Saw mention of it on several Facebook pages, albeit mostly those of friends in the Commonwealth. It was listed in the "Today on this date" section of yesterday's paper, here in Seattle.
For those who read the book, "Piece of Cake," there's an interesting bit of insight, delivered from the mouth of one one of the characters.
The conventional view is that the Battle of Britain prevented Operation Sea Lion, the German invasion of Britain. The author points of what probably would have happened if the Germans HAD tried to invade.
1. The majority of the German troops would have crossed the channel on barges, towed by smaller ships.
2. The barges could not have made it across the channel during daylight.
3. The Luftwaffe had no accurate night-bombing capability
4. The Royal Navy had *hundreds* of warships that could have made it to the barges by sunset. The German surface Navy was actually rather small.
5. The German barges had limited freeboard (height of the gunwales above water). The RN ships would sink them just by passing at high speed, and reserve the guns for the larger ships carrying tanks and guns.
6. The German army would thus suffer massive casualties by dawn.
Now, this ignores a couple of things. First, of course, is the German paratroopers (part of the German Air Force, not the Army). British night fighter forces weren't that strong at this early point in the war. Second is the U-Boat fleet, which would undoubtedly have been stationed to catch those Royal Navy ships on the way to the invasion area. Third...well, the RN (and for that matter, the RAF) didn't show too well during the Great Channel Dash about 18 months later. Finally, the character in the book who mentions this is an FAA (Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm) officer seconded to the RAF. He was undoubtely biased. :-)
Not to detract from the heroism of the RAF pilots during the Battle, of course. But Britain did have a fallback plan to prevent invasion.
Ron "Spring chicken to shitehawk in one easy lesson" Wanttaja