Queen meets with the last of 'the Few'

  • Meridian
The Queen wore a Karl Ludwig dress and coat in turquoise and indigo blue wool, with an Angela Kelly matching hat. Credit: Chris Jackson/PA Wire/Press Association Images

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have visited Kent to meet some of the last surviving Battle of Britain airmen who helped repel Germany's Luftwaffe during the Second World War.

The royal couple spoke to some of the final remaining members of Winston Churchill's famous "few" at the National Memorial to the Few above the white cliffs.

The Queen was there to open The Wing, a new £3.5 million visitor and education centre, home to an interactive experience which tells the story of the Battle of Britain.

The RAF airmen who fought in the skies above the English Channel became collectively known as the"few" after Churchill's famous speech in Parliament.

The Queen and Philip viewed a video wall at the centre, which brings to lifethe experience of the battle. And they met schoolchildren completing worksheets about the conflict, which led to more than 500 of the 3,000 or so men of RAF Fighter Command perishing between July and October 1940.

Schoolchildren wait in the rain for the arrival of Queen Elizabeth II Credit: Chris Jackson/PA Wire/Press Association Images

Then in the Cockpit Cafe, the royal couple greeted a group of Battle of Britain airmen, most now aged in their 90s, who struggled against huge odds to overcome the Luftwaffe.

With the visit, the Queen followed in the footsteps of her mother, the Queen Mother, who unveiled the memorial at Capel-le-Ferne, near Folkestone, on July 9, 1993.