Kohl Simonds

Hay
March 5, 2015
The Best Days of Their Lives
For most of Britain, the period from mid-August to the end of September proved to be a
trying and turbulent one to say the least. A seemingly constant barrage of German aircraft littered
the British skies, as the entire country became a war machine endlessly manufacturing and
repairing the Royal Air Force for the ongoing fight in the sky. While the Battle of Britain took its
toll on the adults in the country and claimed many lives, the naivety of the children in this time
allowed them to experience war-time Britain without fully understanding the scope and
implications of the surrounding altercation. As Tim Clayton and Phil Craig describe in their text
Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain, most British schoolboys and schoolgirls would continue
spotting planes and comparing battleships without ever seeing what war was really like1
Although many children would experience the best days of their lives,2 some were unfortunate
enough to experience the atrocities of war firsthand. Those unfortunate few, including those
examined by Clayton and Craig, would be awoken from their naivety in life-changing ways
during this time. Clayton and Craig go into detail about the lives of a few children who, between
the months of August and September, go from the average nave child, to having experienced the
harsh reality of the Battle of Britain.
Bess Walder was just fifteen years old during the Battle of Britain. As a precaution, given the
danger of the Nazis invasion of London looming, Bess parents decided to send her and her
younger brother Louis off to Canada. Speaking to the naivety of the children, Bess reaction was
1 Tim Clayton and Phil Craig, Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain (Great Britain: Hodder and Stoughton, 1999), 287
2 Ibid.

Canada meant America and America meant movie studios and movie stars.3 Being only nine,
and much more nave, Louis couldnt help but think about seeing real cowboys and Indians!4
Clayton and Craig convey with great clarity how much the children of this time seemed to be
detached from the war. The Walders ship to Canada would inevitably be sunk by a German
submarine in the open ocean. Despite surviving the encounter, the nave children who boarded
that ship to what they thought would be paradise, were swiftly brought to the grim reality that the
war provided.
Another child described in the text that would have his naivety ruined by the Battle of Britain
was Alan Francis. Alan, a ten year-old boy, loved everything to do with the war. He knew
everything about the RAF and collected shrapnel that fell from the sky around his home. In the
morning Alan would rush outside to be the first to get the biggest bit5 what should have been a
jarring reminder of the matter that surrounded him on a daily basis, became a collectors item. At
10 years old Alan, like so many other children, was too nave to understand the full implications
of his surroundings. Throughout the text, Clayton and Craig use the phrase the war came home
to describe a specific time the war would severely, and directly impact an individual. On
September 29,1940, the war came home to Alan Francis. 6 Alans mother was crushed by a
wall that collapsed during a bombing raid and Alan himself admitted to not comprehending the
immensity of it.7 The Battle of Britain, and all that ensued, changed Alan Francis forever it
incinerated his naivety.
Ada Taylor, a young girl, was an innocent schoolgirl before the Battle of Britain erupted and
changed that forever. Bombing in her neighborhood had forced Ada and her family to seek
3 Ibid., 210.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., 258.
6 Ibid., 286.
7 Ibid.

shelter in her former school. The place that had fostered Adas innocence and naivety provided
the grounds for the Battle of Britain to strip it from her. On September 9th, there was a brilliant,
multi-colored flash and the schoolroom doors flew past Adas head.8 Ada survived the bombing
only to witness what was described as a jigsaw puzzle9 due to the attempts of rescuers to
reassemble the dismembered bodies. This nave, innocent little girl witnessed the terrors of the
war no child should have to see. Ada watched as family and friends all around her, her uncle
apart of them, were murdered as a result of the Battle of Britain. She was not one of the many
fortunate children who exited the war as nave and innocent as they entered.
Through these children, Clayton and Craig exhibit the near-universal mindset of the average
child of this time and how the events of the Battle of Britain ultimately reformed those mindsets.
Whether it was being stranded in the open ocean after a German sub sank their ship, having their
mother crushed by a wall during a bombing raid, or seeing dismembered bodies being pulled
from the rubble of your school, the Battle of Britain bereaved a number of children of their
naivety all while the majority of children had the best days of their lives.10

8 Ibid., 254.
9 Ibid., 255
10 Ibid., 287