Certainly not the case that 10 July saw the “first sanctioned and systematic attacks on shipping”. There is virtually no relevance to the 10 July 1940 date in the context of the air campaign we now know to have been the Battle of Britain. Reliance on Wikipedia is not always….well…reliable! Not sure if thats what the page says exactly as I haven’t ploughed through it.

As for Barking Creek, not exactly a mis-nomer as such. It became known thus in RAF circles (and notwithstanding that it took place over the Essex/Suffolk border) and was just an example of ‘black-humour’ coming into play by RAF FC pilots – somebody coined the phrase as a joke, and the name stuck. It was never called Battle of Barking Creek because it was fought there, or because anyone thought that it had been.

I knew Hulton-Harrop’s brother and have some nice photos of M L Hulton-Harrop; he was RAF Fighter Command’s first casualty ‘in action’ over the UK.

However, ‘Barking Creek’, although a self-inflicted wound, does take us back to the originally posed question; what might be considered the real commencement of the Battle of Britain? Officially, it will always remain 10 July, but that is as an arbitary start date as is the end date! Lots of other dates can be suggested, but ultimately Dowding made the date decision post-war.