The Battle of Britain: The Dowding System

In the summer of 1940, Britain's Royal Air Force confronted an onslaught by Germany's Luftwaffe in what has become known as the Battle of Britain. The stakes were high. The German attacks were intended to eliminate the RAF as a threat to the invasion of Britain that Hitler planned for late that summer. This video gives us a close look at a key element of the system that was used to defeat the German air assault. The Dowding system, named after Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, commander of the RAF’s Fighter Command, was the world’s first large-scale integrated air defense system. Combined with the fighter force, it was an effective means to defend the island nation. And docent Steve Hein tells how it all worked.