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Boulton Paul Defiant Mk.I. No. 264 Squadron, Martlesham, Suffolk, England, July 1940. This is the new 1/72nd scale Defiant from Airfix. I will use an Eduard Zoom set for the interior detail, Set No SS525. For the camouflage colour paint, I have Hannants Xtracrylix. The markings will be the standard kit decals. For weathering and panel lines I intend to use gouache. Thank you for looking, Joe.

"The English Air Force must be so reduced morally and physically that it is unable to deliver any significant attack against the German crossing." -- Adolf Hitler, Fuhrer Directive 16, 16 July 1940 "πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ, ἐχῖνος δ'ἓν μέγα." [Loosely translated: "The fox knows many tricks, but the hedgehog knows one invincible truth."] -- Archilochus "What a people! What a chance! The whole of Europe humiliated except for us. And the chance that by our stubbornness we shall give victory to the world.” — Harold Nicolson, diary entry for 31 July 1940 Indulge me for a moment. It is September 15, 1940, and twenty-five Dornier 17s are passing over Canterbury, fifty miles from London, where thick black palls of smoke still rise heavenward after a week of bombing. Looking in formation something like a great herringbone, a hundred and twenty five Bf109s are stacked above them for a mile straight up. This is not the main attack. It's the spoiler to open the day, to draw the remnants of the Royal Air Force -- and the Germans know it has been reduced to almost nothing now; perhaps as few as fifty of the dreaded Spitfires are still able to fight -- and to cast them down and destroy them utterly by forcing them to defend the greatest city in the world, to pin them at last in place and overcome them by main force and weight of numbers over a target they must defend. Cruising at just over 185 MPH, the bombers will be over London in a little more than fifteen minutes. It won't be long now. Four days before, Churchill said to the nation: "we must regard the next week or so as a very important period in our history. It ranks with the days when the Spanish Armada was approaching the Channel, and Drake was finishing his game of bowls; or when Nelson stood between us and Napoleon’s Grand Army at Boulogne. We have read all about this in the history books; but what is happening now is on a far greater scale and of far more consequence to the life and future of the world and its civilisation than those brave old days." Somewhere, before aeroplanes, before there was a Hitler, before Churchill's most famous antecedent had been born, bowls clatter and clink together within sight of the English Channel, "which serves...in the office of a wall, or as a moat defensive to a house." Shakespeare will write these words seven years from now. Maybe, if he strains, Drake can even see the sails. It won't be long now. Off Cape Trafalgar, the largest and most powerful fleet in the world is sailing for Brest, to escort the most powerful army in Europe across that narrow strip of sea and break the back of Napoleon's greatest and most tenacious foe. Off Cape Finisterre a few days before, a British fleet tried -- and failed -- to stop the Combined Fleet of Spain and France. It won't be long now. Leeward of Calais, near Gravelines, the Armada tries to regroup after scattering the face of the fireships the night before. As their heavy, cumbersome galleons heave to and fro, they can see the sails of Drake's ships bearing down upon them, in battle formation. The wind blows westward off Trafalgar, and Villenueve can already see the sails of Nelson's ships on the horizon. Flags flutter up the masts of HMS Victory in the early morning light. It is hours before England expects. It is 6:22 in the morning, and Nelson is signalling his fleet, standing now between Napoleon and Britain, PREPARE FOR BATTLE. Three thousand feet above the German top cover, 72 and 92 Squadrons have, for once, for once, the height advantage. Their twenty-four Spitfires seem drab and very small. Behind them, more are coming; the English skies are alive with Britain's defenders now, as squadron after squadron throws itself heavenward from as far north as Cambridgeshire. But at this moment, two squadrons of Spitfires are all of Britain, everything, the hopes of a nation, stretching back a thousand years into the past and as far into the future as victory or defeat today will dictate. Brian Kingcombe looks down at one hundred and fifty German aircraft, most of them fighters. What thoughts pass through his mind at this moment? "Okay, boys," he says. "Let's go." The Spitfires roll into the attack. I will be building two Airfix Spitfire Ia and one AZ Models Spitfire Ib (a birthday present from Stew). "Beware, I have warned you." R6800/LZ-N, as flown by Squadron Leader (later Air Commodore) Rupert Henry Archibald Leigh (1912-1991). Leigh commanded 66 Squadron from April to October 1940; before the war, he was friends with Douglas Bader; "he was given the task of conducting Bader's test flight having been given clearance by the Central Medical Establishment. Conducting the test in a Harvard, equipped with toe brakes which Bader would be unable to operate with his artificial legs, Leigh operated these for him knowing that on operations Bader would be flying Spitfires or Hurricanes which were fitted with hand operated brakes." (Air of Authority) As a pre-war regular, Leigh was a skilled tactician who evinced a preference for head-on attacks from slightly below enemy formations -- where defensive fire would be weakest. He finished the war with 1.5 victories. "They can because they think they can." R6776/RV-H, flown by F/Sgt (later Wing Commander) George "Grumpy" Unwin of 19 Squadron (1913-2006). A 14-victory ace, the irascible Unwin was a miner's son, and like Leigh, had served with Bader before the war; it's said that he gained his nickname for complaining about the racket Bader made when adjusting his metal legs. "If you dare." R6626/XT-Y, flown by F/O (later Air Commodore) Ronald "Ras" Berry (1917-2000), of 603 (City of Edinburgh) Squadron, also a 14-victory ace. Born in Hull, he was not a pre-war regular like my other two subjects, joining the RAFVR in 1938. In 1965, he was one of the serving RAF officers who had fought in the Battle of Britain selected to march at the head of Winston Churchill's funeral procession. OK, boys. Let's go.

The fair and the brave and the good must die. -- Lord Huron, "The World Ender" And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?” -- Revelations 13:4 (ESV) "Captain [Helmut] Wick gave the impression that fighting the British Air Force was an extremely simple matter...the flier declared that the present quality of British pilots was 'laughable'." -- "NAZI FLYER LAUGHS AT BRITISH AIRMEN", New York Times, October 13, 1940 'Summon up your reserves of courage, be a spearman now and a warrior brave. There is no escape from me, and soon Athene will bring you down with my spear. Now pay the price for all my grief, for all my friends you’ve slaughtered with your blade.' -- The Iliad, Book XXII For the Axis side of my builds, I'm going to start out with two Bf109Es -- an ICM 109E-4 to be built as Wn. 1082/Yellow 4 of Oberleutnant Helmut Rau, Staffelkapitan of III/JG3's machine, and an Airfix 109E-4 to be built as Yellow 2 of III/JG2, the machine of Staffelkapitan Helmut Wick in August of 1940. Our own Enz Matrix has written an excellent capsule bio of Rau, published here on FalkeEins' blog; suffice it to say that in Yellow 4, Rau ran afoul of Ronald "Ras" Berry, who wrote: "As I had no oxygen, I had to leave the squadron at 22,000 feet and waited below in the sun for straggling enemy aircraft. After patrolling for 30 minutes, I saw a Me109 proceeding very fast. To overhaul him I had to press the emergency boost - indicated speed - 345. I caught the enemy aircraft off Shoeburyness. I opened fire at close range and fired all my ammunition until the enemy aircraft streamed with smoke and pancaked on the mud at Shoeburyness." Adorned with an eye-catching serpent, Rau's aircraft was salvaged for public display, somewhat the worse for wear: Helmut Wick is rather more famous than Rau, being at the end of the Battle, the Luftwaffe's top-scoring ace, with fifty-six claims. He died shortly after its conclusion, drowning in the Channel after being shot down by Flight Lieutenant John Dundas (himself killed moments later), the brother of Hugh "Cocky" Dundas, who would go on to later distinction. I will not be building the aircraft Wick met his fate in, as it falls outside of the scope of this GB, but rather the aircraft he was flying in August: As you can see, both Wick and Rau's aircraft show heavy use of the field-expedient camouflage adopted by the Luftwaffe as the Battle intensified. I had wished to also do an aircraft with the earlier 70/71 scheme and high demarcation, but I only have two 109Es and converting a 109E-1 seemed like a bit of a bother.