The final losses in the Battle of Britain were 1,700 German planes, and 900 British planes. The RAF had 1,500 fighter pilots, drawn from Britain, the Commonwealth, Poland and Czechoslovakia. Over 400 of them died during the fighting, but their sacrifice had been needed. At the point of battle, Winston Churchill famously described their success: “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”