THANKSGIVING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 23 September 1941, Page 4

THANKSGIVING

IN mniiy churches in Britain on •Sunday |*eciiil mt\ ices of thanksgiving wore hold. Tho orra: ion \v;is tin* lirsl anniversary of the defeat of I lie I .lift walfo by Iho fighter force* of tho K.A.F. hi tho daylight skies over Britain. Wo can now son th.it. tho German d;iy raiders nnio over with tho dolinilo purpose of sweeping away the British air defenees, breaking the nior.de of the people with bombing, do. troying vital points and oommunieatioiis and folio wing this up with an invasion. But our lighter planes beat them back, causing losses which staggered the world. During last August and September more than 2000 German planes were destroyed over Britain. So far in September of this year, with tho tables turned, they have lost only a hundred as a result of the R.A.F. offensive over enemy territory. Having failed to master Britain’s fighters the Germans were eon. trained to abandon the day bombing of well-chosen objectives and resort to indiscriminate night-bombing. That developed into an orgy of frightfulness as the year went on. All pretence of seeking for military targets was thrown to the winds. They set out to pound Britain and its inhabitants into dust. In this they succeeded in some places, but two things they failed to do: break the spirit of Britain and got behind the shield of the fighter defences during the daylight hours. With their preponderance of air strength it is really amazing that, they did not. That is why the people of Britain regard the defensive victory as something of a miracle just as they have Dunkirk. Event after event, trial after trial has crowded in on Britain since those September days of 1940; yet they choose this anniversary as a time worthy of remembrance and thanksgiving. In this their judgment is unerring. At the distance of only a year this failure to pierce Britain’s aerial shield stands out as one of the major turning-points of the war. Winston Churchill sensed it in the heat of battle before the issue was decided when their deeds inspired that immortal Churchillian epigram: “Never in the whole field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” It would be hard to find any quotation which has been used so often in the intervening year that one and yet it can never become commonplace while fhe memory of the deeds which inspired it remains.