UNITED KINGDOM/FILE: Veterans and current servicemen commemorate 70th anniversary of Battle of Britain

Record ID: 593274

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM/FILE: Veterans and current servicemen commemorate 70th anniversary of Battle of Britain
  • Date: 12th July 2010
  • Summary: UNKNOWN LOCATIONS (FILE) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF WORLD WAR TWO BRITISH PLANES AND PILOTS/ PILOTS , PLANES TAKING OFF/ AERIAL SHOTS AND PLANES RETURNING TO AIR BASES
  • Embargoed: 27th July 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: History,Defence / Military
  • Reuters ID: LVA1W9RHQ4R4E8XQM1RDO09BNBF3
  • Story Text: Surviving members of "the few" join current members of the Airforce to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.
    Veterans of the Battle of Britain gathered on a clifftop in south-east Britain on Sunday (July 11) at an event to mark 70 years since the start of the conflict.
    Around 5,000 people attended the open air service at the Battle of Britain memorial at Capel-le-Ferne near Dover in Kent.
    As well as the ceremony there was a flypast by a Spitfire and Lancaster bomber and a parade of veterans and current air cadets.
    The event was attended by Prince Michael of Kent.
    The RAF's most senior figure Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton compared "the few", as Battle of Britain veterans are known, to today's volunteers.
    "Today in Afghanistan we have many young men and women, nearly 2000 overall, who are there flying in the skies above Afganistan because it is seen that that will enable us to live our lives free," he said.
    During the summer of 1940, nearly 3,000 British and Allied airmen took on the Luftwaffe and ended up preventing a German invasion of England.
    Then prime minister Winston Churchill famously said of their actions: "Never was so much owed by so many to so few."
    A total of 544 British and Allied airmen lost their lives in the battle.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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