Strategic Bombing Offensive Effectively Begins in 1940
On this day in 1940, Bomber Command sent ninety-nine bombers against Ruhr targets, effectively opening the RAF’s strategic…
15 May 2026 · 3 min read 5 June
On This Day, 1999: On 5 June 1999 RAF Tornados flew their first combat missions from Solenzara in Corsica during Operation Allied…
Read the entry →Second World War · 1939 – 1945
Second World War
The RAF's defining chapter. The Battle of Britain, Bomber Command's strategic offensive, the desert war, the long-range fight over the Atlantic - six years that tested the service to its absolute limits.
7 Operations
15 Aircraft
10 People
8 Squadrons
The Royal Air Force entered the Second World War as a modern service, forged from the hard lessons of the First World War and shaped by two decades of technological transformation. By September 1939 it possessed the Spitfire, the Hurricane and the first of its four-engined heavy bombers — tools adequate for the fight ahead, though not yet fully equal to the demands that fight would place on them.
The Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940 was the service's first existential test. Fighter Command, outnumbered and often outclassed by the Luftwaffe's experienced pilots, held long enough for the threat of invasion to pass. The cost was severe: over 550 pilots killed between July and October alone.
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." — Winston Churchill
Bomber Command's strategic offensive against Germany ran from 1940 to 1945, growing from small raids of questionable effectiveness into the most destructive air campaign in history. The human cost was enormous: 55,573 aircrew killed — a casualty rate exceeding the British Army's officer losses on the Western Front. Whether that cost was justified by the results remains one of the most contested questions in military history.
Operations · 7 operations
View all 7 →
Second World War
Operation Jubilee
How the RAF supported Operation Jubilee at Dieppe and what the air battle revealed about amphibious operations in…
Second World War
Operation Gomorrah
How RAF Bomber Command carried out Operation Gomorrah against Hamburg using concentrated area bombing and the new Window…
Second World War
Operation Chastise
On the night of 16–17 May 1943, 617 Squadron breached the Möhne and Eder dams using Barnes Wallis's…
Second World War
Operation Overlord
How the RAF helped shape Operation Overlord through strategic bombing, airborne delivery, air cover and sustained support in…
From the Archive — Second World War
Article
Article
Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde Awarded the Victoria Cross
On 12 February 1942, Eugene Esmonde was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for leading a torpedo attack during…
12 February 2026 · 4 min read Article
RAF Aircraft Fuel Systems, Range and Operational Endurance
How RAF fuel systems, tank design and fuel management shaped aircraft range, endurance, mission planning and operational reach.
8 May 2026 · 3 min read