IHE story of the most momentous battle in the history of mankind—when for 84 days the Germans tried all they knew to carry out their avowed object of ending the war within a few months—is told officially for the first time in a pamphlet issued yesterday by the Air Ministry.
The fateful period was from August 8 to October 31, 1940, and the full story amplifies and corroborates Mr. Winston Chur-chil's famous testimony to the Royal Air Force "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed to so few by so many.'
In contrast with al previous major world contests, with the roar of guns, the flash: of shells and fountains of erupting earth, in this battle the only outward sign was white vapour trails four, five, sometimes, six miles above' th raft flying over an hour, like tiny diamond specks in the sunlight, while the population continued: its normal activities, ignorant of the issues being decided upstairs, In a few days, the southern towns of England and the capital of the Empire itself were to suffer the fate of Warsaw and Rotterdam, and the war was to have been ended.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.