EGPH – thank you.

Yes, I take your point but I think to say that the Luftwaffe lost the Battle-of-Britain more that the RAF won it, does a bit of injustice to the RAF; Fighter Command didn’t just win because the Luftwaffe was ill prepared and mishandled…

…Fighter Command would have won against any air force of 1940!

I did make the point very strongly that my comments were in no way to be interpreted as detracting from the heroism and courage of our men and women. But surely 70 years later we are allowed to be objective and rational, with hindsight of course.

And your last comment is unanswerable.

J Boyle – you are right and I was not including the F-111 as a Cold War bomber. I should have inserted the word “strategic” to have made it clearer.

Isn’t it funny, I came away thinking exactly the opposite…..that it was a case of Britain winning and Germany losing! 😀

What I meant was that we played our game to the ultimate and as best as we were able, whereas had the Germans been better lead and better managed their resources they might have won.

That’s been my impression every time he has been rolled out in the last few months – and there have been quite a few!!

..And that was the point that the programme made very well. I know that Stephen Bungay made this point well in his excellent book, but I’m still astonished how amateurish the Germans were. That was the crux of it though I suppose, we had professionals running our show, and they had amateurs! Thank God for that!

Regards;
Steve

I haven’t read Bungay’s book – it’s odd, I find him rather patronising. But he’s a good historian, I have no doubt.

He sure did – and until I heard the news this morning, I did not know he was still with us. Sad.

Except that, as the programme showed so well, the differences in performance between the 109 and the Spit were only a part of the complex jigsaw which resulted our success.