every time a German from walks past this plack, to the point where Wolfgang Dürheimer CEO of VW refused to go near it for fear of heckling from the workers in the factory.

If you haven't seen it already, I think you might find the documentary series, "The World at War" interesting and very educational. Episodes used to be regularly aired on TV in the UK until at least the '70's and '80's. There are a LOT of episodes so you might want to view them at your own leisure rather than to post reaction vids.

That was absolutely brilliant Mr. Beard. My heart was beating really fast and I have lived in Britain for 65 years so I know what happened.

To support the suggestion that this was the time in history that Britain actually welded itself together, my father was too young to fight in the war, he became 18 in 1945. But his eldest brother fought and died in North Africa with the West Yorkshire Regiment, another brother was in the Royal Artillery and went ashore just after D-Day, one sister was in the RAF in a mosquito squadron, another sister worked in a factory making Wellington bombers, the youngest brother joined the RAF near the end of the war and was in a fighter squadron but I can't find out which. Everyone did something, everyone put in the effort and pulled their weight, because it wasn't a choice. One of my favourite memories of my dad was him telling me the story of his cat. He was sitting on a windowsill petting the cat, when a V2 landed in the next street across from his home. The blast took the front off his building, threw him into the street and left him mostly naked, but he spent the next couple of hours looking for his cat and never found it. He said if he had one thing that he held against Hitler, after the loss of his brother, it was losing that cat.

8:00 - The only three cities in Wales - Cardiff, Swansea and Newport - were all along the South Wales coast. They were all ports and did have a few bomber attacks on them during the war but all were covered by the Fighter Command 10 group. The rest of Wales was - and mostly still is - very rural and covered in sheep so there were no targets for the Germans. Great reaction, as always, to this important slice of British history.

My mother's family came over to this country from England just before World War two. But my cousin's family stayed in England. My cousin was working at Whitehall during the Battle of Britain. Years often the war, I visited her in London. She had worked in Whitehall, and remembered having to essentially live and work under the ground in the tunnels and bunker under Whitehall. Was terrifying to hear about.

Once again EB another excellent reaction to an historic event. We all owe a debt of gratitude to every airman from many different countries who time after time took to the skies to defend our land on this momentous day.

The might, ingenuity and 'never give up' attitude of an island vs a relentless empire of hate.

One of the shot down Bf.109s hit the ground so hard during this battle that its shattered engine block, which kept it's shape better than the rest of the airframe, was found in a crater 14' deep.

About what you say (at around the 15 min mark) about how it's great to hear about the civilians in the mix rather than just military ops. It made me think of the stories of when every Tom Dick and Harriet with any kind of boat, just went over the channel to bring whoever the hell they could find back. That always amazed and stuck out for me. That being said, only 1 of many things you hear or read about from that time and just be in awe of. Ok, back to the vid :D ...

It's worth noting just who some of those interviewed were: Nicolas Parsons (national treasure, check out Just a MInute*); Rt Hon Tony Benn (long-standing Labour MP for Chesterfield); and Jimmy Perry (co-writer of Dad's Army and more) - notice he's referring to his own role in the Home Guard. All now deceased. *Just a Minute is a popular BBC radio show hosted by Nicolas Parsons but there are videos of it being recorded. Very funny, especially the older episodes with Derek Nimmo, Peter Jones, Clement Freud and Kenneth Williams. Wales was covered by No. 9 Group and No. 10 Group. A lot of the colour clips in the video are from the 1969 film, Battle of Britain. Worth watching because they attempted to verify every detail using among others, Sir Hugh Dowding, Robert Stanford Tuck, Sir Douglas Bader and Adolf Galland as advisers. Most of the 'German' aircrew in the film are Spanish.

A lone German bomber dumped its unused bombs along the High Street of the small Sussex town of East Grinstead. 340 people (including many children in the local cinema) were killed or seriously injured

Dame Vera Lynne was a forces sweetheart and used to entertain the troops and only died last year aged 103.

My great uncle was a tail gunner in the Lancaster Second World War. Took 16 kills and oddly I have his logbook which was unusual for tail gunners to do. God bless those men!

The Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (spitfire, hurricane, Lancaster bomber) sometimes flies overhead and it’s like being in the thick of every WW2 RAF film you’ve ever seen. The engine sound is unmistakeable and they’re slow enough for you to watch them for quite a time. Goosebump moment. Everyone comes out to watch. (The Red Arrows fly overhead quite often but they’re gone in a flash.) Regarding Wales, presumably the leaders thought the bombers would be dealt with before they got to Wales. But Cardiff and Swansea were badly bombed. About half of central Swansea was flattened. The Londoners were picking hops for beer making in Kent. It was a holiday in the countryside for working class Londoners. It was still going on in the 60s. Each family got a hut and they wallpapered it every year. It was very hard work but the children got some fresh air running around in the countryside, although even the smallest worked to achieve the quota. The same London kids would be firing bullets they found on bomb sites for over a decade after WW2 by putting the bullets in a vice and banging the end with a hammer and chisel. My gran was a midwife during the war. She was called out to delivery a premature baby and, while dodging bombs, was ordered into the bomb shelter by an air warden. She sneaked out to deliver the baby. Warmed it up in blankets by the oven like you do with new born lambs. Baby survived. Gran got a formal warning for not obeying orders.

I served in the RAF for 35 years and we are rightly proud of what our service did for the free world during the Battle of Britain, Per Ardua ad Astra

I wonder what those brave airmen would have thought of the state of Britain today?(probably"why the hell did we bother?")

Your comments at the end excellent, great channel by the way best regards from the UK

You saw Jimmy Perry being interviewed. He was one of the writers of Dad's Army which I think you reacted to.

Take a look at "The Blitz: London's Longest Night", 2005. "London suffered its most devastating air raid on the night of the 29th of December, in 1940. Germany blanketed the city with incendiary bombs which lit 15,000 fires. Fireman valiantly risked their lives to save the city. This moving documentary shows us (colorized) footage along with interviews of survivors".

My late Grandmother lived through this period and used to talk about how close it really came as she worked on Anti Aircraft Guns on the south and south east coast during this time - apparently her unit and several others had special permission to train the women soldiers in small arms in case the Germans attempted a parachute drop on her position to take it over prior to a full invasion and could still, at the age of 98, nail bullseyes every time she went on a range. Although Army, she always had the biggest respect for the RAF, the Fleet Air Arm and other friendly units who, she maintained, saved the Empire and the entire free world until "the Americans got off their damned arses and got stuck in". She was also a little mad because she would put on her medals, travel to London once a year to stand outside the German Embassy and shouted rude words and made an obscene gesture and then had a cup of tea and went home.

The world has a lot to thank Britain for!! Thank you!!!!🙏🙏🙏 What doggedness and courage!!! Sheer bullheadedness too!!! It's hard to imagine that 'everyone was on the front line' in the UK. The hardships you went through and overcame were unbelievable. Hats off to the British spirit!!🙏🙏🙏 My grand uncle fought (Sri Lanka) with the Brits in Burma. I wish he'd spoken of it. His family have his medals. Medals that nobody, not even his children have much knowledge of. God Bless. Thank you for your service, everyone!!! The world as we know it would have been a whole different place to live in/exist in if the allies hadn't won. 🙏🙏🙏

I was born in 1946, but my Mother took my older brothers and sister to Chislehurst Caves on many occasions during the Blitz. Dad worked on the tracks, and was otherwise engaged repairing the work the bombers inflicted.....the railway system was a particular target for the enemy.

My late grandfather was a newish recruit (he go on to become a sergeant). He was part of a Boffa anti aircraft gunner team stationed on Southend pier during those 13 hours. He said it was astounding watching the dogfights taking place overhead. He was also worried as my nan was at home which was very close to Northolt Aerodrome, home of the legendary Polish 303 hurricane squadron which was regularly attacked by the German bombers. A couple of months later Southend pier was hit by a rogue bomb. My grandfather and his team spent 4 days and nights stranded on the pier because the sea was to rough to rescue them or even get food to them.. That's when he truly hated the Germans. But he hated them even more 4 years later when he saw first hand the horrors of Belsen. My other Grandfather was an engineer in the RAF. He qualified as a pilot but wasn't aloud to fly until 1944 because he was needed on the ground. He worked with the test pilots and eventually flew Typhoons in action in the last months of the war..

My grannies house was hit by an incendiary bomb when my father was only about two years old, well, my grandmother knew that the bomb had hit their house, she searched all over for my dad and then eventually found him behind the settee playing with his toy cars! Luckily for my dad, the bomb didn't go off! If it had of, then I wouldn't be here now!! Yes, even all of these years on, it does affect us even now.

I remember going to see The Battle of Britain in the cinema when it came out. I think I learned more about history watching these films and documentaries than I ever did during boring school lessons. The documentary series “The World at War” was an amazing, if disturbing, documentary series, but I always felt it should be shown in schools as part of a history course. If young people could see the horrors of war they would never think the same about them again. Just my own opinion.

There was a RAF base in Wales as I remember hearing a story that the British were desperate to get the hands on a FW 190 (Focke wolf) fighter plane and what happened was a German pilot got lost his instruments most likely damaged and accidentally mistook the Bristol Channel for the English Channel, and crossed from around Cornwall / Exeter area into wales, basically handing a mostly intact FW190 to the British.

Also at one point in the war the life expectancy of airmen was less than 12 months - they were incredibly brave

I can’t imagine how terrifying it must have been to be either on the ground or in the air while all of this was happening, imagine being a rear gunner or on the underside guns of one of those aircraft, confined and clostrophobic seating with nothing but a machine gun and the sky between you and death, all the while you are under fire seeing your allies being destroyed. These men will always deserve thanks.

It's so annoying that the BBC blocked your PQ-17 Convoy video.

Imagine a country with a common culture, beliefs and without the death wish of diversity!

There is so much to say watching this, too much, so I will just say thank you for reacting to this and the respect for All who were involved in this day

Keep calm and carry on is the british way mate,bull dog spirit,mind you now days too many young hate their own country

It’s amazing how the film the Battle of Britain is used to great effect to illustrate the documentary.

My grandmother was teaching in London, during the blitz. She had a lucky escape, she was walking down an alleyway, when a bomb landed and exploded at the other end of the alleyway. The blast blew her out the other end of the alleyway, luckily she only had a few cuts and bruises, but scary stuff.

Hi EB, I am from the UK, I have been to France, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Belgium, Belgium was to visit the war graves, I'm pleased that I did that but I'm not sure that I'd do it again, I don't mind admitting that I was in tears far more than I had expected to be. Something that I noticed in the footage was how so early in the war how quickly people had learned to deal with death, they had no choice really, it was something my dad and grandad never spoke about, I am in the North of England but it didn't escape air raids and attacks from the sea, fortunately I wasn't born in wartime, but my dad and grandad were down the mines, his elder brother joined the army and didn't come back. Because we were in the industrial part of the North a lot of damage was done because of the factories building planes, tanks and it was more ship repairs and docks. Thank you for how you handled the video, you are always you but you know how to be in situations like this, you are much appreciated. Take care :)

there's nothing like the sound of a rolls royce merlin engine ...... then put 4 on a lancaster bomber ...is absolutely awesome

Gotta admire the British. So very resilient.My respects,from an Aussie bloke

Proud to be British 💯🇬🇧🇬🇧

Never underestimate the Brits. ✌

By bombing London they limited their fighters to 10 minutes duration before they had to leave the bombers. Also the bombers were close to 12th Group and the big wings of fighters (led by Leigh-Mallory; Douglas Bader). So the bombers were attacked on their way to and from London; and whilst over London. The bomber pilots were the elite, so losing them (Killed or Captured) was a damaging loss for the Germans. British pilots shot down were often back at their units and in the air a few hours later. Also at this time we were building replacement Spitfires and Hurricanes in greater numbers than before. Damaged aircraft beyond repair were collected and often 2 aircraft were dismantled and the good bits used to repair or make a new one (particularly the harder to build/repair Spitfire). The motto "Make do and mend" was never truer.

Thanks Beardie, for your assessments of the situation, but especially for the Yorkshire flag just behind you. Nice one mate, you’ll. be enjoying Yorkshire Tea next and I’ll be chuffed to call you an “honorary Yorkshireman”.

My Dear Fighter Boys, In sending you this my last signal, I want you to know how continually you have been in my thoughts and prayers, I cannot hope to match the simple eloquence of the Prime Minister's words "Never before has so much been owed by so many to so few". The debt remains and will increase, God bless you all HCT Dowding AOC RAF Fighter Command This was sent after Hugh Dowding was FIRED in late 1940.

The color footage clips is from the film Battle Of Britain made in around the 1960,s and they real ww2 era aeroplanes flying around but some on the ground where dummies and made to look they where trying to taking to flight no CGI was used. The air shots was filmed with the camera fitted to a WW2 era American bomber and was choreographed to make it look real. Some of the pilots who where on the set as advisers where from both sides of the conflict British and German and of course tried to kill each other during the conflict.

Churchill said “Hitler knows he must break us here in this island or risk the prospect of losing the war”

We shouldn't underestimate the part played by the silent hero, the "magic eye" of radar, which enabled us to "see" the German squadrons forming before they even left the continent, giving us the opportunity to get our own small squadrons in the air and focused where they could do most damage. Legend has it at the end of the war, the Americans wanted some British technology in exchange for the help they had given - they asked for Radar, we gave them the computers developed at Bletchley - you're welcome Mr. Gates.

You identified Wales: Respect!

My mother was a 9 yr old girl living in kent and watched the dogfights in the battle of britain in the hop fields with her friend Rita. A few weeks before the battle in the same fields they were strafed by a meschersmitt who must have been abke to see that they were children!

additonal.My Granhdmother's house was the most awesome of all time. after the war a large number of railway passenger coaches were used as house,the wheels taken off,slapped onto a conctre base and 3 rooms built onto the side. My bedroom door had a huge brass pailway handle and my bedroom had an inside window to the living room with a long leather strap to raise and lower it. it could not have been closer to a beautiful English cottage by the time I moved in during the 70's I cannot convey how fortunate I was to have lived in it.with I could share it but none of my familt have any photos,I know you would find it fascinating ..........i'm waffling again aren't I.Bugger.

We as an island and island people may have stood alone at that time....but....'the few' - the RAF Roll of Honour recognises 574 pilots from countries other than Britain. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-British_personnel_in_the_RAF_during_the_Battle_of_Britain#United_States

There have now been vaild questions asked if there was any chance of the invasion working if it had happened. However at the time they honestly thought that invasion could happen any day if the RAF lost this battle. That is what makes this so impressive the daily fear must've been horrific

My Grandmother worked in a local factory making valves for the Spitfires Merlin Engine.

A lot of Commonwealth men gave their lives for us, let us not forget them...Love you are the small in picture format.

My dad spent most of the nights of the first 3 years of his life in an Anderson shelter in his parents back garden… his dad, my grandfather was a riveter in the Swan Hunters shipyard on the Tyne river…

"A really good conker would be worth a bit of shrapnel." So British! (My parents were children living in England at the time. I grew up in Portsmouth in the 60s/70s and would play in the myriad of concrete bunkers dotted around the edge of the city. Generational pain is a very real thing. It's quite hard to watch this.)

My mum was 12 year-old when second world war broke out and my dad was 17 year old my mum tell me it was the most scariest thing she's ever experienced🇬🇧

The Greatest Generation indeed.

'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few'

There were around 3000 pilots approximately in the Battle of Britain , 2,500 Brits and 500 from other countries mainly Poland, New Zealand and Czechoslovakia ...

As an aside, I have shown photos of the vapour trails over London during the Battle of Britain to various 'chemtrail' nutters on Twitter and asked them if both the Brits and Germans were spraying chemicals over London at the same time. Never got a response haha!

I am getting up early in the morning so no time to watch all of this video, will try to catch up tomorrow.

The guy who told the chicken story is actually David Jason's brother, who plays Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses.

EB, You rock! I love your full length historical reactions! Thanx so much for all your work! Cheers m8!

We had killer sheep defending Wales.

That guy talking about the chicken is the actor, David Jason ( who played Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses) ‘s big brother.

One quote from Churchill comes to mind "NEVER HAS SO MANY OWED SO MUCH TO SO FEW"

So cute seeing such young kiddies working the hop fields.. all my little ones wanna do is eat sweets and watch cartoons..

a lot of the people talking are our well known celebrities that show that they been through something we havent and gives them a genuine character

Loving your reactions. I live close to Biggin Hill aerodrome and even though it is no longer an RAF base they still have a Spitfire and a Hurricane posted either side of the main gate. I have also taken the Chislehurst Caves tour a few times, during WWII it was literally an underground city. At one point during the tour the guide get everyone to turn off their lamps and you get to experience total darkness, a very eerie event!

My mom was 6 at the time and I love her stories of seeing the German planes and hearing the engines it must of been so scary but she says she remembers it been exciting which as a 6yr old it must of been

That's why we (as Britain's, I don't know about the wider world) refer to them as the greatest generation, and it's meant with love and the greatest respect. We cannot pay the debt for what they went through for what we have today.

My Mum used to tell me stories of those times, how she lost friends and neighbours to bombing. She was the eldest in her family with her Dad away fighting and her Mum working she would have to look after all her younger siblings, as she used to say "I never had time to be scared, too much to do".

My mother lived in London throughout the war endured the blitz v1 v2 raids loosing her best friend, tbe rest of her life she could not stand thunder and lightning she would turn all the electrical and gas appliances off and hide in the front room today we would say she had PTSD .

Remember the geography of Great Britain, for the Luftwaffe to attack Wales they'd have to be attacking from the West out to the Atlantic, mainland Europe is to the east. The Luftwaffe were attacking from the East which explains why no fighter group in Wales.

In my 90s now and l lived through all of this. But never doubted that we would win.

Very well put together, thanks mate!