The skies over the English Channel were grey on July 10, 1940, and laden with the shadow of war. The air battle between Germany’s Luftwaffe and the British Royal Air Force (RAF) Bomber and Coastal Commands began on this day with raids on convoys in the English Channel off North Foreland and Dover. It was the prelude to the Luftwaffe’s main effort in mid-August, when its focus shifted to attacks on RAF radar bases and airfields. In early September, the attacks shifted again, to London, Coventry and other major cities; the Blitz (from Blitzkrieg, or lightning war) continued until May 1941. More than 100 Canadians served with the 3,000 pilots of the Royal Air Force who repulsed the attacks in dramatic air battles, turning the tide of the war. More than 500 aviators died, including 29 Canadians.

Coventry, in Britain’s West Midlands, is a smoking ruin following an air raid on Nov. 14, 1940. The attack by more than 500 Luftwaffe bombers left an estimated 568 dead.

Imperial War Museum/SG 14861

A Royal Observer Corps aircraft spotter scans the London skies for incoming bombers. St. Paul’s Cathedral is in the background.

Imperial War Museum

Pilots with No. 87 Squadron run to their Hawker Hurricane single-seat fighters at a base in Marville, France, in 1940. This squadron was part of the British Expeditionary Force battling the Luftwaffe close to German territory.

LAC/PA-037482

London’s fire brigade battles blazing buildings in Eastcheap Street during the Blitz. More than 20,000 incendiary bombs had been dropped on the city by the end of 1940.

Imperial War Museum/HU-1129

A German Luftwaffe Heinkel HE-111 is shot down during the Battle of Britain in 1940.

DND/LAC/PA-128127

Children in Stepney, a district in the east end of London, play in a rubble-strewn lot where houses stood before Germany’s bombing blitz.

Legion Magazine archive

Britons hunker down in a basement air-raid shelter that has been shored up with posts and beams. The Blitz was ineffective militarily, but it seriously damaged Britain’s infrastructure.

Legion Magazine archive

Photographed by a German Luftwaffe photographer, a German Heinkel HE-111 aircraft flies over Wapping in London’s East End on Sept. 7, 1940.

DND/LAC/PA-037470