" Never in the field of human conflict..."

20th August 1940: Churchill pays tribute to the RAF fighter and bomber aircrew - and helps give birth to a myth

Winston Churchill knew how to coin a memorable phrase and the Ministry of Information knew how to use it. In the earliest posters using his words, five Bomber Command pilots were featured. Churchill included bomber crew amongst 'the few' when he spoke on 20th August.[

On the 20th August 1940 Churchill addressed Parliament on the state of the war. Once again his speech was a rhetorical masterpiece, taking the listener on a journey through the present difficulties to an eventual outcome that would see all Europe liberated. There was an unshakeable confidence in achieving this final full victory, whatever it might take.

It was full of memorable phrases including one that has become one of his most famous, a phrase now indelibly associated with the Battle of Britain:

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.