Abstract
Given the various commemorative activities that accompanied the recent seventy-fifth anniversary of the Battle of Britain, this is a timely volume by Garry Campion, one which develops further some of the issues and ideas he had previously explored in his widely (and rightly) praised 2009 work, The Good Fight: Battle of Britain Propaganda and the Few. In this new volume, Campion seeks to ‘understand the central place of the Few in the Battle of Britain and their role in preventing Operation Sea Lion; the Air Ministry’s role in valorizing their deeds; and also the eclipsing of the “bomber boys” from the now settled narrative which continues to hold sway’ (p.5). In doing so, Campion not only continues lines of enquiry broached in his earlier work, he also contributes to on-going debates regarding the Second World War in British ‘memory’, debates which have been energized in recent years by the work of Graham Smith (2000), Mark Connelly (2004), Martin Francis (2008), Penny Summerfield (2010) and Lucy Noakes and Juliet Pattison (2013).
Campion is at his very best in the first two parts of the book. In Part I, he identifies the origins of British efforts to celebrate the valour of Churchill’s ‘Few’, efforts that found wide currency following the Air Ministry’s publication of a now famous pamphlet in 1941. Here, too, he examines the ways in which this pamphlet overlooked – or downplayed – the active role of RAF Coastal and Bomber Commands, a decision that duly marginalized the ‘Battle of the Barges’ whilst also side-lining other, rival, interpretations of the Battle’s dates and details, be they authored by the Luftwaffe or indeed by the British Admiralty. In Part II, Campion shifts attention to a focused interrogation of the various media and mediums through which the story of the ‘Few’ was ‘valorised’, a process that he is keen to distinguish from ‘mythicisation’ (p.1). The latter term, says Campion, is too often deployed in a pejorative sense in order to condemn the distortion of history. To ‘valorise’, in contrast, allows for critical analysis of the ways in which the Battle of Britain has been appropriated and celebrated while also affirming that there was ‘nothing mythical about the skill and courage of the young fighter pilots who gained an undying reputation as “the few”’ (p.1). In Part III, Campion concludes his analysis with a revealing examination of post-war efforts to continue this process of valorization, as seen in the establishment of various memorials as well as in the place of the ‘Few’ in historiography and cinema. As Campion demonstrates, such was the power of the narrative template established during the war that even subsequent critical reappraisal of the historical record (for instance, the 1947 revelations about the ‘real’ number of German aircraft shot down by the RAF) has failed to dethrone the Few.
Part III is, however, slightly weaker than its predecessors, and despite the date range suggested by the book’s title, there is in fact relatively little attention to commemorative activities in the 1950s and 1960s. To be sure, this is very much in tune with Campion’s overall thesis, which asserts the dominant discursive role played by wartime propaganda and publications in shaping the story of the Few. But the close attention paid to the commemorative agency of the Air Ministry, and the decision to conclude c. 1965 – a decision which, it should be noted, is explained and reasoned – nonetheless means that the role played by ‘others’ is somewhat overlooked. It would be good to hear more about The Battle of Britain (1969), as well as about contemporary efforts elsewhere to disseminate further the story of the Few. One thinks here of the post-1945 return of Biggles; or of the many Battle of Britain-themed stories which featured in War Picture Library (1958) and Commando (1961) comics; or indeed of the attention devoted to the summer of 1940 in the landmark television series, The World at War (1973–1974). Moreover, such attention would help facilitate an ambition the author identifies in his introduction: to understand both the ‘origins’ and the ‘evolution’ of the Battle of Britain in British popular memory (p.6, my emphasis). Campion is outstanding with regard to the former; but the subsequent ‘evolution’, at least beyond 1948, gets comparatively short shrift. Further examination of this evolution into the 1960s would also benefit from some discussion of the ways in which the Battle of Britain connects to other events in British war memory. The relationship to the more problematic legacy of Bomber Command is certainly explored, but not much is said about how the story of the Few ‘works’ with those of Dunkirk and D-Day. And then there is the pregnant question – briefly acknowledged near the end – regarding the more recent ‘life’ of the Few in British culture. Take, for instance, the ways in which the narrative was invoked and deployed in the Falklands, or indeed the contemporary use in Euro-sceptic politics of Battle of Britain-inspired rhetoric and imagery.
That said, perhaps many of these issues rightly deserve a dedicated third volume, rather than what must surely be truncated treatment in a work which sets itself a different focus and purpose. Indeed, in many respects, the criticisms noted above are merely suggestive of the comprehensive coverage offered by Campion elsewhere. Of particular note are the many chronologies, tables and appendices Campion provides to demonstrate those moments of intensive cultural and commemorative activity; these will be of much use to others interested in the aftermath – and artefacts – of the Battle of Britain. This attention to detail, and the careful analysis, ensures that this is a fine contribution to Battle of Britain scholarship, and an important addition to on-going work examining the Second World War’s pervasive and persistent cultural legacy.