Battle of Britain Exhibitions

Following the fall of France to Nazi Germany in the first year of the Second World War, Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced, ‘I expect that the battle of Britain is about to begin … 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. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.’ From 10 July to 31 October 1940, the RAF fought the Luftwaffe relentlessly, supported by a wide range of civilian organisations on the ground. When Hitler realised that Germany could not gain air superiority, he abandoned his plans to invade Britain.