The Battle only we can win: The Deluded British

It was, to quote Churchill, our finest hour.

We are proud of our success (along with our allies) in defeating Nazism 70 years ago.  Winning the Second World War was a wonderful achievement.

It is still firmly in our collective memory and it makes us proud.  Hundreds of World War II films have been made since the 1950s and the War is taught about to all of our school children.

But we are quick to forget to what degree we called upon the Lord at that time.  During key moments in World War II, encouraged by King George, national days of prayer for our nation were held.  Here is an interesting article linking the nation in prayer with key successes in the war.

The fact that we still regard ourselves quite highly is illustrated by the attached clip.  One of our best political interviewers, Andrew Neill, had these tough words to say to the Jihadi fighters in our midst.

Andrew’s words are inspiring, and for sure there are wonderful, courageous people around in our armed services and police.  

Andrew Neil cites our victory over the German air force, the Luftwaffe, to illustrate how our bravery has enabled us to defeat a powerful enemy.  An extract from the above article gives an interesting angle on the Battle of Britain...

The second Day of Prayer was on Sunday, August 11th, 1940. This was a national youth call to prayer. The King had called all the young people to pray. I was walking past a large area of tennis courts on the way to church. The tennis courts were deserted except for a perplexed young man holding a tennis racket. He was completely alone.

'Where have they all gone?' he exclaimed.

'They're all in church praying for national deliverance,' I said. 'Why don't you go!'

'I can't believe this! My pals have never gone to church even once in their lives!'

The Answer

Britain could not know that within the week that followed, the overweight Nazi, Air Field Marshall Goering, commenced the first stage in the Battle of Britain. It failed. The relatively small British force of Spitfires and Hurricanes shot down 180 Nazi bombers over South-east England. The rate of interception excelled by far anything that could be expected or explained by radar, said our air commander.

The next national Day of Prayer was only a month later on September 8th, 1940. Calling for another Day of Prayer so soon showed how desperate Parliament knew the situation to be.

The answer again was immediate and it was during this period that people in the streets began to see angels in the sky. A more determined Nazi air attack was made by sending five fighter planes to accompany every single bomber during the week following. Yet against all odds, as many as 185 Nazi planes were shot down. It was sad for us padres to see the empty canteen tables of those who did not return, but they had shot down a far greater number than our own losses. In fact Air Chief Marshall Dowding said: 'I will say with absolute conviction that I can trace the intervention of God . . . Humanly speaking victory was impossible!'

And that was during the week following our third National Day of Prayer, and the newspapers were not afraid to print that statement by Dowding.

Goering, the Nazi commander, expected success and in anticipation Hitler had prepared invasion barges at Bremen. But I see in my notes taken at the time that a terrific storm in the channel and North Sea blew away those invasion barges. The result was that the invasion of Britain was postponed. This was vital, for it gave Britain more time to manufacture armaments to re-equip our depleted forces.

I put it to you that we are a shadow of what we once were, not least in the area of our spirituality.  The freedoms we have are hard won.  I believe that when we abuse those freedoms to indulge in immorality, we will soon lose them.  There are exceptions of course, but I see the UK as largely a nation of cowards.

We are proud, we are godless and we are deluded.  We are soon going to find this out.