The Few: birth of a legend

The Battle of Britain began as Hitler turned his attention across the Channel after defeating the French.

The Germans launched air attacks in the early summer of 1940 designed to seize control of the skies in preparation for invasion.

Britain's future was placed in the hands of a small band of young fighter pilots. Day after day, the Germans sent bombers and fighters, with RAF pilots outnumbered in the air by four to one.

The RAF scrambled their Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft into the sky to do battle, often three, four or five times a day. Britain's air defence bent, but did not break.

Nearly 3,000 air crew served with Fighter Command during the course of the battle. Shortly after the battle, Hitler cancelled his invasion plans and turned his attention to defeating the Soviet Union.

In appreciation of the RAF pilots' heroic effort, then prime minister Winston Churchill famously said: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."