This year marks the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain, a pivotal event in the history of World War II and one with which the Spitfire will forever be associated.

Commemorating Britain’s Finest Hour

I have been long contemplating commemorating it in a special way on the pages of the Spitfire Site, and I have decided: I will be post-blogging the events of the Battle as they unveiled 70 years ago. The name of this article series is Stories of  the Battle of Britain.

My aim is a better understanding of the developments of 1940 by setting them in proper perspective of time and sequence. Rather than enumerating the facts, I will be frequently focusing on small history: picking anecdotes, personal stories, experiences of people. Indeed, there are so many interesting stories to tell about the months and days that came to be known as Britain’s Finest Hour.

All posts will be grouped on the category page “Battle of Britain”, to be found on the navigation menu in the leftmost column of this page, or through this link:

Stories of the Battle of Britain

The aim is building up the series with one or two posts a week; at least this is as much as I dare to plan for. But there’ll be other authors to help: Brett Holman of Airminded, the prolific aviation history blog, has kindly agreed to share some of the effort, mostly around the German Blitz in the later part of the period. Other blogers are kindly invited to join! Some of our posts will be guest posts written by our many friends – and please remember that contributions are always received with gratitude.

Last but not least, we will be linking to other blogs and resources related to the decribed events.

As of this writing, I have already completed over 20 stories: on Dunkirk evacuation, Churchill’s speeches, first RAF fighter aces, Ministry of Aircraft Production and preparations for the German invasion, among others. There’ll be many more.

Enjoy, and please support this initiative through your feedback and comments. Oh, and don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS Feed to receive automatic updates!