The RAF Wins the Battle of Britain
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few
Quick facts
- Campaign dates
- 10 July - 31 October 1940
- "Hardest day"
- 18 August 1940
- Churchill's "The Few" speech
- 20 August 1940, House of Commons
- Outcome
- German invasion (Operation Sea Lion) postponed indefinitely
What happened
Following the fall of France in 1940, Germany launched a sustained air campaign against Britain, aiming to destroy the Royal Air Force and clear the way for a cross-Channel invasion. The National Archives records that in 1940 the Royal Air Force resisted major aerial attacks from Germany in what became known as the Battle of Britain, with RAF Fighter Command controlling the squadrons defending the country; 18 August is often singled out as the hardest day of the fighting. On 20 August 1940, addressing the House of Commons, Winston Churchill summed up the debt owed to the RAF's fighter pilots in a single sentence that immediately entered the language: never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Why it matters
The RAF's success in denying Germany air superiority forced Hitler to indefinitely postpone Operation Sea Lion, the planned invasion of Britain, making the Battle of Britain the first major campaign fought and won largely in the air and a turning point that kept Britain in the war as a base for the eventual Allied campaigns in Europe.
How we know
The battle is documented in RAF Fighter Command's own operational records and Churchill's speech survives in the official Hansard record of Parliamentary debates, alongside independent German Luftwaffe loss records from the same campaign.
Sources
- The National Archives (UK). The Battle of Britain's 'hardest day' · Primary sourcenationalarchives.gov.uk · The domain "nationalarchives.gov.uk" is on our Primary source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- International Churchill Society. The Few · Primary source (author-declared)winstonchurchill.org · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Related timelines
- World War II → · The Battle of Britain was one theatre within the much larger conflict; see the World War II timeline for the full global war.