This is a fascinating piece of British history indeed, and I must get to visit one day.
Although the DailyMail article mentions Winston Churchill visiting on August 16th 1940, and afterwards formulating his famous "The few" speech, given in fact on the 20th August, it was his chance visit on the 15th September 1940 that should be noted.
This was the day, now known as The Battle of Britain Day, when the Luftwaffe mounted constant raids en mass, with the RAF ending up with no reserves in place. All flyable aircraft were either landing, fuelling, in combat, or taking off. It was intense, with no let up, but the brave boys of especially No.11 Group won the day. The OPs Room plot board was saturated with wave after wave of enemy bombers and fighters, along with the RAF squadrons going up to meet them in combat.
Although it was widely reported that 185 German aircraft had been shot down, the reality was different. In fact 60 had been destroyed over Southern England, with 26 RAF fighters, and 13 pilots lost (not forgetting an unknown number of German aircraft and crew had been lost over the Channel or whilst attempting to land back in France). But, the Luftwaffe losses were yet another heavy blow to German morale and policy which had been plummeting for weeks with continual losses of machine and air crew. It was now so bad that on the 16th September Goring ordered that mass formations of bombers would cease, and the fighters would stay with the bombers all the way to the target and back. This indeed was the beginning of the end of the Luftwaffe's campaign to destroy the RAF, and now they would concentrate on their Blitz of British cities. Operation SEALION was postponed by Hitler. The course of the war, and history, had changed.
This Ops room plotted that great day on the 15th September and is now a real part of our history.
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Topic: Has anybody visited this? (Read 2613 times)