Britain remembers ‘the few’ on 70th anniversary of Churchill’s Battle of Britain speech
By APFriday, August 20, 2010
70 years on, Britain remembers ‘the few’
LONDON — Vintage World War II fighter planes will fly over London Friday to pay tribute to “the few” — pilots who defended the country from German attack during the Battle of Britain.
Between July and October 1940, Royal Air Force fighter squadrons battled German bombers that pounded Britain’s cities and airfields as preparation for a planned invasion.
Friday marks the 70th anniversary of Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s rousing House of Commons speech, in which he said of the air crews that “never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
Phil Reed, director of the Churchill War Rooms museum, said the speech epitomized Churchill’s “ability to capture in the most stirring way the spirit of a nation fighting for its existence.”
Actor Robert Hardy will read the speech at a ceremony attended by Churchill’s daughter Lady Mary Soames, wartime singer Vera Lynn and Battle of Britain veterans, followed by a fly over of Spitfire and Hurricane fighters.
