The embassy in Buenos Aires commemorated Battle of Britain Sunday
The British Embassy in Buenos Aires held a reception to commemorate Battle of Britain Sunday and honoured five World War II veterans.
The Veterans honoured with HMA Mark Kent, SoS David Mundell and Argentine Air Force Deputy Chief, Fernando Nieto
Battle of Britain Sunday commemorates the great victory won by the Royal Air Force (RAF), which saved Britain from invasion in 1940. On Sunday, September 15 came what Sir Winston Churchill called “one of the decisive battles of the war” and with it the Luftwaffe’s greatest defeat.
Many Argentines, descendants from British families living in Argentina, listed themselves as volunteers to serve and join the British forces in World War II. Many of them were assigned to the RAF and were part of the legendary Number 164 “Argentine-British” Squadron which was composed of Argentine and Polish volunteers.
The Number 164 Squadron’s coat of arms finds its origins in 1918 although, at that time, it didn’t have a motto. Mr Miguel Angel Carcano, who was the Argentine Ambassador in London, suggested that it should be “Firmes volamos” (Firmly we fly). The idea for the insignia of the British lion in front of a rising sun representing Argentina was also Carcano’s. The coat of arms wasn’t recognised until 1943 when the Duke of Gloucester presented the Squadron officially at a ceremony in front of the Air Marshalls Sir Hugh Sanders and Roderick Hill and members of the British community in Argentina. It was the only squadron whose name was inscribed in Spanish.
Argentine men from British families were not the only ones who volunteered, there were many women who also had a prominent role during World War II: Maureen Dunlop, an Argentine volunteer, became an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot in the RAF during the Second World War and Rosemary Simpson, another Argentine volunteer who participated in the Royal Army Ordinance Corps (RAOC).
In a reception at the Ambassador’s residence in Buenos Aires, Ronnie Scott, the son of a Scottish immigrant, who in 1943 enlisted as a pilot for the British military; Stanley Coggan, a veteran of World War II who was a Flying Officer; Mary Chapman, also Scottish living in Argentina, who was a cryptographer in British Military Defence during World War II; Antoni Żebrowski, born in Poland and trained as a combat pilot by the RAF who fought between 1943 and 1944 and Dennis Crisp were honoured.
One of Sir Winston Churchill’s most famous quotes was delivered in the midst of the Battle of Britain:
The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.