quadron saw action in the Battle of Britain in the summer and autumn of 1940. It was not until the end of 1940 that the first few graduates of the BCATP began to filter into the European forces. In March of 1941 the first war formed squadrons began to take flight. The 400-449 block of numbers designated the newly formed RAF squadrons and at the completion of the war a total of forty-four squadrons had been established. The most known air mle during World War II was the Battle of Britain where on August 26 the RAF No. 1 Fighter Squadron under the command of S/L E. A. McNab encountered a formation of German planes. This was the beginning of the Battle of Britain.The Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour."-WINSTON CHURCHILL, JUNE 18, 1940 July 1940, the German war machine had overrun France and was now poised at the English Channel. Britain anticipated that they would be the next to be invaded. The German army and the Luftwaffe had made short work of Poland, before turning their attention north and then west. The British Norwegian Campaign had ended ignominiously while the British Expeditionary Force had been whipped in France. The successful evacuation of over 335,000 British and French soldiers from Dunkirk hid the apparent failure against the Blitzkrieg. The Germans appeared unbeatable.The German invasion plan was strategically sound but it was the hubris of Hitler that led to the downfall of his plan....
