A WORCESTER aviation expert has slammed suggestions that the Battle of Britain was merely a sideshow.

Dilip Sarkar, who has written a number of books about the Royal Air Force's role during the Second World War, was responding to an article in a history magazine that claims it was the Royal Navy that prevented a Nazi invasion of this country in the summer of 1940 and not the pilots of the Spitfire and Hurricane fighter squadrons.

The three academics, who are also senior military historians at the Joint Service Command Staff College, said that the Germans were put off from launching an invasion force by the strength of the Royal Navy in the English Channel even if the RAF had been beaten by the Luftwaffe.

Mr Sarkar, aged 44, said: "The Royal Navy was obviously there and was always going to be a deterrent, but what they are suggesting in the article goes too far.

''To say that the Battle of Britain was a side show is ridiculous. Military strength relies on aerial superiority. Navy ships were vulnerable to attacks from dive-bombers."

Mr Sarkar added that even if the RAF had been defeated, while the Navy probably would have stopped a land invasion by sea it would not have been able to stop German planes from dropping bombs on towns and cities throughout England, causing huge numbers of casualties.

Another local historian and researcher, Andy High, who lives at Callow End, near Worcester, agreed with Mr Sarkar.

The 38-year-old, who has written a book, due to be released next year, about the role of Worcestershire pilots in the Second World War, said: "When a very senior German military commander called Field Marshal von Rundstedt, was captured at the end of the war he was asked what was the most decisive battle and he replied that it was the Battle of Britain.

"I'm not denigrating the Royal Navy in any way, but when I first saw the article I thought how wrong could an article be."