75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain ceremony in North Bay

 In the summer of 1940 the Royal Air Force and the Royal Canadian Air Force confronted the German Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain.

The Allies eventually claimed victory on September 15th 1940, and a ceremony was held yesterday (Sunday) to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of that battle.

22 Wing Commander Colonel Henrik Smith says we’ll never know the full number of men and women who took part in that battle, but he says it’s our duty to keep their stories alive.

He says “to talk with veterans and to retain those stories to ensure they are passed on. Once in a while someone will write an article or a book to give it some longevity, but it really is up to us to keep those stories going.”

Smith says this marked first time a battle was ever fought in the air and it proved to be difficult until the Royal Air Force developed a new technology.

He says “(the Allies) invented this new technology called radar, but nobody really knew how to use it and they figured out in the course of the battle to not only detect, but set up a communications line back to the squadron and before takeoff they would give them a general direction to go in.”