"The second British advantage was in the air, though here the advantage was much smaller. Served up to the House of Commons on August 20,1940, Churchill's tribute to Fighter Command - 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few' - remains one his most memorable utterances. At the time, however, pilots joked that it was an allusion to the size of their unpaid mess bills. Churchill's own private secretaries felt the speech 'seemed to drag' because it contained 'less oratory than usual'. His phrase 'the few' implied that the Royal Air Force was outnumbered by the Luftwaffe; and indeed that was what British intelligence believed at the time. In reality, the RAF had a narrow edge. On August 9, just before the Germans launched their crucial offensive against Britain's air defences, the RAF had 1,032 fighters. The German fighters available for the attack numbered 1,011. Moreover, the RAF had 1,400 trained pilots, several hundred more than the Luftwaffe, and they proved more than a match for the Germans in skill and courage."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Niall Ferguson, The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West (2006), p. 393
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Force
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Royal Air Force
5 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Royal Air Force →
Related Quotes
"Britain was at last out-producing Germany when it came to aircraft. During the crucial months from June until Septemb…"
"The British air estimates for 1938 included considerable expenditure in the Singapore area. The strength of the Royal…"
"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody …"
"In 1958, Bomber Command's emergency war plan called for the destruction of 44 Soviet cities. Such an attack would kil…"
"It is almost impossible to win a VC. In the hundred-and-fifty years since it was created, the number of British and C…"
"First off, the whole point of airborne troops is surprise: you don't know they're coming until they're there. But bec…"
"You know, we've a rather warped sense of what constitutes bravery these days. I mean, even David Beckham is called a …"
"The Decoration of the Victoria Cross was instituted in 1856 and the award made retrospective to the commencement of t…"
"While the buildup of men and machines continued, BF.I was taking an active part in the conflict. Observer/gunners wer…"
"The British soldier is second to none in the communities of fighting men. Some may possess more élan, others may be b…"