The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

bath and slept better than she imagined she would do. The following day
her dark mood of despair had gone.
In Surrey, Daidie Penna noticed people seemed more cheerful now that
France was finished. ‘Although I will grant a certain amount to the Nazis,’
she heard a man say in the pub, ‘they’ve got to be stopped. And I believe
they will be stopped by something which is in the nature and genius of our
species.’
‘Spirit,’ suggested Daidie.
‘Yes,’ said the man, ‘spirit. That will win!’
The next day she saw the grocer and they wondered what would happen
next. Without France, he wanted to know where the next battlefield would
be. Daidie suggested there might be another Battle of Hastings. ‘What, all
around our coast?’ he said, then added laconically, ‘Be all right, wouldn’t
it?’
A number of the pilots who had flown over France were now being
given brief stints of leave. Hugh ‘Cocky’ Dundas was allowed four days. In
his own village of Cawthorne in Yorkshire and in every village round about
he found all the middle-aged and elderly men formed into units of Local
Defence Volunteers. His 63-year-old father was pondering the respective
merits of handing over his shotguns to help the local LDV unit or hanging
on to them for his own use should it come to it. All the signposts had
already been taken down, whilst on the very few flat areas in that part of
England, obstacles had been set up to prevent aircraft landings.
Further south, Arthur Hughes, now out of hospital, had gone to spend a
week’s leave with his second brother, Dave, and his wife, Joan, at Old
Sarum near Salisbury. Dave was also a pilot, but the two of them managed
to drive down to Dorchester to take their young cousins out from school.
On the way back, with no signposts, they got lost. ‘But this was due solely
to the lack of a large map,’ noted Arthur. ‘Any invader would be well
provided with these, and probably air photographs as well.’ It was a fair
point.
They heard the news of the armistice on the radio. ‘So now it is England
versus the rest,’ he wrote. ‘We’ll show them!’ He was due for a medical and
fully expected to be passed fit to fly once more. He hoped to get a transfer
to fighters, like his brother Dave, who flew Hurricanes with 238 Squadron.
At Biggin Hill, Pete Brothers and the men of 32 Squadron had been
delighted when they heard France had finally thrown in the towel. ‘I