Luftwaffe Bombs London by Mistake in the Battle of Britain
On 24 August 1940, Luftwaffe bombs fell on London in error, widening the bombing conflict and helping trigger…
24 August 2026 · 3 min read 5 September
On This Day, 1940: On 5 September 1940, Bromide jamming was used operationally against German navigation beams, marking the practical beginning of…
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.
8 Operations
18 Aircraft
15 People
11 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 · 8 operations
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Second World War
Battle of Britain
How the Battle of Britain saw RAF Fighter Command defeat the Luftwaffe’s attempt to gain the air superiority…
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 Market Garden
How the RAF supported Operation Market Garden through transport aircraft, glider towing, fighter control and resupply in September…
Second World War
Operation Jubilee
How the RAF supported Operation Jubilee at Dieppe and what the air battle revealed about amphibious operations in…
From the Archive — Second World War
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The RAF’s First Deliberate Raid on Germany Begins Over Rhine
On this day in 1940, Whitleys of 77 Squadron and 102 Squadron carried out what is often described…
10 May 2026 · 4 min read Article
The RAF Supports Operation Excess in the Mediterranean
On 8 January 1941, RAF aircraft from Malta supported Operation Excess, the British convoy effort to reinforce Malta…
8 January 2026 · 4 min read