The window is called the Battle of Britain Window and is designed by Hugh Easton. It comprises of forty-eight panels or panes made up in four rows.

The top row consists of seraphims which have their wings alternately coloured blue or wine. Four pilots are seen kneeling before Christ, The Virgin Mary, and the Pieta, in the quarters of the second and third rows. The Royal Banner and Badge of the Royal Air Force, are grouped on the second row together with the flags of other countries, whose pilots flew alongside ours in the Battle. The remaining panes show the badges of the Squadrons and Units whose airmen were engaged in what is now realised to have been a very vital battle for Great Britain. Memorial to pilots of the Fleet Air Arm is represented by a Royal Navy Pilots Wings immediately below the Royal Banner. The two centre panels of the bottom row of the tapestry bear the quotation from William Shakespeare (Henry V), "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers."

The tapestry was first thought of by Flight Lieutenant R. B. Crook whilst he was in hospital at RAF Halton shortly after World War II. The idea was to give members of the RAF, in hospital at the time, a form of occupational therapy, with the added interest of giving the completed tapestry to the RAF Benevolent Fund. He painted two panels, and these were only partially sewn, when he was discharged from hospital. No further progress was made.

Forty years later, Mr Crook remembered the plan he had so many years ago. He began gathering information about the window and making drawings of the 48 panels. By this time Mr Crook was living in the Kings Heath area of Birmingham and had joined the local Branch of the Royal British Legion. He discussed the matter with his friends. The project was born.

It will be appreciated that the preparation of the canvases presented a considerable task. Mr Crook's health began to fail and he was unable to carry on single-handed. On learning of Mr Crook's difficulties his comrades of the Royal British Legion rallied to his call for help. Assistance of various kinds was given and a special sub-committee was instituted to deal with the project.

Artists were contacted through The Artist Book Club Publication. However it must be pointed out that painting on tapestry canvas is by no means easy. None of the volunteer artists had experience in this field. Perseverance and application won through. A total of eleven artists finished the job. The artwork itself proved to be quite lovely in its own right. It is, of course, now covered by the needlework. Mention should be made of a small number of artists who gave their time, but whose work did not measure up to the standards we set. Their efforts are appreciated.

Whilst the canvases were in preparation efforts were made to find forty-eight embroiderers or needleworkers to complete the sewing. The project owes a great deal to the Embroiderers Guild, who assisted in the recruitment of some 60% of the needleworkers.

A project of this size attracts many difficulties. Special thanks are due to Mr. R. Monbiot of A.R.M. Lubricants Ltd., who greatly assisted the project with the fixing of watercolour pigments and without whose aid the project would almost have certainly failed.

It is all very well to sew one panel of canvas work or tapestry as a singleton. When there are forty-eight panels which have to be matched and joined then additional care has to be taken. In order to maintain certain uniformity at the joins, the frame stitchwork must be counted very accurately. Inevitably some of the panels had to be corrected after the needlework was complete. A small band of embroiderers volunteered for this task after they had sewn their own panels. In this, the project owes a great deal to Mrs J. Pettitt, Mrs M. Wright and Mrs F. Bonner who all patiently and skilfully carried out the tedious work of correction. Much is owed to the efforts of Mrs I. Barber who not only completed her panel in record time but volunteered to sew a second panel when another needleworker was forced to abdicate her task.

Statistics

Each of the panels contains on average 48,000 stitches. The whole work contains 2,367,700 stitches. Messrs J & P Coats tapestry wool and stranded cottons were used throughout. Some 8,102 skeins of stranded cottons and 700 skeins of wool were used. The tapestry and its backing cloth weighs some 130 lbs (59 kgs). The working time on each panel is approximately 100 hours for artwork, and 250 hours for sewing. These times were quite variable depending on the individual skills and experience of the person working the panel. The whole planning, preparation, administration and execution of the tapestry took five years. On completion it was presented to Her Majesty The Queen, as Patron of the RAF Benevolent Fund, on 15 September 1990, the 50th anniversary of the conflict. On 18 July 1997 it was moved from Heathrow Airport to be displayed at the RAF Manston Spitfire and Hurricane Memorial Museum Building.

Battle of Britain Tapestry

Key

On display inside the Memorial Museum Building is the prototype bouncing bomb which was recovered from nearby Reculver. The bomb was invented by Barnes Wallis although the idea had been used in Nelson’s day when cannon balls were sometimes skipped across the water.

The bomb is cylindrical, 60 inches long and 50 inches in diameter. It had 3 hydrostatic pistols set to detonate at a depth of 30 feet in water on a 90 second fuse which was ignited at the moment of release. The total weight was 9,250 lbs of which 6,000 lbs was explosive. It was rotated at 700 RPM before release and was designed to make 12 bounces across the water to clear torpedo nets.

It was tested at Nant-y-Gros dam in Wales, Chesil beach in Dorset and at Reculver in Kent. In April 1943 the Reculver tests involved a bomb run of 1,600 yards flying at 360 mph at 60 feet above the waves using Mosquitoes and Wellingtons from RAF Manston. The extensive foreshore at Reculver made the location ideal for the recovery of practice bombs at low tide for subsequent evaluation.

On the night of 16/17 May 1943 Wg Cdr Guy Gibson led 617 Squadron on the famous Dambuster raid with 19 Lancasters. Only 10 returned with the loss of 55 crew. As a result of the breach of the Mohne dam about 330 million tons of water flooded the West Ruhr valleys, destroying 125 factories and making 3,000 hectares of arable land useless. The flood caused 25 bridges to vanish and badly damaged 21 more. Over 6,500 cattle and pigs were lost and 1,295 people perished.

The bomb on display was recovered from Reculver and restored by cadets from 2433(Ramsgate) Sqn, Air Training Corps.

In February 1942, Manston became the centre for the desperate air action to stop the dash up the Channel by the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. The trio, along with 6 destroyers and 34 E boats and flak ships, had broken out of Brest Harbour at 2245 hours on the night of 11th February. The daring Channel dash, and the inability of the combined efforts of the RN and RAF to stop them, was to lead to a Board of Inquiry when it was over. After the war the following appeared in "The Right of the Line - The RAF in the European War 1939-45: " ...... the German ships escaped up the Channel, inflicting a national humiliation which shocked the British people and every part of the Services concerned." The action was also to result in the award of a posthumous Victoria Cross, the only VC to be awarded to a pilot operating out of Manston.

Hitler was personally convinced that the British, or the Russians, or both, were going to invade Norway and he was concentrating his defences, and especially naval power, to counter such an assault. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had been trapped in Brest on the north western Atlantic coast of France, and were attracting air attacks from the RAF. Hitler realised that they would eventually sustain crippling damage from these attacks, and, needing more naval strength to defend Norway, he decided to withdraw them to the German Fleet. It was Hitler's personal decision to make the Channel dash. Air Chief Marshal Sir Philip Joubert, C-in-C of Coastal Command, had indicated that if the breakout occurred it would be most likely between 10th and 15th February. A joint plan to counter the breakout was drawn up and named Operation Fuller.

Six Swordfish torpedo bombers of 825 Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm were positioned at Manston and parked at the north eastern end of the Northern Grass. They were commanded by Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde DSO who gained his award in the action against the Bismarck. Also to be available were 100 aircraft of Bomber Command, with the possibility of a further 150, and squadrons of fighter escorts.

Hitler took full advantage of foul weather over the Channel area in his plan and the breakout went unnoticed. By a combination of luck and equipment failure the Germans passed through two Coastal Command stoppers - or what should have been stoppers. That they had broken out and were heading up the channel was discovered by chance. Group Captain Victor Beamish, CO of Kenley, and the Kenley Wing Leader, Wing Commander Boyd, considering the weather too bad for their young pilots, were out over the Channel near Le Touquet " .... with the idea of picking up a stray Hun...." on the morning of 12th February. Engaging a pair of ME109s, they were themselves descended upon by about a dozen fighters. They made their escape at low level, having first sighted two large battleships with a large destroyer screen around them. Landing at Kenley at 1110 hours they reported what they had seen and by 1125 all naval and air authorities knew that Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were about to enter the Straits of Dover.

Time for British counter moves was short. The bombers, on 4 hours readiness, would not be ready until after 1500. The naval units available in the area were nothing more powerful than destroyers. So everything depended upon the slender force of torpedo bombers and their fighter escort. Esmonde's Swordfish were armed and brought to readiness, but their range would be limited. He was told that there would be 5 squadrons of fighters to provide him with cover and diversionary attacks. His force got airborne at 1220 and circled over Manston to rendezvous with the 5 squadrons of fighters timed to arrive at 1225. At 1228 the first squadron arrived - No 72. Esmonde could wait no longer and set course with only 72 Sqn in support, no doubt hoping that the others would join up before his attack started. 121 Sqn and 401 Sqn RCAF arrived late and headed out to sea but, failing to find the Swordfish, returned to Manston and then set out yet again. When they eventually arrived it was too late.

The Spitfires of 72 Sqn sighted the enemy at 1240, were immediately engaged by ME109s and FWI90s, and lost sight of the Swordfish. Esmonde went in first against staggering odds of fire-power from the mass of German shipping, the lumbering Swordfish biplane an almost sitting target; he was hit and crashed into the sea. The next two pressed on into the hell of flak, were repeatedly hit and their crews wounded, yet they went on towards the two big ships through the low cloud, mist and smoke. Both crews launched their torpedoes before they too crashed into the sea. The second section of 3 Swordfish were not seen after disappearing from view as they crossed the destroyer screen, and none of them survived. Five men from the first section were later rescued by our Motor Torpedo Boats, but the gallant leader, Lt Cdr Eugene Esmonde, did not survive and he was later posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

It was a bad day for the British. A special Board of Inquiry was set up under the chairmanship of Mr Justice Bucknill, with an Air Chief Marshal and a Vice Admiral as members, to investigate the operations undertaken to prevent the escape. In their findings there were no criticism of “the countless acts of gallantry” or of the “evident determination of all forces to press home their attacks.” The weather was hopelessly against us, there followed a series of accidents all favourable to the enemy and everything that could go wrong seemed to do just that.

In 1995 the Kent Fleet Air Arm Association placed a memorial board, commemorating the 18 “Channel Dash” heroes, in the Spitfire and Hurricane Memorial Museum Building.

222 Squadron Scoreboard

The much travelled No 222 (Natal) Squadron wartime scoreboard and related battle honours originally came from the wing of an Me 109. The Me109 was shot down over Kent by Flying Officer MacMullen, a 222 Squadron pilot, on 15 Oct 1940 at the end of the Battle of Britain. The Squadron flew Spitfires from 1940 through to 1944 when it was re-equipped with Hawker Tempests. The Squadron’s final score showed 120 enemy aircraft confirmed destroyed, 62 probably destroyed and 138 damaged.

From roots in the RNAS, No 222 Squadron was formed on 1 Apr 1918 at Thasos equipped with Sopwith Camels for duties in the Aegean area and was disbanded on 27 Feb 1919. It was reformed on 5 Oct 1939 with Blenheim 1Fs, converting to Spitfires in 1940. Post-war it was equipped with Gloster Meteors and in Dec 1954 received Hawker Hunters which were in use until 1957. From May 1960 until final disbandment in Jun 1964 222 Squadron operated as a Bloodhound missile unit.

The Squadron’s connection with South Africa started in 1940 when there was widespread fund-raising throughout the Commonwealth to equip fighter squadrons. At that time the cost of a Spitfire was £6,000 - £7,000 and the people of Natal raised more than £250,000. The Air Ministry decided this would be best used to equip and maintain a squadron which was already operational. The choice fell to 222 Squadron which officially became 222 (Natal) Squadron. The Squadron badge reflects the South African connection - its central feature is a Wildebeest and the motto "Pambili Bo" means "Go straight ahead" in Zulu.

The best known among the many fine pilots who flew with 222 was Douglas Bader who developed several of his theories on the art of aerial combat during his period as flight commander from Feb - Jun 1940. The Squadron operated from RAF Manston in July 1941.

The scoreboard was placed in the Memorial Museum Building in Jan 1997.