Battle of Britain: Canadian Airmen in Their Finest Hour
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“Never in the field of human conflict…” are Churchill’s words that set the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 apart from all others, as the greatest aerial battle in history. As the German Luftwaffe sought to destroy the Royal Air Force, gain air superiority, and invade the British Isles, Commonwealth fighter pilots scrambled from U.K. airfields day after day and flew Hurricane and Spitfire fighter aircraft to thwart Hitler’s plan. They won but paid dearly. Among the 2,937 aircrew in this first test of Allied skill, resilience, and courage, over 100 pilots flew with the “Canada” patch on their shoulder, and another 200 erks (ground crew) kept their fighters in the air. As Churchill continued, never was “so much owed by so many to so few.” Ted Barris has assembled stories of Canadian airmen, ground crew, as well as engineers, aeronautical designers, medical officers and civilians who answered the call and turned back the very real threat of Nazi invasion. In this lecture based on his book, he will tell the story from a Canadian perspective.
BIOGRAPHY
Ted Barris is an award-winning journalist, author, and broadcaster. His writing has regularly appeared in the national press, and magazines as diverse as Air Force, esprit de corps and Zoomer. He has also worked as host/contributor for CBC Radio, NPR and TV Ontario. He taught journalism at Toronto’s Centennial College for 18 years. Barris is the author of 22 bestselling, non-fiction books, many focused on wartime Canada, including The Great Escape: A Canadian Story, which won the 2014 Libris Non-Fiction Book of the Year Award, and books on hockey and music. In 2011, he was one of 19 civilians presented with the Minister of Veterans’ Affairs Commendation. Barris was the recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal and, in 2024, was made a Member of the Order of Canada, “for advancing our understanding of Canadian military history as an acclaimed historical author, journalist and broadcaster.”