Memorial to 'The Few'
Yesterday I flew down to London for a memorial to celebrate the life of a friend and colleague who died suddenly before Christmas. Travelling in from Heathrow Airport I arrived in central London 90 minutes before the start of the event at the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall so I decided to go for a walk down to the Embankment. I ended up outside the Ministry of Defence building and standing in front of the Battle of Britain memorial.
I served 14 years in the Royal Air Force from 1982 to 1996 and the Battle of Britain is as important to every past and serving member of the RAF as the Battle of Trafalgar is to anyone who has served in the Royal Navy.
The memorial is to the people who took part in the battle in 1940 that stopped the German invasion after the fall of France and ultimately led to the defeat of Germany in 1945 due to the fact that Britain was able to continue the war and become the staging post for the Normandy Invasion in 1944.
The aircrew that took part in the Battle of Britain became known as 'The Few' after British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said in a speech after the battle "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." He was of course referring to the fact that a few thousand aircrew had saved millions from the threat of invasion.
Sculptor Paul Day, who also was the artist who sculpted 'The Meeting Place' in St Pancras train station, was commissioned to produce the bronze panels. The monument was unveiled on 18 September 2005, on the 65th anniversary, by Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall in front of over 700 people.
The monument has the names of every airman who took part in the battle, not just the 2342 British aircrew but also the airmen from the countries that fought alongside them to defend Britain. They came from Australia (32), Barbados (1), Belgium (28), Canada (112), Czechoslovakia (88), France (13), Ireland (10), Jamaica (1), Newfoundland (1), New Zealand (127), Poland (145), Rhodesia (3), South Africa (25), USA (9).
During the battle 544 of these men lost their lives and a further 795 survived the Battle of Britain only to be killed before the end of the war in 1945.
The Battle of Britain Monument was deliberately designed to be “at people level”. The aim is for people to physically interact with the monument itself.
The centre piece is "Scramble", a scene depicting the airmen running to their planes having received the order to scramble.
Around the monument is a number of scenes, not just of the Battle of Britain itself, but also related topics of both military and ordinary life at that time. These include the spotters looking for enemy planes, the ground technical staff, women working in munitions factories and building the aircraft and people looking to the skies in the blitz.
The Battle of Britain Monument website lists all the airmen who flew in combat missions during the Battle of Britain with a biography of over 2000 of them available to view online. I was drawn to the three 'Carters' and the one 'MacLean' on the monument. I am not related to any of these men but their stories are poignant all the same.
The images on this page were all taken on the Fujifilm X100T.
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Jeff Carter is an Official Fujifilm X Photographer and was named as a Fujifilm brand ambassador in June 2015. In 2016 he worked with the company on the launches of the Fujifilm X-Pro2 in Tokyo and the Fujifilm X-T2 in Paris in July 2016. You can view his profile and gallery on the Fujifilm website HERE
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Thank you for this post. Lovely pictures, and following one of your links I was able to find reference to my favourite uncle, Norman Ryder, who fought in the battle. The potted biography attached confirmed a story in a post-war newspaper that he had ditched his fighter early in the war after shooting down a German plane, and struggled out of his plane at some great depth, eventually getting picked up by a trawler. It doesn't quite say, as the newspaper story did, that he lost the first Spitfire of the war! Went on to be captured, escaped and re-captured, eventually (IIRC) being held by the Russians for a year or so after the war pending the return of Russian POWs.
ReplyDeleteThank you for ready the post and commenting Chris. Glad you were able to find the reference to your uncle. it was interesting to hear he lost the first Spitfire of the war. Glad he made it to the end of the war, even if his war lasted a bit longer due to his incarceration in the east.
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