The book was true to the traditions of publications from Ramsey’s company, carrying plenty of photographs taken in 1940, accompanied by contemporary views of the same locations.
As a result of reading the first edition, my general interest in the Second World War was transformed into specialising in Battle of Britain research. Apparently, I was not alone in being inspired by this special book.
Now Winston Ramsey has retired and his company has been taken over by the publisher Pen & Sword, with the promise of a new multi-volume edition in 2025. There will be continuity, with some of the contributors from 1980 stepping forward again. In particular, the editor, Andy Saunders, is a survivor from 1980.
I cornered Andy and asked him a few questions.
Geoff: Why did Pen & Sword decide to produce an updated version of Then and Now?
Andy: When Winston Ramsey of After The Battle retired and sold the business to P&S recently there were very few copies of Battle of Britain Then and Now left in the stockroom. However, the title was still a good seller and initially there was a view to reprint it, but it was soon realised that much of the information in the 1980 edition had been superseded with new or additional material. For example, many of the aircraft losses – both British and German – recorded in the 1980 edition are now known to be either incorrect entries or were published with incomplete information. This was not because of any failing in respect of the first edition, but simply because new information has come to light. To a very large extent, that came about as a result of the book itself. Its publication triggered a wave of interest and research by a great many people who were inspired by the book. We now have an opportunity to weave much of that new information into this revised version. Additionally, records and archives which were still ‘closed’ in the late 1970s have become available, including RAF personnel casualty reports.
Geoff: So, will this new version be a complete rewrite?
Andy: No. It will utilise the original version in many respects. For example, the sections on RAF airfields will be unchanged apart from some minor corrections. In all other respects the authors’ original pieces will run again. Of course, in many instances the authors of those original sections are no longer with us, and we would wish to continue to honour the work they undertook. However, each airfield will have a supplementary section bringing the story up to date. These supplements will be fully illustrated and will complement the original pieces, which still stand as entirely valid accounts of the airfields in their own right. The supplements have all been written by Robin Brooks, one of the original authors.
Geoff: This brings me to the question of your personal role. Are you writing any of the additional pieces, or compiling the new lists, for example, of aircraft casualties?
Andy: My role is almost entirely as editor, bringing together all the various strands. I mentioned the pieces by Robin Brooks; in other areas, for example, Gordon Riley will be updating his original section on surviving aircraft from the Battle of Britain. In that context, much has changed and we even have ‘new’ or newly discovered airframes which can be attributed to having been aircraft which participated in the Battle of Britain. In addition, there are one or two airframes that were previously listed that possibly were not genuine Battle of Britain survivors. Also, I mentioned the aircraft losses. I’ve managed to coax out of retirement the original author of those pieces, Peter Cornwell. Peter has fully updated and added to that last listing so that we believe the published lists will be the most comprehensive single record of all RAF and Luftwaffe aircraft lost or damaged during the Battle of Britain.
Geoff: What about the footnotes to those losses which appeared in the original volume? By that I mean the italicised notes below each loss about wrecks that have been recovered etc? Presumably a great deal of that information will need updating? How are you going to go about that?
Andy: A good question. We have taken on board a Battle of Britain enthusiast and researcher, Mark Kirby, and his role is to update that information as far as we can. Of course, it will not be possible to assemble an absolutely definitive listing in this respect, but we think that we will end up covering the vast majority of additional pieces of information that need to be added. It is important to remember that those footnotes were never regarded as fully comprehensive or definitive. That information is only so good as that which we can glean. But Mark is doing a splendid job in pulling all these bits of information together.
Geoff: Will there be any new sections?
Andy: Actually, yes, there will be. For example, for the first time, we will be listing all RAF ground personnel who were killed during the Battle of Britain. It is an astonishingly long list, and this is being put together by Rob Pritchard and will be published in the same format as the list of aircrew casualties in the original book.
Geoff: What about the list of RAF aircrew who participated? A lot of that information is now known to be inaccurate. There are additions and deletions to be made.
Andy: That is correct. Several individuals have put in time and effort to update the original Battle of Britain roll published in the first edition. As you say, a number of aircrew members have been discovered in subsequent years who were found to have been Battle of Britain participants. Equally, others have been found who were included in error and these will be deleted. I have to thank Edward McManus and Gerry Burke for their invaluable assistance in this task.
Geoff: Are you looking to include any other elements relating to Battle of Britain aircrew, not included the first-time round?
Andy: Yes, apart from the areas already mentioned, there will be a section on the Battle of Britain National Memorial, the Battle of Britain Monument, the Battle of Britain Fighter Association and also one section on the last surviving Battle of Britain clasp holder, Paddy Hemingway. Given that Paddy was still alive during the production of this work, it seems only appropriate that we should give him this accolade. You know about the National Memorial and Fighter Association coverage of course. Thank you for your contributions.
Geoff: Will the book in its new form have the same look as the original?
Andy: Not entirely, no. For one thing the book will now be produced in four separate volumes. Broadly speaking these will cover airfields, participants, RAF losses and Luftwaffe losses. It is planned that the front cover of each volume will have a different colourised image to reflect the generality of content for that volume. The print size will also be increased, probably from 8 point to 10 point, so the look inside will be somewhat different.
Geoff: What about photographs? Will these be the same? And what about the ‘now’ images which were very much part of the ‘then and now’ approach of the original work?
Andy: Many of the photographs will be the same, but readers will notice quite a few will have been substituted with alternatives. This is partly to ring the changes, as it were, with variations on the photos used if new images could tell the same story. What we will not be doing, however, is revisiting the various sites and locations to take ‘now’ photos. Quite honestly, we have neither the time nor the budget to do that and looking back I think it is remarkable that Winston and his team managed to do that so extensively. We decided that the original ‘now’ photos from 1980 stand as their own historical record and will not be updated. I’d add that the plan is that the book should be black and white throughout, and we will not be introducing any colour imagery as we feel that would jar and detract from the original work.
Geoff: Are there any other elements of the book which will be significantly changed?
Andy: I can’t think of any at this stage, but it is all still very much a work in progress and decisions would likely be taken along the way. One or two other tweaks, for example, do include a complete rewrite of my own original piece on Nicolson VC because we now know that there are elements of that story which are incorrect. This only came to light with the emergence of other documentary evidence in the past decade or so. It would be wrong to press ahead with a version which we can now demonstrate is inaccurate in some respects.
Geoff: When do you expect to complete the work, and what is the publication schedule?
Andy: It is a lot of work, but perhaps not as much as one might imagine and I am being ably assisted by a number of willing contributors and others who have offered information. The plan is that major parts of the work will be submitted for design by the end of May 2025, with a view to publication in September 2025. Initially, this may be just the first two volumes. It depends how well our work progresses. This will be an appropriate date to launch the venture, given that it is the 85th anniversary of the battle and, astonishingly, 45 years since the original version was published. That makes the time gap between the Battle of Britain and the original version less than the time gap between publication of that version and the publication of this update! I expect to be pretty much full time on the task from January onwards next year. At present I am working around other commitments and assembling pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.
Geoff: I’ve known you a long time and am, of course, well aware of your great enthusiasm for the subject of the Battle of Britain, but what on earth made you volunteer for such an apparently monumental task?
Andy: Well, I was very much involved with the first edition from the late 1970s up until publication, and so I accepted the challenge willingly when it was offered. It is something I feel passionate about and I also have an enormous amount of respect for what Winston Ramsey achieved in that remarkable first effort. It was truly groundbreaking, and I feel hugely honoured and privileged to be able to take the baton forward – but with Winston’s original purpose and ethos firmly in mind. I have to say that I was flattered to be told by Winston that if anyone was going to do this then he wanted it to be me. That is quite something to live up to! As to it being a monumental task, well, I suppose it is but then I don’t think it is as much of a task as some might imagine. People might look at the book and think it’s huge, but the point is it isn’t being rewritten. It is being revised, updated, and added to. Going forward many years from now, I like to think that somebody else would take that baton forward and update it yet further one day. The fact is, this is the definitive work on so many elements of the Battle of Britain and it is inevitable that more information will come to light. In fact, as soon as we publish there will probably be bits of information which come in too late or even render some of what we have written already out of date. Such is the nature of a work like this.
Geoff: What about the size of individual volumes and their cost. Are you able to give us any idea about this? Perhaps people are saving up already.
Andy: I’m afraid that it is one of the things that I really have no idea about or control over at this stage. I think it is fair to say that each volume will be as long as it turns out! By that, I mean we have absolutely no idea how the pagination will run. I mentioned that the print will increase from 8 point to perhaps 10 point and that there will be additional information. For those reasons alone the page count is going to be considerably more than it was in the original version. What I can say is that it will be printed on the same quality paper with the same quality reproduction of photos. Additionally, some volumes will be larger than others and I suspect the price per volume will therefore vary. However, to coin a phrase, such decisions are above my pay grade.
Geoff: Is there likely to be any information within these volumes that will come as a surprise to those who are immersed in the subject of the Battle of Britain?
Andy: The short answer is “yes”. To quantify that a little further, there are certainly things we have discovered that I think will not be generally known in the wider community of those involved in the subject of the Battle of Britain. I’d add that we’d love to hear from anyone who has information they think we may have missed or if they hold any information relevant to our update. But if I said any more about the surprising elements of these books, then it might be considered a bit of a spoiler – so it’s probably best to say no more at this stage.
However, I am delighted to give you an exclusive preview of the dust jacket for Volume 1.
Choosing an image which reflects the content of this volume was always going to be challenging, for several reasons. First, the image needed to be in portrait format to ‘work’ on the cover. Second, it would need to be of a suitable and high resolution quality to stand colourisation. Third, it needed to have ‘space’ on the illustration to accommodate text without disrupting the image itself. So those were the first parameters. Next, it needed to best reflect the subject of the main content. In that respect, it was clearly the airfields – and there was little or nothing, really, that would adequately reflect either the commanders or fighter control, anyway. So it had to be an airfield image. And this one fitted all the main requirements. I appreciate some will say: “But it isn’t an image from the Battle of Britain”. No, it isn’t. However, the main element of this volume is the history of the RAF airfields themselves as used during the Battle of Britain, and those histories tell the story of the airfields from their inception (sometimes during the First World War) right up to the present. Thus, this pre-war image ticked all those boxes. Not only that, but the perspective of the line of Hurricanes is perfect from a design point of view. The rear of all the dust jackets will be populated by black and white images that reflect other elements of the 1940 story relevant to that volume. I hope we can share the next covers with you fairly soon.
Geoff Simpson FRHistS was talking to Andy Saunders
Andy Saunders pictured at the Pilot Officer Herbert Case display boards during a visit to the National Memorial to the Few at Capel-le-Ferne.
