The Battle of Britain Begins
August 13, 1940 was Der Adler Tag (Eagle Day), the name given to the day the German Luftwaffe launched an all-out offensive against the Royal Air Force and the British aircraft industry in southern England. With this action, Adolf Hitler hoped to knock out any aerial resistance to his planned invasion of the British Isles. Hitler, however, had not counted on the determination of the Royal Air Force and the British people. RAF fighter pilots, like these shown scrambling for their planes in August 1940, successfully held off the numerically superior Luftwaffe, in spite of the loss of 415 pilots out of a force of 1,500.
British Official Photograph
