The Battle of Britain

Considering the age of the film, the HD version was pretty good, certainly grainy in places but some of the aerials were stunning.

Strange thing happened when I was watching it as well, a Spitfire flew over my house, first one I’ve ever seen over our village, couldn’t have timed it better!

According to the listings this was being simulcast in HD on the Channel 4 HD channel.
Did anyone see it in this format and what was the quality like ? I have heard that on the American Blu-ray disc the aerial sequences exhibit quite a bit of picture grain compared to the ground scenes.

I have no doubt that the whole of Ireland would have been occupied too. Despite some sympathy for Germany in Ireland, the overall population would have been devastated by the notion of the Nazis occupying the country.

Don’t forget that there were quite a few Irish in the RAF (from both sides of the border) in 1940.

Battle of Britain

I have been reading this thread with interest as I recently re-read The Narrow Margin (for the upteenth time) the author cetainly makes out a good case that the Germans were intent in invasion, and after the failure of 1940 actually considered re trying in 1941. The invasion of Russia stopped this idea. Just as an aside I am heartily sick of people classing what happened as the attempted invasion of England, or the English fighting off the evil Hun. As far as I can gather Fghter Command, at that time, was made up of people from virtually every nation on the Earth and the invasion was to be of Great Britain, you know that island made up of England, Scotland and Wales and I think we were all getting it if the invasion had gone ahead as they planned(although I would imagine that Northern Ireland may well have been next!). I am by no means a nationalist but get slightly fed up with Britain being classed as England in such books as The Guns of Sugust, and numerous American television programmes and books.

you have to remember that no one questioned this at the time, they were going to try to invade,it was just a matter of when, my fathers unit was brought back from india in one hell of a hurry and was stationed in kent during the BoB, i suppose hitler may have thought if the raf was knocked out and england was at his mercy we may have sued for peace without him invading

IMHO, I’m not convinced the Germans were totally committed to an invasion. The Germans forces tactics, equipment etc was all designed around land mechanised warfare, and airborne para/glider ops, not a seaborne invasion force as you can see from what they had to do for the Crete invasion because of RN superiority in the eastern Med.
Sure, if the RAF had fallen apart very quickly and given them control of the air they may well have given it a go, but even so it would have been far from easy for them.

However, supposition is irrelevant really and nothing should ever be taken away from what the RAF achieved during the summer and autumn of 1940, and the significance of the first defeat of the German forces should never be underestimated.

I tend to agree that the Nazis intended to invade but were stopped by RAF and also RN. However, I am always wary now of looking back at decisions that the Nazis made and drawing conclusions. They were led by a megalomaniac who was skilled at mobilising followers but had dreadful military judgement so it’s hard to understand why some decisions were made.