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Over in France, the scene was of methodical but urgent activity. On 14th June, the Germans had marched into Paris. The Luftwaffe was doing the job it did best. As a tactical air force it was settling in to new quarters. The French campaign had been hugely successful but at the same time it had been costly. A large number of aircraft had been lost. Air operations, as part of a successful campaign involving hugely ambitious thrusts on the ground, inevitably meant taking big risks. Most of them came off but even when they didn’t, there was a high cost to pay. Many replacements were needed. At the same time, new headquarters had to be set up. Luftflotte 2, under the command of Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring, chose Brussels for theirs. It was a city with excellent communications. Down in France, the airfield at Epinoy, halfway between Cambrai and Douai, was extensive but still needed to be put shipshape, German fashion. Communications had to be established with headquarters in Brussels. Spares and ammunition had to brought in, workshops set up, catering staff had to be recruited, food ordered, but in a couple of weeks this was all done. The Luftwaffe was used to it. It was their purpose in life. Now they were at least operating without opposition. For them it was a relatively easy task.

Luftflotte 3, had its headquarters in Paris, with its fighter HQ in Cherbourg. From there, it controlled a number of bases in Brittany and Normandy. They were under the command of Generalfeldmarschall Hugo Sperrle, a very large bear-like man, who was, nonetheless, a very professional man. He liked everything done properly. Under his command it was. Preparations were in hand from Brittany in France right along the coast up to the northern most tip of Norway. It was here that Luftflotte 5 was based, to cover the North Sea, with headquarters at Stavenger and under the command of Generaloberst Hans-Jürgen Stumpff.

Britain was faced, therefore, with the enemy getting ready across the sea on the western coast of Europe. It was still too early to be clear about what would happen next. But the Luftwaffe was preparing for every eventuality, even an air battle over Britain itself.

70 years ago, in the Summer of 1940, Britain survived an attack by air by Nazi Germany, which had been designed to knock the country out of the War.

That Summer, France had already been defeated and had sued for peace. The general idea at the time was that we would follow and surrender like they had. But in the battle that then ensued the German air force, which was much larger than ours and had much more battle experience than the RAF, failed in its objective to wipe out our air force. This was despite more than three months of day-to-day attacks by hundreds of aircraft. The RAF survived. But not only that, at the end of the Battle in October 1940, Fighter Command, which had borne the brunt of the Battle, was stronger than it had been at the beginning of the Battle in July.

The result was that Britain continued in the War against Hitler’s Germany. In due course, it was joined by Russia when Hitler declared war against his former ally in June 1941, and, finally, by the USA after Pearl Harbour in December 1941. It was because we had survived the attack by Germany in 1940, when we were fighting Germany alone, that we emerged amongst the victorious powers in 1945 when Germany had lost the War.

This year, 2010, is the 70^th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain, and to mark the occasion we will be publishing a day-to-day blog of the Battle of Britain. It will begin on July 10^th when the Battle officially started in the Summer of 1940. It will continue on a day-to-day basis until the official end to the Battle which was on October 31^st 1940. There will be 114 consecutive daily entries on the Blog. As an introduction to this daily account of the Battle, we will start with a weekly series of introductory entries beginning on May 10^th, which was the day 70 years ago that Winston Churchill became Prime Minister and Hitler unleashed his armed forces on their Blitzkreig attack on the French and British armies in northern France.

This is a celebration of what Churchill called “Their Finest Hour”. It was the first serious attempt to bring Britain to its knees since William the Conqueror succeeded in doing exactly that in 1066. The country survived the determined attack by the Luftwaffe by the sacrifice of 450 young pilots of the RAF who lost their lives. However, we don’t only have to thank them and the British pilots who fought in the Battle. We owe a special gratitude to the pilots from overseas who came to Britain that summer to help the country in its fight for survival. We owe them a special debt and we do not forget it.

As the author of the project I should explain I was very much not a participant in the Battle of Britain, having been only 15 years old when the War began. However, I did join the RAF when I was old enough and ended up as a navigator and flying with my pilot, Reg Everson in a Mosquito of 305 (Polish) Squadron from an airfield in France, Epinoy, in the last winter of the War. We had the misfortune of becoming a victim of “friendly fire” being shot by an American night fighter in the last month of hostilities, in mid-April 1945. Such things happen in War. It was just bad luck that it happened to us. On the other hand we did manage to survive to tell the tale.

So we invite you to sign up for updates by email, or add your comments below. This is an exciting project – we have contemporary diary extracts from pilots, great images, and of course a day to day description of the battles in the sky. If you like what we are doing, please spread the word!

Tony Rudd