When the last boat left Dunkirk, France, in early summer 1940, carrying what it could of the defeated British Expeditionary Force and its allies, many soldiers – my own grandfather among them – were left behind. ose lucky enough to make it across the Channel were battered and bruised, and it seemed to all the world as though Hitler had now defeated Britain, just as he had trampled across Europe. Had it not been for the heroic actions of the men and women who held off the Luftwaffe, then Hitler’s plans to invade Britain may well have proved decisive, and this would be a very di erent world to the one we know. As we approach the 75th anniversary, we salute the victors of the Battle of Britain from page 30.
Another anniversary this summer that holds huge significance for freedom fighters is Magna Carta – the Great Charter, and the blueprint for 800 years of global campaigning. Who knows what kind of society we’d be living in today had King John not been so abominable a monarch (p52).
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