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Yanks in the Royal Air Force
Posted on: 2010-10-14 16:20:49 By Alexander Kershaw @ HistoryNet.com In the summer of 1940 the Second World War had been under way for nearly a year. Hitler's Germany was triumphant. The United States was neutral. It was a time, Winston Churchill later observed, when "the British people held the fort alone till those who hitherto had been half blind were half ready." Some Americans, however, did not remain on the sidelines. That summer and fall, eight American pilots fought against the Nazis in the Battle of Britain. This remarkable bunch of rogue flyers included ex-barnstormers, a Minnesota farm boy, and the greatest bobsled champion in American Olympic history. All had defied strict neutrality laws—thereby risking loss of their citizenship and imprisonment if they dared return home—in order to join what they regarded as the best flying club in the world: Britain's Royal Air Force. Read on... |