First of the Few

First of the Few (Spitfire in the U. S.) is the film story of R. J. Mitchell, designer of -- you guessed it. What is significant is the intuitive genius of Mitchell in seeing the threat of Germany's growing Luftwaffe and his tireless effort to create a fighter to thwart it prior to the war. Directed by Leslie Howard, who plays Mitchell in the film, it contains inaccuracies that can be forgiven because of the overall message: the defense of truth, goodness, and beauty is often a lonely and thankless task.

Churchill's famous words come to mind:

The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the World War by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few. All hearts go out to the fighter pilots, whose brilliant actions we see with our own eyes day after day…

The title of the film says that without Mitchell's Spitfire, those fighter pilots would have had nothing in which to defend Britain. Mitchell's brilliance was seeing the paradigm with which the job could done and none other.

Now: what is the equivalent of the Spitfire in the war against jihadism? Who is our R. J. Mitchell?