A Spitfire and a German Heinkel He 111 during the Battle of Britain. Australian armed forces photograph; public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The Battle of Britain: The System Behind the Spitfire

Geoffrey Wellum remembered the telephone. Before the engine noise and the climb, before the enemy aircraft and the decision to fire, there was the waiting for it to ring. The young Spitfire pilot’s recollection shifts the Battle of Britain away from its familiar silhouette in the sky and back towards an airfield where men did not yet know what the next few minutes would require.