FEATURES Battle of Britain Memorial,
The clifftop Memorial to the Battle of Britain has become a major attraction for visitors from all over the country.
The National Memorial to the Few began life as a simple statue high on the White Cliffs between Dover and Folkestone, beneath the very skies in which much of the Battle was fought between 10 July and 31 October 1940.
Over the years the Battle of Britain Memorial Trust has added a number of new features to the site. The most recent – The Wing – houses an interactive ‘experience’ which aims to bring to life what was arguably the most important battle fought by this country in the whole of the last century.
With the added attraction of a replica Hurricane and Spitfi re, The Scramble Experience has made the site as exciting for children and families as it is poignant for older visitors.
While former and serving RAF personnel fi nd the central statue and the Christopher Foxley-Norris Memorial Wall a moving place of refl ection, younger people love the hands-on exhibits and interactive graphics in the walk-through Scramble Experience.
At its heart is a specially commissioned short fi lm that tells a tale of two pilots in the Battle and was enough to move one veteran to tears as he watched it on the day of the Royal opening.
As well as the interactive exhibits, the experience offers a huge amount of information, with touch screen displays that invite visitors to view fi lm clips, biographies, images and more.
The Memorial, a stone carving of an airman, was unveiled by Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in 1993 and still enjoys pride of place at the centre of this peaceful site at Capel-le-Ferne in Kent.
The airman wears an Irvin Jacket which carefully conceals any suggestion of his rank or nationality. A much-decorated British offi cer or an NCO airman from another country who didn’t make it back from his fi rst sortie? We aren’t told – but every one of the men involved is honoured at this place of pilgrimage.
Their names are listed – again without rank or decoration – on the Christopher Foxley-Norris Memorial Wall, a black granite tribute to the fewer than-3000 men
18
Winter 2016
www.raf-ff.org.uk
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