The fighters of the RAF yesterday hit a hammer blow against the Luftwaffe when they downed 56 German aircraft for the loss of just 26 of our own. It was one of their worst days of the battle so far and one of the RAF’s best. The Germans sent waves and waves of bombers with fighter escorts across the Channel – at one point 550 aircraft in a single formation – but Air Chief Marshal Dowding responded by throwing up more Hurricanes and Spitfires than ever before.

The skies were criss-crossed with chalky vapour trails as great air battles were fought between the Kent coastline and London as formations of British fighters rammed into the massed ranks of German bombers trying to fight their way to the capital.

And this morning, all the way from the coast to London, the countryside is covered with the twisted metallic remnants of German planes. At least five bombers came down in London itself. One exploded in the air and crashed next to Victoria station.

The first major enemy formation of 100 bombers with 200 fighters came across the Kent coastline at around 11am yesterday. They were met, at the height of the fighting, by more than 20 squadrons of Hurricanes and Spitfires which tore into the neatly stacked bombers ahead of them.

The German bombers, panicking in the attack, dropped their bombs haphazardly throughout the southern and central London boroughs including Battersea, Westminster, Crystal Palace, Tooting and Wandsworth.

One pilot described his encounter with the bombers to the Chronicle:

‘We took off and climbed and we saw this huge formation coming in. We were ideally placed to take them head-on. We got into position and turned into attack. We dived in and opened fire . . . I opened on the third one from the centre. He swung away. I don’t think he could believe I was coming at him, straight out of the sun. I then shot at three or four on the line, rolled off and went down. As I was pulling out, the bombers jettisoned their bombs and turned for home. One bomb went slowly past my wingtip, feet away.’

The next big enemy formation rolled in just after 2pm. This time Goering had thrown a vast armada of 550 planes at us, yet the RAF fighters were more than equal to it and the attack on the German bombers was so fierce that 50 decided to turn back long before reaching their target.

All the time the RAF has continued to attack Hitler’s invasion bases, dropping hundreds of tons of explosives on the Channel ports. As the Chronicle went to press a further German blitz was taking place, with raids on central London hitting the Strand and the East End.