Shortly after the Battle of Britain Sir Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Great Britain, is quoted as exclaiming, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” The few that Churchill was referring to were the brave aircrew that undertook the daunting task of repelling the massive offensive by the dreaded German air corps, the Luftwaffe. In the year 1940 Adolf Hitler ordered an offensive in coordination with an attempted invasion of the isle of Britain. The only way Hitler was going to accomplish this great feat was the assert the power of his Air Force. In November of 1940 after months of constant bombardment of the English coastal cities, the Royal Air Force of Britain was ordered to begin attack on Germany. This rather inexperienced group of rookie pilots was successfully able to repel the German attacks and force Hitler into a direct attack upon London. It was this major flaw in the German invasion plan that caused the defeat of Germany just a few years later. The unknown story is that of the pilots that defeated the German squadrons. Of these pilots roughly sixty percent were Canadian born pilots and over seventy-five percent were Canadian trained. Without the contribution of the Canadian Royal Air Force contingent, the British would not have been able to affectively defend England from the attack of the German Luftwaffe.In order to completely understand the involvement by Canadian forces one must first discover what exactly the Canucks were doing in the war. The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) played three roles throughout World War II. The first of these roles was the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan; they would erect training school for aircrew. The second facet of the RCAF was involvement in overseas war theatres. Lastly, the least know function of the RCAF was the defense and institution of the Canadian Home War Establishment. These three roles of the RCAF ...
