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

remember cheering when France collapsed,’ he says, ‘and saying, right,
thank God, we’re on our own now.’ Like Arthur, he felt confident they
would fix the Germans. It was now just a question of waiting for the
onslaught to begin.
A man supremely conscious of history, Winston Churchill was keenly
aware that he had been given a lead role at a time of deep peril for his
country. Britain’s current predicament was as grave as any she had faced. It
was a matter of life and death, in which the nation was the last bastion of
the world, fighting freedom’s battle against tyranny, the forces of light
against those of darkness. ‘Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this
island or lose the war,’ he said during his speech to the Commons on 18
June, a stark yet accurate assessment. ‘If we can stand up to him,’ he said,
‘all Europe may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail,’ he
added, ‘then the whole world, including the United States, including all that
we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age
made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted by the lights of perverted
science.’ He called upon everyone to do their duty at this momentous time,
so that a thousand years hence future generations would look back and say,
‘This was their finest hour.’
It was wonderful rhetoric but Churchill knew as well as anyone that just
because their cause seemed a noble one, that did not mean the odds of
survival were any better. Britain was staring down the barrel, as he was all
too aware. However, brilliant oratory could help galvanize the nation. Not
everyone puffed their chests out a little further or stood slightly taller, but
many did. And while Churchill led the way, he was ably assisted by the
country’s press and media. People grumbled at the classist BBC
broadcasters, at the patronizing posters issued by the Ministry of
Information, and continued to spread rumours galore, but the message of
defiance was getting through. The radio broadcasts of the writer J. B.
Priestley were particularly popular, for example, with his observations
about the inherent decency of the British character and the evil of the Nazis.
The newspapers, too, unfailingly praised the heroism of Britain’s armed
forces, while also breathing heart into their readers. On 17 June, for
example, the London Evening Standard announced that Britain was to
transform itself into a fortress. The sea, it claimed, was still their strength.
No-one denied the seriousness of the situation, far from it, but the stoicism