‘Finest hour’ was mostly propaganda — ex-air officer

Press, 22 September 1978, Page 6

‘Finest hour’ was mostly propaganda — ex-air officer

i NZPA Londont ■ ’ The cherished British I memory of the 1940 Battle ■of Britain as one of the nation’s — and the British (Empire's — finest hours has taken a knock this week. ,j As newspapers and television remind Britons that 'the battle ended mid-Septem-•jber 38 years ago, one of the i fighter pilots involved, Wing i 11 Commander “Dizzy” Allen, ,jhas written that there never twas a Battle of Britain. •! “The importance of the ; battle in the air has been j exaggerated and, perhaps 'worse, has become an emohive issue,” he wrote in “The ; Times.” i Wing Commander Allen said that there would have ’ been a Battle of Britain if the Wermacht had mounted ; an airborne and amphibious assault on Kent — “the; Battle of Britain, as a title, | was simply conjured up by j ■ Churchill.” j It could only have done ; ; that, he said, if the Royal. Navy’s supremacy had been!

■ overcome and if Fighter 'Command of the Royal Air 11 Force had been eliminated. ■! Wing Commander Allen ■ wrote that the figures of | German aircraft destroyed, j which swelled to 185 by j September 15, 1940 — the (date generally regarded as j the end of the battle — gave (shaken British morale a tre--mendous boost. J "the fact that about one- ' third of that number was ac- • tually destroyed was unimportant in those hectic days ■ — the British public bei lieved the claims to be accui rate and so did Churchill. It was good propaganda.” Wing Commander Allen said the battle paled into ini significance when compared : with the ferocious air battles ■ fought between the Russians I and the Luftwaffe at the ; time of Stalingrad and after--wards, and the air battles J over Malta quite outclassed I the efforts of Fighter Command over southern England -during the 1940 summer. ii “One must keep a sense ii of perspective if one is mak-

ing an historical appraisal,” he said. “Emotiveness and I history make , bad bedfellow’s.” He added that "the few” were in fact fewer in number than the 3500 pilots and i aircrew entitled to wear the I Battle of Britain clasp on I the 1939-45 War Medal.

! Wing Commander Alien’s [view on the Battle of Britlain, however, has been attacked, also in “The Times,” by a former bomber pilot, Sir Robin Hooper. He agreed it was natural that those who have become a legend in their lifetime — Wing Commander Allen commanded more fighter squadrons than anyone else in the R.A.F.’s history — should feel deeply embarrassed about some of the things that have been said about the Battle of Britain. But it was one of the decisive conflicts of the Second World War, he wrote. “It is perfectly true that the battle is as much a legend as history, and that it was as much a propaganda as a I military success (none the worse for that). But history is full of battles which had a long-term and moral effect out of all proportion to the forces involved and the actual damage inflicted on the defeated party’,” Sir Robin said.

; “In fact,” he said, “the I total of effective pilots ;amounted to 500.”

Less than 15 per cent of them could claim to have personally destroyed one enemy aircraft, and a mere 7 per cent were credited with four or more aircraft destroyed. And Wing Commander Allen gave another knock to British pride when he wrote that the leading ace of the battle was not a dashing R.A.F. pilot, but in fact a Czech, Sergeant-Pilot J. Frantisek.

Serving in 303 (Polish) Squadron, he had 17 (confirmed victories. Only 17 (pilots were each credited iwith a score of 10 or more I enemy aircraft destroyed.