The Battle of Britain: So many owe so much to so very few

In the cloudless pale blue above, a hawk swoops silently across the fields, scanning for prey. An early summer bee dives and sputters around a nearby blossom tree. On a day like today, it’s hard to imagine that 85 years ago, throughout the summer of 1940, these tranquil Kent skies rumbled with Messerschmitts and shrieking Spitfires as the aerial conflict between the Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe raged overhead.

The Battle of Britain was crucial to the war's outcome - the first major military campaign fought entirely in the air. The RAF’s victory thwarted Hitler’s plans, known as Operation Sea Lion, to invade Britain.

"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few," Churchill famously said, paying tribute to the enormous efforts, courage, and sacrifice of fighter pilots and bomber crews who established air superiority over England.

As we celebrate VE Day on 8 May this year, remembering those brave young pilots feels especially important. The last surviving pilot of the Battle of Britain, John "Paddy" Hemingway, passed away peacefully on Monday, March 17, 2025, at the age of 105. With him, the living memories of those remarkable men fade, making it vital for us to continue remembering and understanding the profound impact of war on all our lives.

Just outside Tenterden, there’s a fantastic pub called the Red Lion on the road to Snargate, a place virtually unchanged since the 1940s. Kate, daughter of Doris Jemison - who first came to the Red Lion in 1947 when she was a land girl - now runs the pub, just as her mother did. The walls plastered with faded wartime photographs, a piano complete with sheet music for anyone who wants to tinkle the keys, and impossible pub games all perfectly capture the nostalgia and memories of WWII.

It's in this little time capsule of history that I meet Colin, whose passion for aircraft began as a boy when he watched the iconic Battle of Britain film at Ashford Cinema in 1969, ten times in one week!. "I’d always liked aeroplanes," Colin says over a pint of real ale, eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “Because in Kent, you know, we were at the epicentre of the Battle of Britain, really, weren't we? It was all happening in the Kent skies above.”

"When I got older, my friend Andrew and I started metal-detecting. Mostly, we found little bits and pieces - then we struck lucky and discovered the wreckage of a Messerschmitt at High Holden. One eyewitness we talked to remembered seeing the pilot eject and frantically kicking off his burning boots as he parachuted down."

Colin and Andrew joined a growing community of aircraft archaeologists who combed through archives, interviewed eyewitnesses, and searched fields with metal detectors. "We'd find engines, propeller bosses, identification plates," Colin explains. "Then we'd match them to official records, weaving together eyewitness accounts with combat reports to piece it all together.” They relied on a well-known book called The Battle of Britain – Then and Now by Winston G Ramsey for location information, all recorded in detail.

Colin tells me one particularly moving story about Sergeant John Stanley Gilders, a young Spitfire pilot from Chilham. Gilders flew in and survived the thick of the Battle of Britain but tragically, on his last sortie on February 21st 1941 his plane dived through the cloud at 7,000 feet and struck the ground, exploding on impact, scattering debris across a wide area. Gilders was assumed to have baled out and was recorded as ‘Missing, believed killed’. His family believed, however, that Gilders was still in the aircraft - buried beneath a ploughed field. It was through tireless effort, working closely with his family, and with great sensitivity, that Andrew, Colin and their colleagues finally recovered the remains of Sgt Gilders from his crashed Spitfire. He was laid to rest with full military honours on May 11th, 1995, at Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, 54 years after his death. "It was about giving dignity and closure to his family," Colin says, a quiet pride in his voice. "It's really nice to help people, his family and just help people to remember the sacrifices those boys made."

By chance, I also meet Nina, born and bred in Hawkhurst, and her husband Hamish, a former Benenden resident, in the same pub. They’ve overheard my chat with Colin, and Nina wants to tell me another remarkable RAF story about her father, John Nesbitt-Dufort. “Dad was 27 when the war started - he was considered too old to fight in the Battle of Britain - instead, he was training the 19-year-old pilots who became ‘the few’."

But his role in the war soon took a far more dangerous turn. Nina’s father flew Special Operations Executive (SOE) secret missions into occupied France in a black-painted Lysander aircraft. "He’d navigate completely alone, landing in isolated fields at night to drop off or pick up spies and resistance fighters," Nina recounts. One mission ended dramatically when, unbeknownst to him, a farmer had ploughed the landing field earlier that day. His Lysander crashed on landing. “He survived, just,” Nina explains. “Hidden by the French Resistance for months, eventually another plane flew in to bring him home.” Nina’s father later documented his experiences in a book titled Black Lysander. "Reading it," Nina says warmly, "is like listening to Dad speak again."

These incredible tales - and many others shared around the pub - remind us just how close we are still in Benenden to the drama of the war. Indeed, Benenden itself witnessed some dramatic incidents. On 15 September 1940, a German Heinkel bomber was shot down by the RAF, crashing at Trafford Farm. Two crew members died, and three became prisoners of war. Four years later, on 3 August 1944, a French Free pilot, Capitaine Jean Maridor, flying with the RAF’s 91st Squadron, sacrificed his own life intercepting a V-1 flying bomb ("doodlebug") headed for Benenden School, which was serving as a military hospital. Maridor’s heroic action destroyed the bomb, preventing a catastrophe but tragically costing him his life. His bravery is commemorated with a plaque at Benenden School and a memorial in St George’s Church.

As the afternoon fades into a golden early-evening light, I look around this little pub, a true heart of history and remembrance. Colin’s stories of aircraft archaeology, Nina’s moving recollections of her father's bravery, the quiet dedication of people like Kate; keeping memories alive in places like the Red Lion, continues to remind us that Benenden and the surrounding areas are woven deeply into the fabric of WW11 history. On VE Day 2025, as we celebrate the freedom won 80 years ago, let us never forget how much we owe to the courage, ingenuity, and sacrifice of those whose lives shaped history right here in the skies above us. Because, as Churchill reminded us, so many owe so much to so very few.

Benenden Magazine, 2025