"The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin." - Winston Churchill

On this day 77 years ago...

The Battle of Britain, a months-long military campaign between England and Germany, commenced. The United Kingdom found itself the remaining untouched state, after the occupations of France and Germany, for Hitler to set his sights on. On July 10, 1940, Hitler sent bombers to strike a British shipping convoy in the English Channel. This attack was largely due to Great Britain's refusal to turn itself over to the Axis Powers; something Hitler had assumed would happen as his reign stretched across Western Europe. As the German Air Force attacked the British convoy, 70 more bombers decimated dockyards in South Wales.This campaign would have been devastating, and could have brought England to its knees, had it not been for the sophisticated radar system employed by the Brits to detect German attacks, as well as the RAF's finely engineered fleet of aircraft. "England's Spitfires could turn tighter than Germany’s ME109s, enabling it to better elude pursuers, and its Hurricanes could carry 40mm cannon, and would shoot down, with its American Browning machine guns, over 1,500 Luftwaffe aircraft. The German single-engine fighters had a limited flight radius, and its bombers lacked the bomb-load capacity necessary to unleash permanent devastation on their targets." (History Channel)

As the battle waged on, Germany found itself unable to continue daytime raids and, instead, turned to nighttime bombings, known in history as The Blitz. England would ultimately claim victory, having employed the famous British, stiff upper lip, and European collectivist spirit.This victory would mark the very first victory against the Nazis.