Includes bibliographical references (p. [303]-305) and index.

Michael Korda takes the reader back to the summer of 1940, when fewer than 3000 young fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force--often no more than 900 on any given day--stood between Hitler and victory. Korda traces the entire complex web of political, diplomatic, scientific, industrial, and human decisions during the 1930s that led inexorably to the world's first, greatest, and most decisive air battle. He deftly interweaves the critical strands of the story--the invention of radar; the developments by visionary aircraft designers; and the rise of the theory of air bombing as the decisive weapon of modern warfare. As Nazi Germany rearmed after 1933, one eccentric, infuriating, obstinate, difficult, and astonishingly foresighted man, Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, persevered--despite opposition, shortage of funding, and bureaucratic infighting--to perfect the British RAF fighter force just in time to meet and defeat the German onslaught.--From publisher description.