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Saturday 9 June Along with a dozen others from South Warwickshire Flying School, we drive down to RAF Uxbridge, home of the 'Battle of Britain Bunker' which coordinated this countries response to the Luftwaffe's aerial assault in the summer of 1940. The situation was dire: It took a formation of enemy aircraft 20 minutes to reach London from France. It took a squadron of Spitfires 14 minutes to get to 20,000 feet, and a squadron of Hurricanes, 16 minutes. The RAF had precious few minutes to get its machines into position to meet the onslaught (even assuming radar had successfully picked them up over France). Fortunately for this country, the Royal Air Force had the worlds first Integrated Air Defence System buried 60 feet underground at Uxbridge, West London. See the video It was upon leaving this facility on 16 August 1940 that Churchill coined his now famous words: 'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.' |
The huge plotting map. |
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| Below: From an unassuming entrance we descend down steps trodden by Winston Churchill, King George and many others. Once in the bunker, Chris Wren gives a masterful and fascinating overview of the events pertaining to this historical treasure. | ||
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