20th August 1940 - The Few
20th
August 1940
House of
Common, Winston Churchill, made his speech “The Few”
The speech
is only remembered for one sentence
Never in the field of human conflict was so much
owed by so many to so few.
Below is
the full speech that Winston Churchill made
The gratitude of every
home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in
the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by
odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the
tide of world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human
conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts
go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes
day after day, but
we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month,
our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the
darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the
heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate, careful
discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical
and war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of
the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the
daylight bombers who will play an invaluable part in the case of invasion and
whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meanwhile on numerous
occasions to restrain.
We are able to verify the results of
bombing military targets in Germany, not only by reports which reach us through
many sources, but also, of course, by photography. I have no hesitation in
saying that this process of bombing the military industries and communications
of Germany and the air bases and storage depots from which we are attacked,
which process will continue upon an ever-increasing scale until the end of the
war, and may in another year attain dimensions hitherto undreamed of, affords
one at least of the most certain, if not the shortest of all the roads to
victory. Even if the Nazi legions stood triumphant on the Black Sea, or indeed
upon the Caspian, even if Hitler was at the gates of India, it would profit him
nothing if at the same time the entire economic and scientific apparatus of
German war power lay shattered and pulverised at home.
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