For sixty years "The Battle" has meant one thing to the British people: the Battle of Britain. The contest between the British and German air forces in the late summer and autumn of 1940 has become a defining moment in our recent history, as Trafalgar was for the Victorians. British forces fought other great battles in the twentieth century – the Somme, Passchendaele, Normandy – but only El Alemein exudes the same sweet scent of complete victory, and Egypt was not the Motherland.