Scramble: Spitfires take off over a crashed zerstroyer.
The celebrations of the great World War II victory of the Battle of Britain are underway.
The battle marked the limit of Hitler's western expansion placed him in the position of Napoleon: dominant in Western Europe but facing a hostile and implacable naval power that had the ability to strangle his economy.
The victory was won by British, Commonwealth and East European pilots, notably the fighting Poles and is the first campaign to be decided almost entirely by air power.
Like Napoleon, unable to conquer or intimidate Great Britain, Hitler turned east instead and invaded Russia. But he did it with a Luftwaffe that was weaker than twelve months earlier.
I have put up a few artworks that I have swiped off the web (I do not own the copyright) that I think sums up the heroism of The Few.
ME109 Ace shoots down a Spitfire over Kent
Hurricane blows the tail off a Dornier bomber over London
109 escorts a damaged comrade to safety
To win a VC
Dusk landing
Homeward bound over the white cliffs
Hurricanes close for the kill
Spitfires triumphant
Swirling dogfight
JU88s streak low level for home
"Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few," Winston Churchill.
"He must have been thinking of our bar tabs," Unknown RAF fighter pilot.