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Unsung Jewish Heroes Who Helped UK in Battle of Britain
(Times of Israel) Robert Philpot - As the UK prepares to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Britain this summer - when the air force successfully repelled a planned German invasion - London's RAF Museum's new Jewish "Hidden Heroes" project aims to raise awareness about the role played by Jewish personnel in the RAF during WWII. More than 50 surviving Jewish RAF veterans, together with their families and friends, have submitted their stories. Michael Oser Weizmann, son of Chaim Weizmann, Israel's first president, was an RAF pilot. He worked for the Coastal Command Development Unit, tasked with developing new technologies and tactics for coastal command aircraft in the Battle of the Atlantic. Weizmann, who flew Whitley bombers, was killed at the age of 25 in February 1942, when his plane ditched in the Bay of Biscay near France. His body was never recovered. The museum has calculated that 20,000 Jews - 6% of the UK Jewish population at the time - served in the RAF during the war. Of these, 900 lost their lives. Moreover, the proportion of Jews who participated in the Battle of Britain is believed to have been more than double their 0.5% of the UK population. "Jews fought back - and nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the actions of the Jewish men and women of the wartime Royal Air Force," the project's historian, Joshua Levine, wrote in the RAF Association magazine this month.