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Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918
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Historical SummaryAs it became evident that Germany was losing the Battle of Britain, owing in large measure to the work of the Royal Air Force, Churchill paid a magnificent verbal tribute to the British airmen.
World History 267.
Mr. Churchill’s Speech of August 20, 1940—"So Much Owed by So Many to So Few" (Extracts)17
The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day, but we must never forget that all the time, night after night, month after month, our bomber squadrons travel far into Germany, find their targets in the darkness by the highest navigational skill, aim their attacks, often under the heaviest fire, often with serious loss, with deliberate, careful discrimination, and inflict shattering blows upon the whole of the technical and war-making structure of the Nazi power. On no part of the Royal Air Force does the weight of the war fall more heavily than on the daylight bombers who will play an invaluable part in the case of invasion and whose unflinching zeal it has been necessary in the meanwhile on numerous occasions to restrain.
17 Great Britain, Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Fifth Series, vol. 364, pp. 1166–1167.
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Chicago: "Mr. Churchill’s Speech of August 20, 1940— So Much Owed by So Many to So Few (Extracts)," Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918 in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, ed. Walter Consuelo Langsam and James Michael Egan (Chicage: Lippincott, 1951), 891–892. Original Sources, accessed April 29, 2024, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=8A17DE7R2U41JMI.
MLA: . "Mr. Churchill’s Speech of August 20, 1940— "So Much Owed by So Many to So Few" (Extracts)." Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, Vol. 364, in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, edited by Walter Consuelo Langsam and James Michael Egan, Chicage, Lippincott, 1951, pp. 891–892. Original Sources. 29 Apr. 2024. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=8A17DE7R2U41JMI.
Harvard: , 'Mr. Churchill’s Speech of August 20, 1940— "So Much Owed by So Many to So Few" (Extracts)' in Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918. cited in 1951, Documents and Readings in the History of Europe Since 1918, ed. , Lippincott, Chicage, pp.891–892. Original Sources, retrieved 29 April 2024, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=8A17DE7R2U41JMI.
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