By Andrew Stackpool
Volume 48, No. 19, October 19, 2006
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CIVIC HONOUR: The Lord Mayor of Hobart, Alderman Rob Valentine, stops to talk to LACW Lindsay Simpson during his inspection of the parade.
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AIR Force units, the Australian Flying Corps and the RAAF Association recently gathered in Hobart to remember some of the darkest days of WWII.
The Air Force division of the Federation Guard, Central Band, No 29 (City of Hobart) Squadron, 1AFDS from RAAF Base Edinburgh, and members from Air Force cadet units across Tasmania paused to remember the 66th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain over the weekend of September 16 and 17.
The main events were a commemorative service at St David’s Cathedral following the 29SQN Freedom of Entry to Hobart, a commemoration and wreath-laying at the Cenotaph and a Battle of Britain dinner for invited guests at the Royal Hobart Yacht Club in the evening.
The commemoration was conducted by Air Force’s Anglican Principal Chaplain AIRCDRE Royce Thompson and led by the state president of the RAAF Association, AVM Peter Scully (ret’d). CAF AIRMSHL Geoff Shepherd and representatives of government, various Service and Veterans’ associations, the British High Commission and US Embassy in Canberra laid wreaths.
September 15 is Battle of Britain Day. It commemorates the day on which the Luftwaffe’s commander, Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering, ordered an all-out assault on London. Believing that the RAF was virtually destroyed, he hoped to trap its final fighters there and achieve the air superiority needed before Germany could launch its invasion of the UK.
The battle was the first military campaign fought entirely in the air and was one of the most crucial and decisive battles in history.
Thirty-three Australian pilots flew in the battle; by the end of the campaign, three quarters of them were dead, missing or wounded.
Winston Churchill summed it up: “Never before in the history of human endeavour has so much been owed by so many to so few.”
