"[I]t was the young pilots of Fighter Command who passed into British myth as "The Few" who outfought vast German airfleets. Today, 70 years on, we can acknowledge that the young men in the Messerschmitts were just as gallant, high-spirited and skilful. But whereas the German pilots were fighting for a hideous tyrant in the delusion that they were patriotically defending the Fatherland, the pilots of Fighter Command were modern-day Spartans, holding the pass for the free world against the barbarian. They included volunteers from the British Dominions overseas, from countries under Nazi occupation such as Czechoslovakia and Poland, and even a handful from neutral America."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Historians from EnglandBiographers from the United KingdomPeople from LondonUniversity of Oxford alumniFellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
'V for Victory: The day the Battle of Britain was won', The Independent (12 September 2010)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Correlli_Barnett
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Correlli Barnett
Correlli Douglas Barnett (28 June 1927 – 10 July 2022) was an English military historian, who also wrote works of economic history, particularly on the United Kingdom's post-war "industrial decline".
106 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Correlli Barnett →
Related Quotes
"For the British...Jutland has a much deeper significance, for it was in fact a defeat for British technology. More th…"
"Two things caused the decadence of British maritime power: the long peaceful supremacy after Trafalgar and the captur…"
"The war embraced infinitely complex elements and motives. The most important single one of those elements was the str…"
"[I]t was the inner elite (the general staff) of one of the most caste-bound and privileged officer corps in Europe—th…"
"The new German conception of organizing and planning opened the modern epoch of war. Nothing like the minutely doveta…"
"[T]he essential and constant factor common to all three national academies [in Britain, France and America] is the in…"
"The importance of war and military institutions has been generally neglected in British historical writing, whose ton…"
"Of course I entirely agree...that the British plight consists in a low-wage, low-investment, low-productivity economy…"
"It is noteworthy that neither the Labour Party's plans for "reconstructing and regenerating" Britain nor the so-calle…"
"The mistake was enshrined in the preamble to the first German Navy Bill of 1900, by which the new High Seas Fleet was…"