For example, the nationality acts of Australia and New Zealand had not been enacted at the time of the Battle. Thus the argument has been put forward that, strictly, there were no citizens of those countries in the Battle, they were all British.
For Ireland, it becomes really tricky. All, or virtually all, of those who earned the Clasp, and who we now describe as Irish, were born British because their births occurred before the signing of the Anglo-Irish treaty on 6 December 1921. We really ought to analyse what steps each of the ‘Irish’ Few had taken to change that position. To this day, Irish athletes debate whether, in, say, the Olympic Games, they wish to represent Ireland (the Republic as it is now) or Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The list of problems goes on. Some are tempted to define nationality as “country of birth”. That immediately leads to the problem of those born in the UK whose families emigrated when they were young. Some people held more than one passport, as they do today. Which country do we list them under?
The United States did not enter the war until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Until then, and perhaps even later, Americans wishing to fly in the Allied cause might find it expedient to claim to be Canadian or to seek to join the Royal Canadian Air Force rather than the RAF.
The number of Americans who qualified for the Battle of Britain Clasp is often put at nine, although at least one of those is clearly open to debate. Now the figure certainly has to be reduced.
This is because of a letter which has just emerged and is now in the Memorial Trust’s archives at Capel-le-Ferne. It was sent by Flight Lieutenant J K Haviland to a researcher and is dated 5 May 1994. Haviland has been listed in the Database and in Men of the Battle of Britain as American, as he is in most other major sources. In 1940 he was a Pilot Officer and flew Hurricanes with No 151 Squadron.
In his letter Ken Haviland wrote: “I have gained some fame because I was born in the USA, and I am known as ‘the only surviving American’, although I was a British citizen at the time [of the Battle of Britain].”
So we have yet one more discouragement to the compilation of lists of the Few by nationality. Haviland’s Database entry has been amended.
Geoff Simpson FRHistS
