In an early scene, there are some Spitfires which catch fire. They burn fiercely like the fabric covered Hurricane not the metal skinned Spitfire. Quote from my mother who served in WW2 on a Naval Air Station and saw them both burn. "Those Spitfires are burning like Hurricanes". See more...
During the Stuka attack on the radar station, the two Stuka radio controlled models that collide was a complete accident. It looked good so was left in the final version. See more...
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Genres: Action, Drama, History, War
Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.
The film takes place in 1940. In at least two scenes on an airfield, a Land Rover (possibly a made-for-defence purposes Defender model) can clearly be seen. The Land Rover was not developed until after WW2 & not actually put into production until 1947, as the British "answer" to the US Jeep. [This is utter nonsense. The vehicle was a period Bedford MW 15cwt truck. There is no Land Rover anywhere in this film.]
On the attack on the airfield by He111s, a burning Spitfire is out of control and heads towards a fuel truck. Unfortunately the truck blows up before the Spit' hits it. [This is wrong. We see the Spitfire approaching from behind the fuel truck, from our point of view. The spinning propellor hits, unseen, and the fuel truck explodes. The only visible part of the Spitfire on impact is the starboard wingtip - and as that is some way behind the propellor itself (obviously) it is not in contact with the truck itself.]
During the dog fight when the German gunner gets shot in the face, if you slow the scene down you can see the false blood being squirted into his face from the left of the screen. [The requirement to use slow motion invalidates this entry.]
In many scenes you will see Spitfires diving to avoid the German Messerschmitts. Now the film shows the beginning of the Battle of Britain to the end, well there is one problem with the Spitfires diving, it wouldn't happen. The type of Spitfire in service during the Battle of Britain was the Spitfire Mark 1, which had a carburetor. If the plane dives the engine will stall. Spitfire pilots would never intentionally dive, but Messerschmitt 109 pilots, when being tailed by a Spitfire, would engage in a sharp dive to save their butts as they knew the Spitfire couldn't follow them. [The Mark 1 couldn't match the performance of the Me109, but the Spitfire Mark 2, first delivered in August 1940, could match it. The filmmakers based their recreation of combat footage on film taken during the actual battle, so the flight characteristics of the Spitfires shown are realistic.]
During the film, a German bomber crew, lost in the dark, accidentally jettison their bombs over London, thus starting the Blitz. In reality, the very first German air-raid on London in late August 1940 was planned and intentional, borne out by the fact that a number of aircraft bombed the city at different times during the night. [This is wrong. The sequence of events in the film is almost completely accurate. On August 25, 1940 a lone German bomber lost its way and dropped its bombload on London. The British reacted by launching an 81 bomber attack against Berlin. In fact the German response was relatively muted and the raids on the RAF airfields continued until September 7th, 1940 when the first full-scale attack on London was mounted.]
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