A 43 pc secondary students don’t know Battle of Britain took place in air

London -  Less than half of UK’s secondary school pupils know the Battle of Britain was fought in the air, a poll has revealed.

Only 62 percent were able to correctly identify a photograph of Sir Winston Churchill – but 92 percent easily recognised a picture of Churchill the insurance dog.

More students were able to identify Jedward, Wayne Rooney and Katie Price than their country’s wartime leader.

The study revealed that only a third of 11 to 18-year-olds know the Second World War began in 1939, while only one in five knows what happened on D-Day.

The survey, by former Conservative Party deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft, of 1,000 children at secondary schools across Britain was commissioned to mark the unveiling of the Bomber Command Memorial in London later this week.

It found that only 34 percent of pupils – including 45 percent of those aged 17 and 18 – knew the Second World War began in 1939.

Only 39 percent knew it ended in 1945, again including only 45 percent of 17 and 18-year-olds.

Forty-three percent knew the Battle of Britain was fought in the air, 29 percent believed it was fought on land, and 8 percent thought it was fought at sea. Twenty per cent admitted they did not know.

Just 34 percent correctly said the Battle of Britain took place in the 1940s, and only 11 percent of these – about one in 27 of the whole sample – knew that it happened in 1940.

Only a fifth of children had any idea of what happened on D-Day, with the most frequent answer being the day the war ended.

Eighty-six percent correctly said there had been two world wars – but one in 20 thought there had been three.

Nearly a third were unable to give any unprompted explanation of why Britain fought in the Second World War.

And while 89 percent identified Germany as an adversary during the conflict, only 15 percent could name Japan unprompted.

When the children were offered four different explanations for what Bomber Command is or was, only 36 percent correctly said it had been part of the RAF.

“I don’t mean to criticise the children,” the Daily Mail quoted Lord Ashcroft as saying.

“We must all take responsibility for ensuring that what we know is passed to the next generation.

“These findings show we can never be complacent about our duty to remember,” he added.