Battle of Britain Day will be commemorated on Tuesday 15 September with a flag raising at 9.30am outside the civic offices on St Peter’s Green in Grantham.
The 80th anniversary will also be commemorated with an online SKDC campaign starting on Saturday (12 September) to recognise the role Lincolnshire played.
Online archive material explains why Battle of Britain Day is observed on September 15 when the battle actually lasted for months. The date commemorates the day in 1940 when 13 hours of intense conflict over south east England countered the Luftwaffe’s longest bombing attack against Britain.
The Joiners Arms, Parkers Shop and Hubbard’s Garage (approx Kennelgate) were destroyed There were four bombs, the final one hitting the Manners Arms garage. Seven people were killed in the raid and 16 injured. The ARP wardens (‘put that light out’) were late turning out as they were holding a meeting at the Guildhall. Barry Ladds, Barrowby
Cabinet Member for Communities, Cllr Annie Mason, said: “We take each of these military commemorations extremely seriously and we are proud to raise the Battle of Britain flag.
“Our district played a major role in many of the key aviation milestones of World War II, and we recognise the contribution that the county played in the vital victory that we now know as the Battle of Britain.”
It includes photos of how German bombing badly damaged Grantham, thanks to local photographer Walter Lee’s unique record of the war, and how a Canadian Spitfire pilot, killed over Lincolnshire, left an international poetic legacy.
Lincolnshire was considered a “quiet” area during the Battle of Britain with Spitfire and Hurricane fighter squadrons rotated through Lincolnshire airfields to recover from the intensive flying and fighting in the south.
Fighter aircraft have long captured the Battle of Britain spotlight, but it was the combined efforts of Bomber Command, many flying from ‘Bomber County’, and Fighter Command which won the Battle of Britain.
Many heavy bombers overflew South Kesteven from county airfields as part of a remorseless campaign. It came to a head in September 1940, with destruction of invasion barges massing in French and Belgian harbours, ready to carry thousands of German troops and equipment onto English soil.
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