PENGUIN BOOKS

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN

’Masterly… packs a devastatingpunch. Such is Professor Overy’sgrasp of the historical detail that heis able to puncture with pinpointaccuracy the myths that nowobscure this pivotal event…conveys the heat and passion ofconflict… a model of historicalclarity’ John Yates, Yorkshire Post

‘Admirably clear, concise and level-headed… makes a convincing case’

Tim Clayton, Daily Mail

‘Masterful… a perfect introductionto a complicated story… a worthyand highly readable account of thathistoric victory’ Richard Mullen,Contemporary Review

‘It is hard to imagine a sounder andmore succinct account of the Battleof Britain’ Max Hastings, EveningStandard

‘My ideal history book… frees theBattle of Britain of myth, makingthe old story fresh as paint’

Susannah Herbert, Daily Telegraph

‘Carefully argued, clearly explainedand impressively documented… anotable achievement’ NobleFrankland, The Times LiterarySupplement

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Richard Overy is Professor ofHistory at King’s College, London.His previous books include Russia’sWar, Interrogations and mostrecently The Dictators.

THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN RICHARD OVERY

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin GroupPenguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R0RL, EnglandPenguin Group (USA), Inc., 375 Hudson Street,New York, New York 10014, USAPenguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 CamberwellRoad, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, AustraliaPenguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2Penguin Books India (P) Ltd, 11 CommunityCentre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017,IndiaPenguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and RosedaleRoads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New ZealandPenguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank 2196, South Africa

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First published as The Battle by Penguin 2000Reissued in 2001Reissued under the current title 20045

Copyright © Richard Overy, 2000All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this bookis sold subject to the condition that it shall not,by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold,hired out, or otherwise circulated without thepublisher’s prior consent in any form of bindingor cover other than that in which it is publishedand without a similar condition including thiscondition being imposed on the subsequentpurchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-192612-4

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

ONE THE SETTING

TWO THE ADVERSARIES

THREE THE BATTLE

FOUR A VICTORY OF SORTS

NOTES

TABLES AND MAPS

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge thehelpful assistance received in theImperial War Museum, the PublicRecord Office, and above all in theMinistry of Defence, Air HistoricalBranch. I am particularly gratefulto Sebastian Ritchie for casting anexpert eye over the text at veryshort notice. I would like to thankTony Mansell for sorting outfigures on casualties, and RichardSimpson of the RAF Museum,Hendon, for help on some technicalissues. Simon Winder at Penguin

was the inspiration behind thesubject and its format. Kate Parkerhas been a scrupulous editor. Anyerrors and misjudgements thatremain are, as ever, my ownresponsibility. To Kim, Alexandraand Clementine my love andthanks.

PREFACE

For sixty years ‘The Battle’ hasmeant one thing to the Britishpeople: the Battle of Britain. Thecontest between the British andGerman air forces in the latesummer and autumn of 1940 hasbecome a defining moment in ourrecent history, as Trafalgar was forthe Victorians. British forces foughtother great battles in the twentiethcentury – the Somme,Passchendaele, Normandy – butonly El Alamein exudes the samesweet scent of complete victory,

and Egypt was not the Motherland.In reality neither El Alamein nor

the Battle of Britain was a clear-cutbattle with a neat conclusion. Thishas not stopped historians fromimposing clarity, nor has it dulledthe popular perception that thesewere glittering milestones alongthe road to British military success.Both battles were really defensivetriumphs: the one saved Egypt andprevented the collapse of Britain’sglobal war effort, the other savedBritain from cheap conquest. It isavoiding defeat that we haveapplauded; victory came longafterwards, with more powerful

allies in harness.‘The Battle’ matters because it

prevented German invasion andconquest and kept Britain in thewar. This achievement wasworthwhile enough. Nine Europeanstates (ten, counting Danzig) hadfailed to prevent Germanoccupation by the summer of 1940,with the grimmest of consequences.Nevertheless, some historians haveraised serious doubts about thetraditional story of the battle,which gave birth to the myth of aunited nation repelling invasion,and gave iconographic status to theSpitfires and the ‘few’ who flew

them. There is another history to bediscovered behind the popularnarrative. The effort to uncover ithas already challenged some of themost cherished illusions of thebattle story.

Take, for example, the generallyaccepted view that the battleprevented German invasion ofsouthern Britain. Documents on theGerman side have been used tosuggest that this was not so.Invasion, it can be argued, was abluff designed to force Britain tobeg for peace; in the summer of1940 Hitler’s eyes were alreadygazing eastwards, where there lay

real ‘living-space’. The Royal AirForce did not repel invasion for theapparently simple reason that theGermans were never coming. Thisinterpretation has prompted somehistorians to suggest that Britainshould have taken the chance ofpeace with Hitler and let the twototalitarian states bleed each otherto death in eastern Europe.

Behind this argument lies stillmore revision. The picture of afirmly united and determinedpeople standing shoulder toshoulder against fascism has beenslowly eroded by the weight ofhistorical evidence. The British

were less united in 1940 than wasonce universally believed.Defeatism could be found, side byside with heroic defiance.Churchill’s government, so it isargued, had powerful voices urginga search for peace in the summer of1940, just like the appeasers of the1930s. Churchill himself has notbeen free of reassessment. He hasbecome the butt of wide criticismfor his conduct of the war and hisstyle of leadership. Even hisinspirational speeches, which haveshaped our memory of that summerof 1940, can now be shown to havehad a mixed reception among a

public desperate for hard news.It is the purpose of this short

book to assess where ‘The Battle’now stands in history. There islittle point in pretending that thehistorical narrative of the battle isthe same as the popular myth. Butit is not necessarily the case thatthe significance of the battle isdiminished by recreating thehistorical reality, any more thanthe effects of Churchill’s leadershipmust be negated by acknowledgingthat he was human too. For a greatmany reasons the Battle of Britain,myth and reality, was a necessarybattle. The consequences of British

abdication in 1940 would havebeen a calamity not just for theBritish people but for the world asa whole.

THE SETTING

We have reason to believe thatGermany will be ruthless andindiscriminate in her endeavour toparalyse and destroy our nationaleffort and morale and unlessimmediate steps are taken toreduce the intensity of attack it isconceivable that the enemy mayachieve her object.

AIR MINISTRY MEMORANDUM, APRIL 19381

For most of the 1930s Britain’spoliticians and military leaderswere haunted by nightmare visions

of a massive ‘knock-out blow’ fromthe air against which there could belittle defence save the threat ofretaliation. When NevilleChamberlain, Britain’s primeminister from 1937 to 1940, flewback to London from Germany atthe height of the Czech crisis in1938, he looked down at thesprawling suburbs of the capitaland imagined bombs crashingdown upon the innocent victimsbelow him. This horrible pictureinspired him to redouble his effortsfor peace. A year later, on 3September, those efforts werefinally undone. Britain declared

war on Germany for her refusal towithdraw invasion forces fromPoland, whose sovereigntyChamberlain had guaranteed fivemonths before.

Almost immediately afterChamberlain broadcast the newsfrom 10 Downing Street thatBritain was at war, the sirenssounded. No one had toldChamberlain about the possibilityof an air raid and he was ‘visiblyshaken’ by it. It was a false alarm.A second one sounded at 3 a.m.that night, getting all London outof bed. For days people waited forthe blow from the air which they

had been told to expect.Government observers reportedthat 70 per cent of Londonerscarried their gas masks with them.2The blow never came. The GermanAir Force had no plans to bombLondon in 1939. Like the Royal AirForce (RAF), it was under strictinstructions not to start thebombing war or to run the risk ofkilling civilians from the air. By theend of March only 1 per cent ofLondoners could be seen carryinggas masks.

The war the British waged in1939 was very different from theone they had expected to fight.

Chamberlain’s government pouredmillions of pounds into air powerbetween 1937 and 1939 in order toprovide a defensive shield againstthe knock-out blow, a defencemade possible thanks to the fastmonoplane fighter and theinvention of radar. Millions morewent into the expansion of BomberCommand as a deterrent againstair attack. Plans were drawn up tobomb the enemy if he would not bedeterred. The civilian populationwas drilled in air-raid precautionsso as to reduce the colossalcasualties predicted from all-out airwar. Much of the top-level thinking

on future war presupposed thatsomething like the Battle of Britainmight well occur in its very earlystages, perhaps without adeclaration of war at all.

In Germany the air force took aless extravagant view of air power.There the emphasis lay oncombined operations with the armyin order to impose a decisive defeaton enemy armed forces. This wasand always had been a centralprinciple of German war-making.German air leaders certainlypossessed by 1939 the technicalmeans to create an operationallyindependent air force for long-

range attacks on industrial sectorsor civilian morale. It was not moralscruple that held them back. Theysimply did not believe that thesewere strategically desirable targets.Neither promised immediate resultsgiven the nature of current airtechnology; neither wouldnecessarily bring the enemy armedforces any closer to defeat. Themanual for ‘The Conduct of AirWarfare’ first drawn up in 1936,and revised in March 1940,directed German air fleets to seekout the enemy air and groundforces and inflict upon themdebilitating blows. Joint

manoeuvres carried out with thearmy from 1935 onwards showedwhat could be achieved whenarmies and air forces foughttogether. The proof was supplied inthe swift demolition of Polishresistance in September 1939.When planning began for the nextcampaign against Britain andFrance, it was based on the sameformula of fast, hard-hitting airand armoured forces, designed towin a swift battle of annihilation.What were defined as ‘terrorattacks’ against civilian targets farfrom the scene of battle were to bepermitted only in retaliation for

terror attacks by the enemy.3

The British were largelyunprepared for this kind ofwarfare. Until February 1939,when Chamberlain publiclypledged British military support forFrance, Britain did not even have aContinental ally to consider. Britishstrategy in the 1930s was insular.The government’s first priority wasthe protection of the Britishimperial heartland, even if thismeant starving the global empireof adequate resources for itsdefence. Hence the decision, takenwhen British rearmament began inearnest in 1936, to allocate the

lion’s share of resources to theRoyal Air Force and the RoyalNavy. Britain’s offensive capabilityremained dangerouslyunderdeveloped. Even by 1939only two fully equipped divisionswere available immediately to fightin Europe; Bomber Command, themuch-vaunted striking arm of theRAF, had fewer than 500 aircraftwhen war broke out, incapable ofreaching very far into Germanterritory. British preparations hadbeen based on the narrow objectiveof avoiding defeat and conquest.This was scarcely the state of mindnecessary to conduct a major land

campaign in Europe.The fundamental ambiguity at

the heart of British militarypreparations explains the flawedresponse to the demands ofcoalition warfare. There was littlethe British could do to help Poland.Assistance to France wascompromised by the small scale ofthe army Britain sent, and by anunwillingness to commit to theland campaign aircraft that hadbeen assigned to Britain’s owndefence. The aircraft that were sentout to make up the BritishAdvanced Air Striking Force (anorganization only a little larger

than the Polish Air Force, whichGerman aviators had snuffed out ina few days) were renderedineffective by the poor state ofAllied communications and theFrench insistence that aircraft fighta short-range, army co-operationrole to which the RAF had givenalmost no serious thought.

When the attack on France cameon 10 May 1940, these deficiencieswere soon exposed. There wasoften a lapse of four or five hoursbetween sighting a fleetingbattlefield target and the despatchof instructions for aircraft to attackit. British bombers in France (most

of them light Battle and Blenheimaircraft, which were utterlyoutclassed in daylight combat) hadto wait for orders to be routed fromFrance, through Bomber Commandheadquarters near London, andback again to France.4 Co-operation with the army wasrudimentary. While 380 dive-bombers gave close air support toadvancing German troops, oftenreacting within minutes of aradioed request, the RAF managedbetween September 1939 andMarch 1940 to train a mere sevenpilots in dive-bombing techniques,who between them dropped just 56

bombs in practice. When theFrench asked the RAF what BomberCommand could do to interrupt theremorseless progress of Germanforces, they were told that the mostthey could expect was thetemporary disruption of threerailway lines.5

The only serious contributionmade by the RAF came with thedeployment of squadrons ofHurricane fighters, which had beenintended for Britain’s own defence.As the battle in France deepenedduring May 1940, more and moreHurricanes had to be sent inpiecemeal to stem the haemorrhage

of Allied air power. Without thehome advantages of preparedbases and radar warning, fighterlosses were high. In May and June,477 fighters were destroyed and284 pilots killed, rates of loss notfar short of those later in thesummer. So severe was the drainon home defence that thecommander-in-chief of FighterCommand, Sir Hugh Dowding, tookthe unprecedented step of talkingdirectly to the War Cabinet on 15May to plead for restraint. ‘I sawmy resources slipping away,’ helater wrote, ‘like sand in anhourglass.’6 The politicians only

half responded to his argument.Churchill insisted on sendingfurther Hurricanes, but the Frenchgot none of the coveted high-performance Spitfires. Only whenBritish forces were pinned back onDunkirk and faced withannihilation in the last week ofMay did the RAF get drawn intothe battle in strength. Flying frombases in southern Britain, at thelimit of their range, theyestablished brief periods of airsuperiority over the beaches, andinflicted 132 aircraft losses on theGerman Air Force in three days offighting. Spitfires were used in this

later phase of the battle in France,but 155 of them were lost, 65 ofthem in accidents as aircrew triedto master the new equipment. TheDunkirk evacuation was thestarting point of almost a year ofcontinuous air combat for thedefence of Britain.7

The contest that Britain facedafter Dunkirk was the war Britainhad expected. It was in effect to bea ‘Chamberlain war’, for this wasthe kind of defensive conflict hehad anticipated and prepared forin the 1930s. But it was not acampaign that Chamberlain wasdestined to lead. His government

had fallen on 10 May, followingwidespread criticism of its spiritlessand ineffectual leadership. On theday that German forces invadedFrance and the Low Countries, hewas succeeded by WinstonChurchill. Here was a man whoseinstincts were flamboyantlybellicose. He relished the conflict inFrance (Churchill ‘likes war’ LloydGeorge once remarked, notaltogether charitably). He wasshocked at the defeat of France,and promised French leaders thathe would ‘fight on for ever andever and ever’. It was Churchillwho on 18 June 1940 memorably

defined the coming contest whenhe told the House of Commons that‘the Battle of France is over. Iexpect the battle of Britain is aboutto begin.’8

If this speech inspired many, italienated others. Churchill was notthe conductor of a well-drilledorchestra playing in defiantunison. Defeat in Europe in Mayleft British strategy in tatters.Under such dangerouscircumstances it is perhapsunsurprising that arguments shouldsurface for a compromise peacewith Hitler. The critical turning-point came at the end of May.

Prompted by feelers from theItalian ambassador in London, theForeign Secretary, Lord Halifax,asked the Cabinet to consider thepossibility that Britain might haveto seek a peace. Halifax wasrepelled by Churchill’s rhetoricalstyle and his Boy’s Own zest forfighting to the death. After Cabineton 27 May he complained that theprime minister ‘talked the mostdreadful rot’, and persisted in hiseffort to base British policy onwhat he termed ‘common sense andnot bravado’.9 A tense meeting on28 May left Halifax isolated.Churchill had no intention of

ending his brief wartimepremiership sullied by surrender.The government remainedcommitted to the fight. Thoughappeasement might have seemedirresistible at such a moment,Chamberlain supported Churchill, afactor overlooked by the manylater critics. This was of profoundimportance, for it brought to hisside the bulk of the ConservativeParty – many of whom distrustedChurchill as a renegade and acharlatan – together with theLiberal and Labour ranks inParliament upon whose supportChurchill’s choice as prime minister

had rested. Churchill could nowfight Chamberlain’s war.

That same day, 28 May,Churchill was asked to approvepre-invasion preparations to shipBritain’s national treasures andgold to safe keeping abroad,including the Coronation Chair. Hescribbled on the letter: ‘I believe weshall make them rue the day theytry to invade our island. No suchdiscussion can be permitted.’10 Thepublic mood was in the main withChurchill. A Home Intelligencereport on 28 May revealed apopular conviction that ‘we shallpull through in the end’; three days

later the people were reportedlymore bullish, displaying a ‘generalcalmness’ and a ‘new feeling ofdetermination’.11 But the decisiontaken in late May to fight on didnot still all appetite for peace. Ascattered population of defeatists,‘realists’ and fellow-travellersendorsed the idea of exploring theprospects for peace with Hitler.They included Basil Liddell Hart,the military strategist; ‘RAB’ Butlerat the Foreign Office; the pacifistsocialist Charles Roden Buxton; andan unlikely coupling of Britishfascists and communists,temporarily bound together by the

German-Soviet Pact of August1939. The peace party’s mostpowerful spokesman was DavidLloyd George, Britain’s outstandingwar leader in 1916–18. His interestin peace stemmed from aninexplicably myopic respect forHitler (he once described him as‘the George Washington ofGermany’, and in autumn 1940numbered Hitler ‘among thegreatest leaders of men in history’).Around thirty MPs joined in urgingLloyd George to campaign forpeace in June 1940. Churchillthought about inviting him to jointhe Cabinet, but was encouraged

by colleagues to think again. LloydGeorge did not want to joinanyway. He preferred to wait ‘untilWinston is bust’, and waited invain.12

A great deal has been made ofthe so-called ‘peace party’, but itshistorical significance has beenvastly inflated. Even Churchill wasforced by circumstances to admitthe possibility of defeat, though notsurrender. Halifax was never infavour of peace at any price,certainly not at a price that wouldcompromise British sovereignty inany substantial way, and he sooncame round to accept that

continued belligerency was theonly honourable course. The otherappeasers were marginalized orignored. There was still muchevidence of the British stiff upper-lip. When the Chiefs of StaffCommittee discussed theinstructions to be issued to the civilpopulation to prepare for invasion,it was decided that they should beasked to behave ‘cheerfully andbravely’. Women, the chiefs of staffdeclared, were of ‘best service’keeping ‘their own home runningfor their own menfolk’.13 On 30May Churchill was shown a minutecirculated to officials at the Foreign

Office by the Permanent Secretary,Sir Alexander Cadogan, askingthem not to reveal a glimmer of theappalling news from France: ‘Wemay in our own minds face veryunpleasant truths and possibilities,but we have no right to let ourfriends or acquaintances assumefrom a chance word or an attitudeof depression the anxiety we mayfeel.’ At the foot Churchill addedthe single word ‘Good’.14

None the less, the decision tofight on brought weeks offearfulness and uncertainty.Popular opinion fluctuated with thefinal crisis in France, but on 17

June, when news came of Frenchsurrender, Home Intelligence foundonly a mood of ‘gloomyapprehension’, more prominentamong ‘the middle classes and thewomen’.15 There were mutteringspicked up by Home Intelligenceagents, stationed surreptitiously inbars and cafés, that a Hitler victorymight not be such a bad thing.‘Many workers say about Hitler,’ran a report in mid-June, ‘ “Hewon’t hurt us: it’s the bosses he’safter: we’ll probably be better offwhen he comes.”’ Later reportssuggested that the lower middleclasses were also vulnerable: ‘The

whiter the collar, the less theassurance.’ But in general, moralereports showed a strengtheningresolve across the weeks before theair battles began. While only 50per cent of respondents in oneopinion poll regarded fightingalone with confidence, 75 per centof those asked wanted war tocontinue (84 per cent of men, butonly 65 per cent of women).16

In the prevailing atmospherethere were daily scares aboutinvasion or sabotage or espionage.These fears began right at the top.At the end of May the War Office,responding to intelligence

information, began to prepare fora possible German invasion ofIreland. Thanks to the existence ofthe IRA, described by the JointIntelligence Committee as ‘a veryformidable body of revolutionists’,whose members were ‘violentlyanti-British and many of them pro-German’, Ireland was regarded asprime fifth column territory. Thethree services were warned toexpect ‘a German descent uponEire, in conjunction withsubservient members of the IRA’.Though the War Cabinet took thesensible view that southernEngland remained the key danger-

spot, the possibility of diversionaryaction in Ireland, Scotland orWales, where it was felt that theGermans could exploit local ethnicgrievances along ‘Sudeten’ lines,remained very much alive.17

There were also fears ofsubversion closer to home. The AirMinistry observed in its ‘Plans forInvasion’ in June that the 77,000aliens living in Britain constituteda standing threat and should all be‘deported to the other side of theAtlantic’. The Ministry wantedfurther evacuation from the citiesstopped in order to prevent foreignspies from infiltrating the displaced

populations.18 So anxious did theMinistry of Information becomethat in July 1940 a ‘Silent Column’campaign was launched under thedirection of the art historianKenneth Clark, which aimed atstamping out gossip and rumour.Like most campaigns mounted bythe Ministry that year, it proved tobe a disaster. Within days therewas widespread public hostility toefforts to stifle discussion, andoutrage at the few prosecutions.The popular view was that peopleought to be able to policethemselves. Two weeks after itslaunch, the ‘Silent Column’ was

abandoned. Official uneasepersisted, however. As late asJanuary 1941 the PolicyCommittee of the InformationMinistry still bemoaned ‘thedangers of the attitude liable to beaccepted by the very poor or thevery rich that a German victorywould not make very muchdifference’.19

Such fears may seem quiteunrealistic more than half acentury later. Yet they reflect theevident reality that Britain was acountry divided by geography andsocial class, riven by popularprejudices and a complex structure

of snobbery. The British public didnot speak with one voice; Britishsociety adjusted in a variety ofways to the prospect of fightingalone (this is perhaps the mostenduring myth, sustained in simpledisregard of the vital andsubstantial support of Canada,South Africa, Australia, NewZealand, India and the colonialempire). If Hitler had won in 1940,it is unrealistic to suppose thatGermany would not haveconfronted in Britain the sameunstable mix of activecollaborators, silent bystanders andhostile partisans that characterized

the populations of all the otherstates she occupied. Nevertheless,the predominant instinct in thesummer of 1940 was to accept,hesitantly perhaps, fearfullycertainly, that invasion mighthappen and that the British peopleshould obstruct it. This was thespirit observed by the Americanreporter Virginia Cowles, whowatched with mounting incredulitythe moral revival of the populationafter the shock of Dunkirk andFrench defeat: ‘For the first time Iunderstood what the maxim meant:“England never knows when she isbeaten”… I was more than

impressed. I was flabbergasted. Inot only understood the maxim; Iunderstood why Britain never hadbeen beaten.’20

This was an attitude littleappreciated in Berlin. The victoryover France transformed thepossibilities confronting Hitler, butbecause victory was so muchswifter and more complete than theGerman side expected, littlethought had been given to whatmight happen next. Germanleaders believed that Britain hadbeen an unwilling belligerent inSeptember 1939. With Francedefeated, there no longer appeared

any reason for Britain to remain atwar. A political settlement seemedlikely. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’sMinister of Propaganda, told hisstaff on 23 June that the Churchillgovernment was doomed: ‘Acompromise government will beformed. We are very close to theend of the war.’21 The Germanarmy chief of staff, General FranzHalder, recorded in his war diaryin July that Hitler favoured‘political and diplomaticprocedures’ to bring Britain to asettlement. The alternative ofcrossing the Channel Hitlerregarded (rightly) as ‘Very

hazardous’. ‘Invasion is to beundertaken,’ Halder wrote, ‘only ifno other way is left to bring termsto Britain.’ In his opinion Britainwas in a hopeless position: ‘Thewar is won by us. A reversal in theprospects of success isimpossible.’22

In the heady days following thedefeat of France such confidencewas understandable. Yet all theindications showed that the warwas far from over as far as theBritish government wereconcerned. It has often beenassumed that Hitler himself tookthe initiative in finally proposing

invasion as a solution, but it wasthe German Navy commander-in-chief, Admiral Erich Raeder, whofirst raised the issue in conferenceswith Hitler on 21 May and againon 20 June. The navy had beenpreparing contingency plans sinceNovember 1939, and though navalleaders doubted the feasibility ofinvasion, they were keen to givethe navy a role in the aftermath ofvictory over France, in which theyhad played a lesser part. However,Raeder’s main preference was for ajoint air-naval blockade of Britain,which seemed to him to offerprospects for a quick end to the

war without an invasion at all. Notwanting to be outbid by the navy,the German army began its ownstudy of the possibility of invasionin late June, in case Hitler shouldcall for plans at short notice.23

Exactly when, or why, Hitlerdecided to take up the navy’ssuggestion may never be knownwith certainty, but on 2 July hedecided to order the armed forcesto undertake exploratory planning,and on 7 July issued a directive tothat end for ‘the War againstEngland’ (German leaders almostnever talked of Great Britain, orthe wider Empire). This was not

yet an operational order, not evena plan. The directive authorized theservices to complete the necessaryinvestigations and preparationsthat would make a plan possible,and they proceeded to do so withmixed enthusiasm. Hitler’s decisionto explore a military solutionprobably owed something to theinfectious Anglophobia of hisForeign Minister, Joachim vonRibbentrop, a man whoseinsufferable pomposity repelledeven his own colleagues and hadmade him a laughing stock whenhe came to London as ambassadorin 1936. Ribbentrop was keener

than anyone in Hitler’s circle toconcentrate every effort ondefeating Britain. On 1 JulyGerman Foreign Office officialswere briefed that Germany had nothoughts of peace, but only‘preparation for the destruction ofEngland’.24

This could scarcely have beenfurther from the truth. Hitler hopedfor a political settlement first andforemost. At a staff meeting shortlybefore the French capitulation,Hitler announced that as soon asFrance was finished it was planned‘to send an offer to England,whether England is prepared to

end hostilities’.25 Diplomatic trafficduring June and early Julysuggested that there was room fora political settlement. The Germanambassador in Moscow, Friedrichvon der Schulenburg, reported on 5July a conversation between theSwedish ambassador and SirStafford Cripps, recently appointedto the British embassy. Cripps, witha disarming lack of that discretionso much in demand at home,claimed that the democracies ‘werehopelessly behind the authoritarianstates, that the attack on the island[Britain] will probably succeed’. ABritish diplomat in Bern openly

discussed the need for peace talks,and dismissed Churchill as adilettante and a drunk. The heavilystaffed German embassy in Dublinengaged in feverish attempts tofind out what was happening inLondon, but could only forward toBerlin the very dubious intelligencethat the lower and middle classeswanted peace, while the upperclasses wanted war.26

Hitler was in no rush to settlewith Britain. In the absence of anyclear signals from London, hedecided to seize the initiative byannouncing publicly that the doorto a peaceful settlement was not

closed if the British were preparedto ask for one. Ribbentrop was toldon 6 July to draft a speech forHitler to deliver to the Reichstag on19 July. The draft was not what hewanted, and Hitler rewrote thespeech himself. In the interim hisattitude to Britain began to harden.On 7 July, the day he directed thearmed forces to explore thepossibility of invasion, he told theItalian Foreign Minister, CountGaleazzo Ciano, that he was nowmore inclined ‘to unleash a stormof wrath and steel upon theBritish’.27 A week later heinstructed the armed forces to

prepare an invasion to take placeat any time after 15 August. On 16July he finally published WarDirective 16 for ‘OperationSealion’, a surprise landingsomewhere on the British coastlinebetween Ramsgate and the Isle ofWight, to take place if other kindsof political and military pressurefailed. Invasion was a last resort; itwas only possible, the directivewarned, if air superiority could beestablished over southern Englandand a safe area of sea secured forthe crossing.28

Three days later Hitler deliveredhis peace offer. Goebbels’

Propaganda Ministry madeelaborate technical preparations tohave the speech broadcastworldwide. The deputies assembledin the Kroll Opera House, home tothe German parliament since thefire-raising of the Reichstagbuilding in February 1933.Overhead, German fighter aircraftflew on patrol to prevent a suddenbomb attack. Hitler spoke withoutthe usual wild oratory, andreceived none of the usual bays ofapproval and stamping of feet.Above him sat row upon row ofbemedalled soldiers. In the chairsat Hermann Goering, commander-

in-chief of the German Air Forceand Reichstag president, writingout his vote of thanks as Hitlertalked. Count Ciano sat with anItalian text of the speech, andjumped up to salute in all thewrong places. The peace offerconstituted no more than a fractionof what was in effect a celebrationof German victory. Its wording washaughty and condescending. Hitlerblamed the war on the Jews,Freemasons and armament kingswho kept the Allied peoples inthrall; he had no desire to destroythe British Empire, but would bringit down in ruins if war went on; he

appealed to British common senseto end the war, but he appealed ‘asa conqueror’.29

It was a clever speech. Thecontinuation of the war was placedentirely at the British door; Hitlerbasked in the unaccustomed role ofthe magnanimous victor. It wassincerely meant, if only in thesense that German leaders didwant Britain to sue for peace ontheir terms. Hitler made no secretof his disappointment when theBritish rejected his offer. Germanofficials and soldiers sat listeningto the British reaction on the BBCGerman service later on the

evening of 19 July. William Shirer,a young American newsman, satwith them and listened to theirhowls of disbelief: ‘ “Can youunderstand those British fools? Toturn down peace now? They’recrazy.” ’30 In London Hitler’sspeech caused scarcely a ripple.Lord Halifax gave a formalrejection over the radio on theevening of 22 July, which waswidely criticized in Britain not onlyfor the lame delivery, but for theseventeen references to God. Whenthe War Cabinet next assembled,the peace offer was not evendiscussed. The same day, 23 July,

at the daily press conference inBerlin, reporters were told by anangry official: ‘Gentlemen, therewill be war.’31

The British rejection needs littleexplanation. The decision tocontinue the fight against Germanyhad already been made someweeks before. Though it issometimes argued that Britainwould have lost less by reaching acompromise in 1940, rejection was,under the circumstances, anentirely rational decision. Nothingin Hitler’s record could give anyserious grounds for the British toexpect Hitler to honour any

pledges entered into. Thetreatment of the other conqueredpeoples was evident to the wholeworld; even unconquered, Britainwas expected by the German sideto make very substantialconcessions and to pay extensivereparation. Only days after therejection of Hitler’s offer, harshterms were finally revealed for theterritorial dismemberment ofdefeated France. At the same timea ‘New Order’ for the Europeaneconomy was announced, with aprivileged Germany at its core.British interests were, under suchcircumstances, fundamentally

incompatible with Germanhegemony across Europe.

It is more difficult to gaugeGerman intentions. Was Hitlerserious about the war againstBritain? The British public wasnever in any doubt in 1940 thatHitler wanted to invade if he could.The German records show lesscertainty. Three conferences on 21,25 and 31 July reveal strongdoubts not about the desirability,but over the operational feasibilityof invasion. The third of thesemeetings, called on 31 Julybetween Hitler and his militarychiefs, also supplies the first

evidence that Hitler was nowthinking of a large-scale campaignagainst the Soviet Union in 1941.This plan, like Operation Sealion,did not originate with Hitler. TheGerman army undertookcontingency planning at thebeginning of July for a briefoperation against the Red Armywith the limited objective ofsecuring German predominancethroughout eastern Europe, andkeeping the Soviet Union at arm’slength. During June 1940 theSoviet Union had taken advantageof Germany’s war in the west toabsorb the Baltic States and the

Romanian province of Bessarabia.This growing threat took Hitlerbeyond the idea of a mere limitedstrike; on 31 July he insteadsuggested a massive campaign toannihilate the Soviet system in oneblow. This campaign would secureGerman hegemony in the east andaccess to the vast food andmaterial resources of western Asia.Preparatory work was authorized,though a final directive for whatbecame known as ‘OperationBarbarossa’ was not issued until 18December.32

Such evidence has been used tosuggest that the war in the west

was continued only to lull Sovietsuspicions, and that invasion wasnever seriously contemplated. Thisis to distort the reality. Thecampaigns against Britain and theSoviet Union were not alternatives.Hitler was genuinely uncertainabout how to bring about either apolitical or military settlement withBritain, and kept several strings tohis bow. He was willing to seizeopportunities as they arose. Hehoped that blockade and air attackmight so reduce British resolve andundermine the capacity to fightthat invasion would be little morethan a mopping-up operation. The

preparations made for thecampaign were far too extensivefor a mere feint. If the campaigndid not work, and there was nocertainty that it would, an assaulton the Soviet Union, he told hiscommanders, would removeBritain’s last hope of continuingthe war, even with Americanassistance. Either way, the objectwas sooner or later to destroyBritish power. If the RAF could bedefeated, it might be sooner.

THE ADVERSARIES

The situation as it presents itselffor our Air Force for the decisivestruggle against Britain is asfavourable as it can be… What willhappen when the German Air Forceemploys its whole strength againstEngland? The game looks bad forEngland and her geographical andmilitary isolation. We can facewith confidence the great decisionto come!

GENERAL QUADE, FORMER COMMANDANT,

LUFTWAFFE STAFF COLLEGE, JULY 19401

The military confrontation in theautumn of 1940 became a test ofstrength between two rival airforces. The other services waited onthe outcome. Armies on both sidesof the Channel trained for thecoming battle. Navies waited tocontest the narrow seas acrosswhich German soldiers would haveto be conveyed in makeshifttransports and hastily convertedbarges. But none of this matteredas long as the German Air Forcehad not yet won mastery of the airover southern Britain. For Hitlerthis was the essential preconditionfor invasion. ‘If the effect of the air

attacks,’ he told Admiral Raeder atthe end of July, ‘is such that theenemy air force, harbours, andnaval forces, etc., are heavilydamaged, operation “Sea Lion” willbe carried out in 1940.’ IfGermany’s air force could notachieve what would now be calledthe ‘degrading’ of British air andnaval forces, Hitler proposedpostponing invasion until May1941.2

The two air forces that foughtwhat later came to be called theBattle of Britain were led andorganized in very different ways.The contrast was personified at the

very top, in the choice of airminister. This was a differencetypical of the gulf that separated apopulist, authoritarian dictatorshipfrom a parliamentary democracydominated by established elites.Germany’s air minister was theflamboyant National SocialistHermann Goering, a decoratedFirst World War fighter pilot withthe famous Richthofen Squadron.He was an ‘Old fighter’ of theParty, who had risen to becomeone of the principal politicalplaymakers of the Third Reich. Hebecame minister in 1933, and in1935 also became the German Air

Force commander-in-chief,combining both administrative andmilitary responsibilities. Thanks tohis considerable political weight,the air force was built almost fromthe ground up in only six years. Hewas a vain and ruthless man, acrude popular orator, a corrupt andambitious lieutenant whose powerexpanded during the 1930s in stepwith Germany’s massiveremilitarization. The popularimage of a baroque, drug-dependent sybarite is largelycaricature. As a commander helacked judgement, but he did notlack energy or interest. From early

August 1940 Goering assumeddirect command of the air waragainst Britain.

Britain’s air minister was SirArchibald Sinclair. He had beensecond-in-command of thebattalion that Churchill briefly ledon the Western Front in 1915–16.After the war he went on to acareer as a Liberal Member ofParliament, and by 1940 wasleader of the Liberal fraction in theCommons. He had no experience ofair power (though hisparliamentary under-secretary hadflown in the Royal Flying Corpsduring the First World War).

Churchill appointed him to his poston the day he became primeminister, which left him with lessthan three months in office beforethe onset of the battle. Sinclair wasstraight out of that rich Britishtradition of the gifted amateur. Asa result he was not regarded as aparticularly good minister, thoughby all accounts a goodparliamentary speaker, and acommitted defender of the force herepresented. His virtues, accordingto Sir Maurice Dean, who workedwith Sinclair throughout the war,were those of the British genteelestablishment: ‘thoroughly

competent, completely devoted andhighly respected… a greatgentleman’.3 Sinclair epitomizedthat British elite of dignified publicservants so much despised andridiculed in German propaganda.Goering, on the other hand, waseverything Sinclair was not.

Sinclair, unlike his oppositenumber, made no pretence atleading the Royal Air Force. TheBritish system did not include acommander-in-chief for eachdefence service. It was a systemrun by committees. The militaryside of the British air effort wasplaced under the Air Staff, whose

leader sat on the Chiefs of StaffCommittee, where all major issuesof strategy and operations weredecided. In August 1940 thisposition was held by Air ChiefMarshal Sir Cyril Newall, a careerairman nearing the end of histenure. He was not regarded as aninspirational leader. Like Sinclair’s,Newall’s is not a name that hasentered the Battle of Britainpantheon. He was none the lessone of the key architects of RAFexpansion in the critical yearsbetween 1937 and 1940, and akeen defender of air force interests.The British system required

effective committee men andmilitary managers; Newall did notcommand the battle, but he made itpossible to fight.

It was the commander-in-chief ofFighter Command, Air ChiefMarshal Sir Hugh Dowding, whogave battle to Goering. In 1940 hewas already fifty-nine years oldand at the end of his career. Theson of a Devon schoolmaster, hejoined the army in 1899 and servedin India and the Far East. A keenskier and polo-player, he taughthimself to fly and became a reserveofficer in the fledgling Royal FlyingCorps in 1914. In the First World

War he flew regularly in combat,though already a senior officer inhis mid-thirties. In 1916 he wasposted to Training Command, andhis front-line assignment given toNewall, a former officer in theGurkhas and the future chief ofstaff. Dowding became a career airofficer in the post-war RAF andwhen the service was reorganizedinto separate commands in 1936,he was appointed to lead FighterCommand. Unlike the Germansystem of air fleets, each of whichwas composed of a mixed force offighters, bombers, dive-bombers,etc., the RAF was organized

functionally, with separatecommands for fighters, bombers,coastal aircraft, reserves, trainingand, later, maintenance. The newsystem was designed to improvethe efficiency and fighting powerof the air service; in FighterCommand it produced anorganization ideal for the unifieddefence of the British Isles.

Dowding devoted himself to thetask of creating that defensiveshield, and in the process was oftenat loggerheads with the AirMinistry and the Air Staff. Hismerited reputation as a prickly andindependent-minded commander is

often used to explain the decisionto retire him in June 1939, but hehad simply come to the end of histerm of appointment. When hisdesignated successor suffered an airaccident, the Air Ministry decided,given the tense internationalsituation, to keep Dowding on untilMarch 1940. At the last moment,on 30 March, Newall wrote to himasking him to retain his office until14 July. On the very brink of theair battle, Dowding still expectedto retire. On 5 July, however, withChurchill’s backing, Newall askedDowding for the third time toremain in office a little longer,

until 31 October. Dowding huffilyconsented, but he fought the Battleof Britain with retirement hangingover his head.4

The Command that Dowding ledin July 1940 was composed of fouroperational groups. The front linein south-east England was held by11 Group, commanded by the NewZealand airman Air Vice-MarshalKeith Park, who had beenDowding’s deputy staff officer inthe 1930s. North of London was 12Group under Air Vice-MarshalTrafford Leigh-Mallory. The northof England and Scotland weredefended by 13 Group, and the

west and south-west by 10 Group,which comprised only a handful ofsquadrons. On 19 June, at the endof the campaign in France, FighterCommand had only 768 fighters inoperational squadrons, and ofthese only 520 were fit foroperations. By 9 August, shortlybefore the launch of the fullGerman air offensive, the situationhad improved significantly. Therewere now 1,032 aircraft atoperational bases, of which 715were immediately ready foroperations. There were a further424 aircraft in storage units, readyfor use the next day.5 These figures

remained more or less constantthroughout the coming battle.

One of the most enduring mythsof the Battle of Britain is the ideaof the few against the many. Theofficial battle narrative producedby the Air Ministry talked of theunequalled achievement of ‘a forceso small, facing one so large’.6 Yeton 10 August 1940, the Germansingle-engined fighter forcesassigned to the battle over Britainhad an operational establishmentof 1,011, slightly fewer thanFighter Command. They enjoyed amarginally better serviceabilityrecord, with 805 fighters

immediately ready for operations.It is, of course, true that FighterCommand was spread acrossBritain, while the German fighterforce concentrated attacks on thesouth. It is true, too, that FighterCommand also faced enemybombers, dive-bombers and heavytwin-engined fighters deployed inthe battle, but apart from theheavy fighters, which proved to beoutmatched in combat, the bombersand dive-bombers were not a majorthreat to fighter aircraft, whose jobit was to shoot them down whiletrying to avoid enemy fightersthemselves. Air superiority for the

German side meant defeating theenemy fighter force, as it did laterfor the Anglo-American air forcesin their bombing offensive overGermany. During the course of thebattle, Fighter Command was oftenoutnumbered in the many smallerengagements, but its aggregatenumbers were maintained despitehigh losses. The German Air Force,however, suffered heavy attritionof its fighter units; by 7 Septemberthere were only 533 serviceablesingle-engined fighters. On 1October the number felltemporarily to 275. Early in thebattle there was a rough parity in

fighter numbers; in the last weeksFighter Command had the edge.

The key to this success wasaircraft production. During 1940the numbers of fighter aircraftinitially planned for productionwere substantially exceeded. TheHarrogate Programme published inJanuary 1940 designated theoutput of 3,602 fighters during1940. Actual production reached4,283 over the year, and rose verysubstantially from June onwardsthroughout the months of the airconflict. In May Churchillappointed his old friend LordBeaverbrook, the owner of Express

newspapers, as Minister of AircraftProduction in the hope that hisenergy and experience might speedup aircraft deliveries for thecoming battle. Though he harriedand bullied the manufacturers, itwas not his urgent activity alonethat produced the finished aircraft.The large-scale output of aircraftwas possible only after aconsiderable period of gestationand could not be conjured out ofthin air. The expansion of output inthe summer of 1940 was the fruitof earlier preparation underNewall’s stewardship.

Nevertheless, real anxieties

existed about the supply of aircraft.Throughout the battle, equipmenthad to be sent overseas to meet thedemands of the war against Italy inNorth Africa. It is easy to forgetthat the RAF was forced to fight ontwo fronts in the summer of 1940,following Italy’s declaration of waron 10 June. Between July andOctober 161 fighters were sent tothe Middle East, including 72Hurricanes.7 It was hoped that thisoutflow might be compensated by aswelling stream of aircraft fromNorth America, where Britainplaced orders for 14,000aeroplanes. The results were

disappointing. During the periodbetween July and the end ofOctober some 509 aircraft wereimported, half of them from lateSeptember when the air battle wasnearly over. This figure includedonly 29 Hurricanes produced underlicence in Canada, and a mixture oftrainer and light bomber aircraft;there were no other fighters for thebattle.8 In May, the fiercely anti-communist Lord Beaverbrooksuggested the unusual step ofbuying fighters from the SovietUnion. Cripps, the Britishambassador in Moscow, thoughtthe prospects ‘improbable’. The Air

Staff, with little enthusiasm, agreedthat the I 16 fighter might be‘usable’, at least in the Middle Easttheatre. The Chinese ambassador inLondon volunteered the services ofhis country as a go-between in thetrade, but when Cripps finallyapproached the Soviet side in June,he was told to wait until Anglo-Soviet trade was on a sounderfooting.9

Britain was forced to fight withwhat she could produce herself in1940. The aircraft available for thebattle were among the very bestfighter aircraft in the world. Thereis no myth surrounding the

performance of the HawkerHurricane and the VickersSupermarine Spitfire, whichbetween them formed the backboneof Fighter Command. The otheraircraft available, the BristolBlenheim twin-engined fighter andthe Boulton-Paul Defiant, lackedthe performance necessary tocompete with German aircraft byday and were converted early inthe battle to a night-fighter role.There were never more than a fewsquadrons throughout the battle,two of Defiants and six ofBlenheims. Bristol Beaufightersbegan to appear late in the battle

as night-fighters.The great bulk of Fighter

Command was composed ofHurricanes. The almost completeidentification of the Spitfire withthe Battle of Britain has come toobscure the true balance of powerbetween the two models. Spitfiresonly became available in quantityin the late spring of 1940. Spitfireproduction lagged substantiallybehind Hurricane output until early1941. (See Table 1 p. 145.)Hurricanes provided 65 per cent ofthe combined output of the twomodels, Spitfires 35 per cent. Inearly August, Hurricanes supplied

55 per cent of operational fighteraircraft, Spitfires only 31 per cent,and 11 Group throughout the battlehad twice as many Hurricanesquadrons as Spitfire.10 The mosttelling statistic is the loss ratio.From early May to the end ofOctober 1940, Spitfires accountedfor almost 40 per cent of combinedlosses, while constituting only one-third of the force. Spitfires wereshot down faster than Hurricanes.11

Both aircraft were at the cuttingedge of fighter technology. TheSpitfire Mark IA carried anarmament of eight .303 machine-guns, the Mark IB (used

experimentally in August 1940)had four .303 machine-guns andtwo 20 mm cannon. The Mark II,which began to arrive in June1940, had a higher rate of climband higher service ceiling, but wasslightly slower – 354 mph against362 mph at 18,000 feet. TheHurricane was a slower aircraft,but sturdier. The Hurricane Mark Ihad armament of eight .303machine-guns, and had a maximumspeed of 325 mph, and an averageof 305 mph. The Mark IIA had amaximum speed of 342 mph, andwas delivered in small numbersfrom August 1940. Both marks had

a ceiling of 34–35,000 feet.There was room for

improvement on both designs. TheHurricane had a number ofdrawbacks, but the most seriouswas the failure to supply a self-sealing fuel tank in the fuselage.The tank, positioned close to thepilot, was easily ignited and wasthe cause of serious burns for anypilots lucky enough to survive theexperience. The pilot canopy wasalso difficult to dislodge beforebaling out, and was later modified.Dowding urged Hawker from earlyin 1940 to seal the fuselage tankswith ‘Linatex’, but not until the

battle was the modification slowlycarried out. During the battle bothSpitfires and Hurricanes had theirless-effective two-pitch propellersreplaced with constant-speedpropellers, which improved generalhandling qualities and gave theman extra 7,000 feet of ceiling. Amore serious problem was thesupply of effective armament.Although the eight-gun fighter wasregarded as an advance on Germanmodels, the .303 armament couldnot penetrate the armour installedin German fighters and bombers.Mixed armament was supplied forthe eight guns in the hope that a

mixture of armour-piercing andincendiary bullets would hitsomething vulnerable. But in hisdespatch on the battle, Dowdingconcluded that with betterarmament higher casualties couldhave been inflicted on the enemy.12

The supply of trained fighterpilots promised to be a much moredamaging constraint on FighterCommand operations than thesupply of aircraft. Yet thisdeficiency can be wildlyexaggerated. The number of fighterpilots available for operationsincreased by one-third betweenJune and August 1940. The

personnel records show an almostconstant supply of around 1,400pilots during the crucial weeks ofthe battle, and over 1,500 in thesecond half of September. Theshortfall of pilots was seldomabove 10 per cent of the force. TheGerman single-seater fighter force,on the other hand, had between1,100 and 1,200 pilots, witharound 800–900 available foroperations, a deficiency of up toone-third. The German fighter forcewas able to cope with this shortageonly because it enjoyed a lowerrate of loss than FighterCommand.13 If Fighter Command

were the ‘few’, German fighterpilots were fewer.

Little of this was appreciated atthe time on the British side. AirIntelligence estimated that theGerman Air Force had around16,000 pilots in the spring of 1940,with at least 7,300 in operationalunits.14 There was a flurry ofactivity to try to raise pilot outputto match these numbers. Thetraining system was overhauled inthe summer of 1940 with theaddition of three operationaltraining units capable of supplying115 pilots instead of 39 every twoweeks. This did not satisfy

Churchill, who badgered the AirMinistry all summer with unhelpfulsuggestions for getting men intothe cockpit. When he discoveredthat 1,600 qualified pilots wereassigned to staff duties and afurther 2,000 to training, hedemanded an urgent inquiry,despite Sinclair’s assurance thatmost of the men were over-age orunder-trained. More was expectedof the many foreign airmen whomade their way to Britain during1940. By June they included some1,500 Poles, who were undergoingtraining near Blackpool. Churchillwas determined ‘to make the most

of the Poles’, and in early July theWar Cabinet authorized thecreation of two all-Polishsquadrons for Fighter Command.15

By August there was also aCanadian and a Czech squadron,but the rest of the Command hadits share of American, Irish,Commonwealth and Europeanvolunteers. Two of the four Groupcommanders were non-British: Parkwas a New Zealander and Brand,commander of 10 Group, was SouthAfrican.

Where there were obviousdeficiencies was in the supply ofnon-combat personnel needed to

make the whole Commandorganization work efficiently.There were shortages of manpowerof all kinds at the air stations:fitters (grades I and II), armourers,instrument mechanics,maintenance and constructionworkers. There were shortages ofsignals personnel, which was a realdrawback for a force that relied oncommunication. It was discoveredin the summer that because oflosses in France there was adangerous shortage of tankerlorries for refuelling aircraft.Churchill’s response to this newswas simply to exhort the ground

crews to work faster: ‘the turn-around of aircraft in units shouldbe a drill comparable with theNavy’s gun drill at Olympia’.16

Technical problems like thesemay seem trivial when set againstthe sombre prospect of invasion,but they were the necessarycomponents of a complex system of‘command and control’ which gaveFighter Command a real strikingpower and operational flexibility.The heart of the system lay atCommand headquarters at BentleyPriory in Stanmore, on theoutskirts of London. It was here, inthe Filter Room, that information

on incoming aircraft was relayedby landline from all the radarstations around the coast. The plotswere laid out on a large map table,and once the aircraft track wasclearly established, thisinformation was relayed in turn tothe Group Headquarters and theindividual Sector Stations(airfields). Additional intelligencewas supplied by the ObserverCorps whose members plottedenemy aircraft visually once theyhad crossed the coast. Thisinformation went first to anObserver Corps Centre, and thenstraight to Sector Stations and

Group Headquarters. Groupcommanders then had to decidewhich of their sectors to activate,while Sector Station commanderswere responsible for decidingwhich of their squadrons should flyon a particular operation. Onceairborne, aircraft were controlledby Radio-Telephony Direction-Finding (R/T-D/F). The wholeprocess was supposed to takeminutes only. Without speed andclear instructions the system waspointless.17

The entire structure ofcommunication was dependent onearly warning and continuous

observation. The heart of thesystem was the Radio DirectionFinding (RDF) apparatus, betterknown by the acronym RADAR(Radio Detection and Ranging).The technology was first developedin 1935 when it was demonstratedthat aircraft reflected back toground short-wave radio pulses,which could be captured on acathode ray tube. By 1939 therewere 21 so-called Chain Homeradar stations circling Britain’scoastline, theoretically capable ofdetecting the height and range ofapproaching aircraft up to 200miles distant. Average range was

only 80 miles, but adequate for theGerman air threat across theChannel. The radar stations couldnot detect aircraft flying below1,000 feet, and a second system ofChain Home Low stations wasestablished after the outbreak ofwar to detect low-flying aircraftand coastal shipping. Thesestations had a range of only 30miles and could not predict height,though that mattered less at suchlow altitudes.

Radar could not yet work inland.It had to be supplemented by theObserver Corps, formally foundedin 1929, and commanded in 1940

by Air Commodore A. D.Warrington-Morris. It was staffedby volunteers across the countrywho largely trained themselves inaircraft recognition and methods ofheight estimation. On the outbreakof war there were 30,000 observersand 1,000 observation posts, eacharmed with a grid map, a heightestimator, telephone, coloured mapmarkers and the means to maketea. Posts were mannedcontinuously; the system workedwell in fine weather, but wasdefeated by low cloud cover andrain. Height estimation wasdifficult and often inaccurate.

Group headquarters found thatnumerous Observer Corps plotscluttered up the map tables with asurfeit of less reliableinformation.18

Radar, too, was by no meansinfallible. Height readings could bethousands of feet out; the time-lagwas at times too long betweensighting enemy aircraft andscrambling fighters to meet them(it took a minimum of four minutesfor the squadrons to receive radarwarning, but only six minutes forenemy aircraft to cross theChannel); radar equipment wascontinuously upgraded, which left

some stations inoperable for briefperiods while new technology wasinstalled. By the time of the battle,secret intelligence was beingsupplied from decrypts of GermanAir Force ‘Enigma’ traffic, butalthough this was useful in buildingup a clearer picture of the Germanorder of battle, it was less useful ingiving information quickly enoughon the scale and destination ofmajor raids. This was not the casewith low-level radio interception,whose role has generally beenneglected. The RAF wirelessinterception station at Cheadletook advantage of the slack radio

discipline displayed by Germanaircrew to supply a regular diet ofaccurate reports on range,destination and origin of aircraftwhich was relayed directly toCommand headquarters as well asGroup and Sector commanders. Thenet effect of all these differentsources of intelligence was tocreate a web of information thatgave Fighter Command anessential counter to the element ofsurprise enjoyed by an enemy whocould pick and choose when andwhere to attack.19

Fighter defence wassupplemented by a network of

anti-aircraft guns and barrageballoons. Anti-Aircraft Commandwas established only in April 1939.Headed by Lieutenant-General SirFrederick Pile, it was integratedwith Fighter Command to providea unitary defence network. A crashproduction programme for anti-aircraft artillery was pushedthrough, but could not make up forsevere deficiencies. By June 1940there were 1,204 heavy and 581light anti-aircraft guns to cover theentire country, far short of theplanned 2,232 heavy and 1,860light guns. The batteries wereactivated, like the fighter stations,

from Fighter Commandheadquarters. The country wasdivided into 130 warning districts,based on the layout of the nationaltelephone system. Three telephoneoperators at headquarters kept incontinuous contact with trunk-exchanges in London, Liverpooland Glasgow. When enemy aircraftwere 20 miles distant, a ‘yellow’warning was sent to theendangered districts to placeemergency services on alert. Fiveminutes later a ‘red’ alert wouldfollow and air-raid sirens wouldstart up, followed shortly by theanti-aircraft barrage. ‘Green’

indicated that the aircraft hadpassed and signalled the all-clear.It was a system that worked almosttoo well. During the summer of1940 whole areas of the countrywere sent scurrying into air-raidshelters at the distant approach ofa handful of aircraft. Thedisruption to normal work-timebrought the government to thepoint of abandoning air-raidwarning altogether. In June 1940the Minister of Information, DuffCooper, suggested that peopleshould accustom themselves ‘toreceiving no warnings when only afew aircraft were in the

neighbourhood, even if theseaircraft dropped bombs’, but theCabinet sensibly opted to retainsome element of warning.20

The air defence system was setup to counter an enemy bombingoffensive and to ameliorate itseffects on the bombed population.In the summer of 1940 it had to beadjusted to the threat of invasion.The two operations were by nomeans the same. Invasionpresented Fighter Command with arange of new responsibilities,including close collaboration withBomber Command, whose aircrafthad to be protected as they

pounded the invasion beaches.Provisional plans were consideredas early as October 1939 when itwas agreed to supply the armywith two squadrons of Blenheimsand one army co-operationsquadron to repel an invasionforce. The assumption underlyingthis feeble gesture was that noinvasion could be attempted untilFighter Command had beenneutralized, and that the real battlewould be fought in the skies oversouthern England long beforeinvasion could be undertaken.21

By the summer of 1940 invasionwas a much more realistic threat.

Fighter Command was instructedby the commander-in-chief ofHome Forces, General Sir AlanBrooke, to prevent the German AirForce from achieving airsuperiority and to protect airfieldsand other vital military targets. Atthe same time fighters wereexpected to attack, in order ofpriority, enemy transport aircraftbringing in men and supplies,enemy dive-bombers, high-flyingreconnaissance aircraft and enemyfighters attacking RAF bombersover the invasion area. This dizzylist was enlarged in late summer byadditional requirements to protect

naval vessels and bases and toattack enemy barges and seatransports with cannon-armedfighters. Bomber Command,meanwhile, was asked to attackports of embarkation by night.During invasion, bombers wereneeded immediately over theinvasion beaches, where it washoped invasion could be nipped inthe bud in no more than forty-eighthours of ‘utmost physical andmental effort’.22

Much thought was given tosubterfuge. In the October directiveit had been assumed that Germanymight try to seize airfields using

small units of tough airbornetroops.23 German success incapturing the fortress of Liège inMay 1940 gave real substance tothe fear, and priority was given tostrengthening airfield defence. Theresults were often lamentable. Twoseparate inspections wereundertaken by army commanders.They found some anti-aircraft gunsplaced on the roofs of vulnerablebuildings, others scarcelyconcealed, and many incapable ofeither seeing or engaging low-flying aircraft. Many stations hadneither barbed wire nor pill-boxes.It had been decided that RAF

ground personnel should not bearmed, so that airfields had to relyon local army units, which wouldbe expected to arrive only after adelay of one to two hours, and inforce in only four hours. In August,RAF airfield staff were given armsagain, but were not yet properlytrained in their use.24 Reportsshowed that when enemy aircraftoccasionally landed on Britishairfields, they were able to take offagain unmolested.

There were also fears thatGerman forces would use poisongas to achieve swift mastery of keyfront-line airfields. To this threat

the only answer was deemed to beretaliation in kind. The AirMinistry sent stores of gas bombs(chiefly mustard gas) to airfields,where they were prepared readyfor use at three hours’ notice. TheAir Staff preferred the idea of usinggas against soldiers on the invasionbeaches to be sure of containingthe threat at once, but Churchilland the chiefs of staff instructedthe Air Ministry in late Septemberto plan for gas attacks on theGerman civilian population in casegas was used by the Germans in theearly stages of invasion.25 Gasattacks were also considered in the

special case of a German surpriseattack on Ireland, a fantasy thatstill lived on in Whitehall circlesthroughout the summer andautumn of 1940. In late June theAir Staff directed the small air forcestationed in Northern Ireland toprepare for an attack on Germantroops ‘and I.R.A. irregulars co-operating with them’. Bomberaircraft were to fly from themainland bringing either gas orhigh-explosive bombs. All air crewwere asked to exercise ‘particulardiscretion’ when attacking targetssouth of the border ‘which maycause loss of life to Irish

civilians’.26 This prospect musthave seemed a peculiarly dauntingone for the force of 12 fighters and20 light bombers available inNorthern Ireland to repel thehitherto unstoppable Wehrmacht. Inthe end, none of these fearsmaterialized, neither the gas andairborne assault, nor the invasionof Ireland. German military leadersrecognized that the preliminary toany land operation was theelimination of the enemy air force,and made their plans accordingly.Victory over France transformedthe prospects for a successful aircampaign for it allowed the

German Air Force to fly from anypoint on the European coastlinefrom Norway to Brittany. Thecritical factor for the German sidewas the short range of theMesserschmitt Me 109 single-engined fighter. Flying fromGermany, it would have had hardlyany time for combat over southernEngland; even flying from bases innorthern France, the Me 109 couldonly reach as far as London. Whenengaged in heavy combat, whichused up fuel more rapidly, Londonwas difficult to reach. Some effortswere made to extend fighter range.A disposable drop fuel tank made

of moulded plywood wasdeveloped before the war, but itwas prone to leak and easy toignite, and was not used. In thesummer of 1940 experiments wereconducted in towing fighter aircraftfor the first part of their flight, butthis tactic was also abandoned.27

Prior to invasion, the German AirForce could only contest airsuperiority across an arc stretchedover Kent, Sussex and Surrey.

The air forces that faced FighterCommand were neverthelessstretched out around the northernEuropean littoral. Air Fleet 5 wasstationed in Norway, and could

only attack with long-rangeaircraft. Preliminary skirmishes byday in August showed that theseaircraft would take unacceptablyhigh losses both from enemy actionand the long over-sea flight, andAir Fleet 5 took no further part inthe battle. The territory covered byAir Fleet 2 stretched from northernGermany, through Belgium and theNetherlands as far as Le Havre inoccupied France. Fighter squadronswere clustered in and around thePas de Calais, close to their targets.To the west lay Air Fleet 3, whichhad a much larger complement ofbombers and dive-bombers for the

attack on coastal areas and navaltargets.

Air Fleets 2 and 3 were led bytwo middle-aged Bavarians, thecream of the new generation of airforce commanders appointed in1935 when the German Air Forcewas refounded. Air Fleet 2 was ledby Field Marshal Albert Kesselring,recently promoted for hiscontribution to the defeat ofFrance. He is best remembered forhis stubborn and occasionallybrutal defence of northern Italyagainst Anglo-American armieslater in the war, when he onceagain reverted to his original

career as an army officer. Thoughlacking air experience, he provedan able organizer, with a genuineauthority. His geniality made him apopular leader. Kesselring’s fellowcommander in charge of Air Fleet 3was Field Marshal Hugo Sperrle,who led the notorious GermanCondor Legion during the SpanishCivil War. He, too, was a careerarmy officer, with limited flyingexperience from the First WorldWar. Sperrle, like Kesselring, wasenergetic and popular, hiscorpulence a match for that of hisplump commander-in-chief. Thoughneither had the long air force

experience of Newall or Dowding,they brought with them all thequalities of organizational andoperational understanding that setthe German army apart in theearly years of the war.

The task the two commandersfaced in the summer of 1940 wasone poorly anticipated in the1930s. The German Air Force hadto adjust in short measure from therole of close army support to acampaign of independent airoperations against a well-armed airenemy. This change brought a hostof practical problems. A wholenetwork of air bases had to be

established across northern France.Some existing French air stationscould be used, but even theseneeded to be supplied with stocksof food, oil and spare parts tofunction effectively. The repairorganization, vital for maintaininghigh levels of serviceability, wasmore difficult to improvise locally,and many damaged aircraft had tomake their way by road and railback to the Reich for repairs. Inorder to cope with the newconditions, German fighter forceswere gathered into separateoperational commands, rather onthe lines of the British Group.

However, they lacked twosignificant advantages enjoyed bythe RAF: they had no way oftracking where the enemy was, andthere was no way of controlling thewhole fighter force from theground once it was airborne.28

The German Air Force alsooperated throughout the comingbattle with low levels of reserves.This was largely a consequence ofthe poor performance of Germanaircraft production. Even thoughHitler granted special priority inJune to the air and navalarmaments needed to subdueBritain, the supply of aircraft

remained sluggish throughout1940. Pre-war planning hadanticipated a doubling of aircraftproduction in the first year of warto reach more than 20,000, butthese targets were regularly scaleddown during 1939 to match factoryoutput. Plan 15, in September1939, and Plan 16, drawn up onlytwo months later, both reducedplanned production in 1940 tolittle more than 11,000. A newplan was drafted in July 1940, butit offered even lower output for thesecond half of the year. Some effortwas made to give fighterproduction greater priority, but

during 1940 only 1,870 single-engined fighters were producedagainst a planned output of2,412.29 This was less than half theBritish figure. During the summerand autumn of 1940, output of theMe 109 reached 164 in June, 220in July, 173 in August and 218 inSeptember, a grand total of 775against the 1,900 fighters producedin Britain.30

There were many causes for thedeficiency but complacency wasnot one of them. Goering pressuredand bullied the aircraft industryevery bit as much as Beaver-brook.Nor were the resources lacking. The

German aviation industry hadaccess to the most advancedaeronautical technology in theworld and enjoyed larger resourcesof machinery, raw materials andmanpower than the British. Theanswer must be sought elsewhere.The leading culprit was the head ofair force procurement, ColonelErnst Udet. If ever there was asquare peg in a round hole, it wasUdet. A former First World Warfighter ace, he became a well-known stuntman and film-star inthe 1920s, and was a notedcartoonist. He gravitated toGoering’s social circle, and was

chosen out of the blue to head theair force technical office in 1936,partly because of his popularreputation, partly because Goeringwanted a subordinate who posedno threat to his authority. Udet wasa ladies’ man and bon viveur, adaring test pilot and man of action,but he was also a politicallightweight who found himselfutterly out of his depth in a seniorbureaucratic post in which longexperience and wide technicalknowledge were irreplaceableassets. He was manipulated andmisled by the businessmen andofficials who surrounded him.

Later, in 1941, in desperation athis impossible position, hecommitted suicide, scrawling onthe wall of his apartment before hedied that Goering had betrayed himto ‘Jews’ in the Air Ministry.31 Hisplace was taken too late by FieldMarshal Erhard Milch, statesecretary in the Air Ministry and aformer director of Lufthansa, whohad been sidelined by Goering inthe late 1930s because hethreatened to be too competent.

The German Air Force was still aformidable enemy in 1940. It wasarmed with some of the bestcombat aircraft then available. The

high standard of production andthe technical complexity of Germanaircraft provide at least part of theexplanation why Udet found it sodifficult to raise the productionthreshold quickly. In theMesserschmitt Me 109 (also knownas the Bf (BayerischeFlugzeugwerke) 109) Germanypossessed arguably the world’s bestall-round fighter aircraft. The bulkof the force that fought in thebattle bore the suffixes E-1 and E-3,variants with improved engineperformance introduced during thecourse of 1939 and 1940. The Me109E-1 had a top speed of 334 mph

at 19,000 feet, and a ceiling of34,000 feet. It was armed with two20 mm cannon and two 7.9 mmmachine-guns. The cannonprovided a less rapid rate of firethan British fighter weapons, butthe explosive shells were moreeffective. In the summer, armourwas added to give the pilotenhanced protection. The Me 109Ecould be out-turned by both theHurricane and the Spitfire (thoughwhether this was due to the factthat British aircraft used higher-octane aviation fuel remains opento debate); at heights above 20,000feet, however, the performance

gap between the two sides widenedconsiderably in the Messerschmitt’sfavour. Because the Germanfighter’s DB 601 engine had ahydraulic supercharger, whichallowed variation of speed withaltitude, the Me 109 could fightmuch more robustly at highaltitudes than it could at the lowerlevels flown by German bombers. Ifthe Battle of Britain had beenfought at 30,000 feet, the RAFwould have lost it.32

The other German aircraft usedextensively in the battle were lesseffective. The second fighteremployed was the Messerschmitt

Me 110C/110D twin-engined heavyfighter. It could fly further than theMe 109, and had a comparablespeed of 336 mph at 19,000 feet,but it proved much lessmanoeuvrable than the smallerfighters, and its range was muchless than expected under combatconditions. The Me 110’s purposewas to lure enemy fighters intobattle, allowing the bombers thatfollowed them to fly on to theirtargets unmolested. In the eventthe Me 110 had itself to beprotected by the Me 109 to preventinsupportable losses. When the Me110 flew beyond single-seater

fighter range, it proved a sittingduck. The British thought that theGerman Air Force flew a thirdfighter, the Heinkel He 113, but itproved to be a figment of theimagination. The only aircraft withthis designation was a twin-seatdive-bomber developed in 1936,but the model was renumbered theHe 118 by its designer becauseHeinkel feared pilot superstition.The aircraft remained jinxed nonethe less; when Udet test-flew ithimself in June 1936, it broke up inmid-air and he narrowly escapedwith his life. The He 118 never sawservice. Its mistaken identification

in the battle has been attributed toGerman misinformation.

German bomber aircraft weregenerally no match for the RAF.The Junkers Ju 87B dive-bombersuffered the same fate as the Me110. Much slower than the heavyfighter, it was highly vulnerableduring bomb attack and waswithdrawn early in the battle. Thestandard twin-engined bombers,the Heinkel 111 and Dornier 17,were early designs and facedobsolescence by 1940. They wereslow and poorly armed for combatwith high-class fighters; theycarried a small bomb-load (around

2,000 pounds maximum), whichthey could deliver with at least alimited accuracy thanks to a systemof radio navigational beams. Thenewest German bomber, theJunkers Ju 88A-1, could fly further,had a higher speed, and in a divecould not only bomb with greateraccuracy, but could outrun aSpitfire. It was produced in smallnumbers in 1940, and themaximum bomb-load was only4,000 pounds, about one-fifth ofthe load carried later in the war bythe Avro Lancaster used in thebombing of Germany. Like allGerman bombers, its defensive

armament was weak, and even itsextra speed brought it no immunityduring daylight operations againstthe more manoeuvrable andheavily armed British fighters.

The German Air Force alsopossessed a large complement ofhighly qualified air crew, withextensive combat experience.Although the single-engined fighterforce had fewer pilots than FighterCommand, they survived longerand had a higher rate ofoperational readiness.33 Most ofthe pilots who began the air battlehad been trained well before theoutbreak of war, though night-

flying technique was neglecteduntil the summer of 1940. Theaverage age of German pilotscaptured in June and July wastwenty-six; their average length ofservice was almost five years.34

The pilots who engaged in thebattle represented the cream of theGerman Air Force. The trainingsystem in 1940 was reformed, likethe British system, to try to speedup the throughput of pilots, butstandards of training wererigorous. Even if Udet hadsucceeded in conjuring moreaircraft out of German factories,the air force would still have had

difficulty supplying the men to flythem.

The task the German Air Forcewas called on to performresembled, at least superficially,the opening days of the campaignsagainst Poland and France whenthe enemy air force was swiftlyneutralized by concentratedbomber and dive-bomber attackson airfields and support services. AGerman radio broadcast in earlyAugust explained the similarity:‘the main weapon is the bomb.German bombers will be employedwith concentrated effect and incontinuous waves. The effect

obtained by them has already beenshown in such towns as Warsaw,Rotterdam…’35 German Air Forcerecords suggest, however, that thefighter was regarded as theprincipal weapon. The object of theair campaign was to wipe outFighter Command, using thebombers as bait. ‘Whether theobjectives were convoys in theChannel,’ ran a post-warinterrogation of German airleaders, ‘or airfields inland, orLondon, the object was always thesame – to bring the defendingsquadrons to battle to weakenthem.’36

There was in truth a certainconfusion in the instructions issuedto the German Air Force in Julyand early August. On 11 July thethree air fleets were issued with anoperational directive to begin‘intensive air warfare againstEngland’, and on 17 July they wereordered to full readiness. Probingattacks began against ports andshipping on the basis ofinstructions issued earlier in May,but still current, for blockadeattacks on British imports. Yetanother directive, issued on 16 Julyfor Operation Sealion, orderedfurther preparations for invasion.

Air fleets were expected to attackcoastal defences, enemy troopconcentrations and reserves, keycommunication targets and navalinstallations. The only object theywere not yet ordered to destroywas the enemy air force, whoseelimination was supposed to be theprimary pre-condition forlaunching an invasion at all. Onlyin late July did the air forcecommanders present to Goeringtheir plans for winning airsuperiority, and not until 1 Augustdid Hitler issue a further directiverequiring the air force ‘tooverpower the English air force…

in the shortest possible time’through attacks on the whole airforce structure and its supportingindustries. Once ‘local ortemporary air superiority’ wasgained, the air force was thenexpected, without explanation, toswitch back to the blockade role ithad started with. The knock-outblow against the RAF was set tobegin on or shortly after 5August.37

This plethora of orders reflectedthe deeper uncertainties about theconduct of the war at the highestlevel. The air force was muchclearer in its own mind about the

primary objective, and confident ofachieving it. On 6 August atCarinhall, his sumptuous countryestate outside Berlin, Goering had afinal meeting with Kesselring,Sperrle and the commander of AirFleet 5, General Hans Stumpff. Theoperational plan they adopted wasstraightforward: in four daysFighter Command would bedestroyed over southern England.The plan was then to moveforward systematically sector bysector, destroying military andeconomic targets up to a line fromKing’s Lynn to Leicester, untildaylight attacks could finally be

extended at will over the whole ofthe British Isles. The initial aim wasto send over small forces ofbombers with a light escort,leaving the fighter force free tohunt out and destroy enemyfighters. The day for the start of theattack was codenamed Adlertag,day of the eagles.38

The precise date for the start ofthe campaign was more difficult tofix, since success dependedcritically on a spell of goodweather. In Berlin the popularmood worsened at the weeks ofapparent inactivity, even whenskies were clear. ‘Wonderful

weather,’ Goebbels noted acidly.‘Too good for our air force.’ Hedetected a certain nervousness inthe public: ‘The people fear that wehave missed the right moment.’ Butin Hitler he observed a realhesitancy to take ‘a damn difficultdecision’.39 The date for attack wasfinally fixed for 10 August, but badweather over southern Englandforced postponement, first to thefollowing day, then to the morningof 13 August. The tension deepenedas each day the weatherintervened. ‘People wait and waitfor the great attack,’ Goebbelsnoted for 12 August.40 The

following day the weather wasindifferent, and attacks werepostponed again until theafternoon. By chance, news of thepostponement arrived too late forhundreds of aircraft alreadyairborne. They pressed on underpoor flying conditions to launch, atonly part strength, the long-expected assault. Adlertag begannot with a bang, but with awhimper.

THE BATTLE

The strength of the British fighterdefence, on which the Germandaylight attacks and the hopes ofthe coveted mastery of the air hadcome to grief, had perhaps beenunder-rated… The enemy’s powerof resistance was stronger than themedium of attack.

OTTO BECHTLE, LECTURE IN BERLIN,

FEBRUARY 19441

Most battles have a clear shape tothem. They start on a particularday, they are fought on a

geographically defined ground,they end at a recognizablemoment, usually with the defeat ofone protagonist or the other. Noneof these things can be said of theBattle of Britain. There is littleagreement about when it started;its geographical range constantlyshifted; it ended as untidily as itbegan. Neither air force wasdefeated in any absolute sense.

Uncertainty about when thebattle started reflects the nature ofthe air war fought in 1940. Minorbomb attacks began on Britain onthe night of 5/6 June, and small-scale, spasmodic raids continued

throughout the rest of June andJuly. The intensification of the airassault in the second week ofAugust prompted the Air Ministrylater to assign 8 August as the startof what came to be called theBattle of Britain. When Dowdingwrote his ‘Despatch’ in August1941, he was reluctant to impose aneat chronology becauseoperations ‘merged into oneanother almost insensibly’. Herejected 8 August and suggested asthe starting point 10 July, the dateof the onset of heavier attacksalong the Channel coast.2 For theGerman side 13 August was

supposed to be the day the battlefor air supremacy commenced, butthe attacks on that day, thoughlarger in scale, were not regardedon the British side as a distinctivechange. Air signals intelligencesimply reported: ‘Activity has beenabove normal in the past 24hours.’3 Even allowing for Britishunderstatement, there was little todistinguish the first days of theGerman assault from the previousweeks of air attack. Air Vice-Marshal Park, whose 11 Group heldthe front line, observed a sharpchange only on 18 August, whenmajor attacks began on fighter

airfields. There may be a good casefor seeing this date as the start ofthe decisive phase of the battle, butair fighting in defence of Britainwas continuous from Juneonwards.

If there is no agreed date for thestart of the battle, its geographicallimits are also ill-defined. That thisshould be so does not just reflectthe reality of fighting in the thirddimension. German orders calledfor probing attacks across theBritish Isles against air, naval andeconomic targets. The attacks on27/8 June, to take one example,were made against widely

scattered cities and towns,including Liverpool, Newcastle,Scunthorpe, Southampton, Harwichand Farnborough.4 One factorabove all, however, created theelastic geography of the battle:throughout its course other RAFcommands, the Royal Navy and theGerman Navy engaged in offensiveoperations of their own far fromthe air battle over southernEngland. These operations wereintimately related to the battle. TheGerman Navy was engaged inblockading Britain as acontribution to the effort to reduceBritish supplies and to encourage

defeatism among the Britishpeople. The other RAF commandswere employed against the threatof invasion.

The contribution of CoastalCommand to the battle is all tooeasy to neglect. Yet the Commandwas given a difficult and costlyresponsibility. From June itmounted an anti-invasion patrol toprovide intelligence on Germanpreparations, and occasionally toengage in bomb attacks againstGerman shipping and stores.Patrols were mounted over allGerman-controlled ports twiceevery twenty-four hours; there was

continuous reconnaissance of theports from the Hook of Holland toOstend during the hours ofdarkness in case the enemylaunched a surprise cross-Channelattack under cover of night. Thecost was very high. Over a six-month period the Command lost158 aircraft and 600 men from anoperational strength in August1940 of only 470 mainly obsoleteaeroplanes.5

RAF Bomber Command wasassigned an importantcomplementary task. During the1930s it had been assumed that inthe event of all-out air war with

Germany, Bomber Command wouldhit back in kind to deter furtherGerman attacks. Not until 15 May,following the German bombingattack on Rotterdam, was theCommand given formal permissionto begin operations againstGerman territory. Its contributionwas small. Poorly armed withmedium bombers of limited range,Bomber Command found that theattack by day producedunacceptable, almost suicidal ratesof attrition. Attacks were soonswitched to night-time, and duringJune and July bombing of thenorth German coast and the Ruhr

area was carried out to try to tiedown the German Air Force andweaken its economic base. In Julythe Air Ministry developed the ideathat the Striking Force, as it wasknown conventionally, if notentirely appropriately, should weardown German resistance ‘bycarefully planned bombardments ofvital objectives’. If FighterCommand was the defensive guard,Bomber Command would supply ‘astraight left’.6

If such a view was at leastconsistent with the familiar airforce metaphor of the knock-outblow, it was utterly beyond Bomber

Command’s capacity or means in1940. The directive issued on 4July, and subsequently modified on13, 24 and 30 July, required thebomber force to attack invasiontargets in ports on the Channelcoast, but also to attack a list ofindustrial targets regarded asdecisive – aircraft production, oil,communications (power supplywas added on 30 July) – and, whenshort of other activity, to dropincendiary pellets on flammablestretches of German forest andgrainland.7 Bomber attacks on theinvasion ports, where barges andsmall vessels were concentrated,

were carried out with modestsuccess. The assault on Germanindustry, power systems andcommunications was impossible toachieve with existing technology,even if the Command hadpossessed adequate numbers ofaircraft and sufficient pilots.During early August, however,Bomber Command suffered agreater deficiency of pilots thanFighter Command, and experiencedheavy losses from operations andaccidents.8 German leaders coulddetect no pattern to the isolatedand inaccurate attacks mounted byBritish bombers, and assumed that

British intentions were simply toterrorize the German population.

The one field of battle whereBritish preparations proved at leastequal to the task in 1940 wasfighter defence, and it was for thatreason alone that German air fleetsconcentrated their efforts ondestroying Fighter Command. IfDowding’s force had been as poorlyarmed and prepared as eitherCoastal or Bomber Command, theconsequences for the future wouldhave been far bleaker. The firstphase of the air battle, in June andJuly, was used by the German AirForce to probe that defensive shield

to see just how brittle it was.German operations took the formof regular armed reconnaissancecombined with short hit-and-runattacks against widely scatteredobjectives by day and by night.Small numbers of bombers or dive-bombers were used, looselyprotected by larger fighter screensintent on wearing down FighterCommand when the RAF flew up toengage the bombers. Germantargets lay mainly along the coastby day, but at night they roamedover much of Britain, bringing thebombing war to remotecommunities long before the Blitz,

whose scale and intensity hasblotted out proper recollection ofthe first stage of the bombing war.On 31 July, for example, bombsfell in south-east Cornwall,Somerset, Devon, Gloucestershire,Shropshire and South Wales, whereMonmouth station was attacked,but little damaged.9

British authorities were every bitas puzzled by these attacks as theGermans were by those of BomberCommand. German air fleetssustained regular attritionthroughout the weeks of probingattacks, and achieved little seriousdestruction or loss of life either on

the ground or against FighterCommand. The attacks certainlysupplied German airmen with theopportunity to train in night-flyingtechniques, but they equally gavethe British fighter and anti-aircraftdefences weeks of preciouspreparation and practice, andafforded a valuable assessment ofGerman air tactics. This learning-curve was principally of value tothe defender. German fighteraircraft had developed tactics inattack that gave them the edge incombat. Flying in loose pairs, withone aircraft protecting the one infront, German fighters could fight

more flexibly than the RAF, whichkept fighters in tight formations ofthree. This tactic required a greatdeal of effort from the two wingaircraft to keep station with theone in the centre, and reduced thedefensive assistance each couldsupply to the others. Such aformation was even morevulnerable if aircraft could not bealerted and sent airborne in time toget level with, or above, theenemy.

The July attacks gave FighterCommand time to iron out theteething troubles in the system ofcommunication and to ensure that

squadrons were airborne quicklyand deployed economically.Gradually Fighter Commandadopted the tactics of more flexibleflying, and loss rates werestabilized. The probing attacks alsogave the defence practice inresponding to a number ofdifferent threats simultaneously,and convinced Park at 11 Groupthat fighters should be deployed insmall formations in case attackswere mere feints, or might befollowed by successive waves ofaircraft. Park’s policy conserved hisforce, though it often pittedsquadrons against much larger

formations of the enemy waitingon the chance to engage RAFfighters on unequal terms in largepitch battles.

What the German Air Forcelearned was less encouraging.German commanders hoped thatbombers could be left to make theirown way to targets with a loosefighter escort, which would be freeto fly off to engage enemy fighters.Fighter Command, on the otherhand, was obliged to fight thebombers first, as they representedthe primary destructive threat.Gradually German fighters foundthemselves tied more closely to the

bombers. The two forces, bombersand fighters, would rendezvousover the Channel and fly together,fighters slightly to the rear andfrom 5,000 to 10,000 feet abovethe bomber formations. BySeptember German fighters wereforced to fly in the front and on theflanks of the bombers to give themproper convoy protection. Thistactic proved a two-edged sword,for it compelled German fighters tostick with the bombers and reducedthe combat flexibility that was thedistinctive strength of the Germanfighter arm.

It was perhaps with a sense of

relief that the German Air Forcefinally received Goering’s order todestroy Fighter Command in fourdays of intensive attacks in themiddle of August. Bad weatherinterfered not only on Adlertag buton several subsequent days, so thatthe decisive shift in Germanstrategy was obscured from theBritish side. Fighter Command didobserve an increase in activityagainst radar installations from 8August, and on fighter stationsnear the coast. But only by 18August did the attack manifestlyincrease in intensity and movefurther inland against the entire

structure of the fighter force.10 Twodays later, with aircraft groundedagain by poor weather, Goeringissued a directive to the German airfleet commanders to finish offFighter Command with ‘ceaselessattacks’ by day and by night, intime for a landing in Kent andSussex now scheduled for 15September.11

The attack on Fighter Commandairfields has always been regardedas the hub of the Battle of Britain.Between 12 August and 6September there were 53 mainattacks on airfields, but only 32 ofthese were directed at fighter

stations. All but two of theseattacks were made against 11Group airfields. There wereadditional small raids on a widerange of lesser targets; the GermanAir Force calculated that there hadbeen approximately 1,000altogether, against industrialinstallations, air force supplies andcommunications. There were sixmain raids against the radarstations on the south coast, most ofthem on 12 August; they were notattacked repeatedly, and hardly atall towards the end of the secondphase of the battle.12 According tothose attack reports that gave

details of casualties, some 85personnel were killed, at leastseven of them civilians. The singlelargest loss of life occurred atBiggin Hill on 30 August, when 39were killed and 25 injured in anaccurate low-level bomb attack.The number of aircraft destroyedon the ground was remarkablysmall, and declined quickly onceserious efforts were made todisperse and camouflage aircraft.Air patrols were instituted toprotect refuelling squadrons from asudden surprise attack. In total, 56aircraft were destroyed on theground, 42 of them in the first

week of the attack, but only sevenin the whole of September.13

The airfields that sufferedseverely were the group mosteasily reached from France. Theseincluded the forward fields atManston, Lympne and Hawkingenear the Kent and Sussex coasts, allof which were temporarily shutdown following a number ofattacks. Of these Manston was themost heavily attacked, and wasrendered unserviceable on six daysand five nights between 14 Augustand 12 September. Nevertheless,desperate efforts were made tokeep airfields operational. After

the first attack on Manston on 12August, 350 men were brought into carry out repairs and the stationwas operational again thefollowing day. Aircraft were keptflying after subsequent raids untilfive raids in one day on 24 Augustleft a number of unexplodedbombs. This impeded full recoveryfor only two days.14

The attack on Lympne on 13August was particularly heavy,with 400 bombs falling on thelanding ground alone. Repairswere slow because constructionworkers had been sent to Manstonto help with the attacks of the

previous day. The Air Ministry sent100 of its own building workers tohelp, and 150 men were foundfrom firms in the surroundingdistrict. When Lympne wasattacked once more, on 17 August,the local men were so upset thatthey left, with only a small landingstrip yet clear. They were inducedback only to be hit by a third raidon 30 August. This time five localworkers were killed when a bombhit a slit trench; work was oncemore delayed. Park took theopportunity of this unfortunatehistory to press the Air Ministry tosupply at least one bulldozer and

one excavator at each aerodrome,and to allocate repair parties of150 men from a central pool ofgovernment workers.

German Air Intelligencesuggested at the end of August thatat least eight airfields had beenknocked out entirely and the rest ofthe system severely depleted. Thetruth was quite different. FighterCommand adapted itself quickly tothe new phase of attack. Park wasable to move aircraft toaerodromes further inland and toprepared satellite fields. The inlandcircle of airfields was thenprotected by the aircraft of 10 and

12 Groups, while 11 Group fightersfought the raiding aircraft. Newtactics were issued to the squadronson 19 August to cope with theairfield campaign. Fighters weretold to engage the enemy over landand not risk combat over the sea,where clusters of enemy fighterswaited to escort the bombers backto safety and to destroy anyunwary pursuers. Pilots wereencouraged to attack bombers firstand avoid combat with enemyfighters, while at first notice ofincoming aircraft, stations wereordered to send up a squadron topatrol below cloud cover over the

airfield to minimize risk of asurprise attack. Once airborne,Spitfires were encouraged toengage enemy fighters, whileHurricanes hunted down Germanbombers, which may help toexplain their different loss rates.15

The communications web heldtogether well under the strain ofattack. Sector operations roomswere out of commission on onlythree occasions, though thesupplementary emergencyoperations rooms, constructedabove ground some distance fromeach sector station, provedinadequate as replacements. They

were too cramped to house all thenecessary personnel and theparaphernalia of plot tables andradio equipment; they lackedsufficient telephone landlines tooperate as an integral part of thesystem. Radar stations emergedwith remarkably little damage. Theattack on Dunkirk RDF (in northKent) destroyed two huts butinflicted no serious damage on thetransmitter. The Dover stationsuffered slight damage to the aerialtowers. At Rye, on the Sussex coast,all the huts were destroyed on themorning of 12 August, but thetransmitting and receiving blocks

were unscathed and operationsrestarted by noon. At Ventnor onthe Isle of Wight all buildings weredestroyed in two attacks on 12 and16 August.16

If German commanders hadrealized sooner the role that radarplayed in the system, attacks mighthave been pressed morepersistently. But because it wasassumed that Fighter Commandfought a decentralized battle, withsquadrons tied to the radio rangeof their individual stations, attackson radar were not given a highpriority. They were, in any case,difficult targets to destroy

completely, even more so once theJunkers Ju 87B dive-bombers werewithdrawn from battle on 18August to avoid further high lossesand conserve them for theinvasion. German commanderswere also lulled into a false senseof security by the reports of heavylosses inflicted on the RAF in thesecond half of August. At the end ofthe month, German Air Intelligenceestimated that the RAF had lost 50per cent of its fighter force since 8August, against a loss of only 12per cent of the German fighterforce: 791 British aircraft against169 German. In early September,

Goering was informed that FighterCommand had been reduced at onestage to a mere 100 serviceablefighters after the attacks onairfields.17

The real picture was remarkablydifferent. On 23 August, FighterCommand actually had anoperational strength of 672, with228 Spitfires and Hurricanes readyin storage depots; on 1 Septemberthere were 701 operational aircraftand on 6 September the figure was738, with 256 in stores ready forimmediate despatch.18 The lossessuffered were understandablyhigher in late August, but the RAF

daily casualty records showcumulative losses of only 444between 6 August and 2September, 410 of them Spitfiresand Hurricanes.19 German recordsof fighter losses show at least 443for the slightly shorter period from8 August to 31 August, with totalaircraft losses during the sameperiod standing at a little under900.20 Both sides made extravagantclaims about the losses inflicted onthe other, largely because of doublecounting by pilots who could nottell clearly in the aerial mêlée whohad shot an aircraft down. Yet byan odd statistical coincidence,

fighter losses on the two sides werealmost exactly the same in August.An evident gap opened up betweenthe German commanders’perception of the battle and thereality facing German pilots asthey engaged daily against anumerous and deadly enemy.

The assault on Fighter Commandposed greater problems with theBritish supply of pilots. DuringAugust the casualty rate rose to 22per cent of pilot strength, a higherrate of loss than could be madegood from the OperationalTraining Units, which by Augustwere turning out 320 pilots a

month. A system of reinforcementwas developed which gave 11Group access to the pilots in otherfighter groups. So-called ‘A’squadrons were kept at fullstrength (20 trained pilots) and allassigned to Park’s group; ‘B’squadrons were kept at near fullstrength and assigned to other keygroup sectors; ‘C’ squadrons wereset up in 12 and 13 Groups,composed of only five or sixtrained pilots, whose job it was toprepare the intake of operationaltrainees for combat in the south-east.21 The rotation system allowedsome respite to the hard-pressed

front-line pilots, though it didthrow into the heart of the battleless experienced crew, whosesurvival rates and kill ratios werelower.

These men were Churchill’s ‘few’.In a speech to Parliament on 20August he repeated a sentence thathe had been heard to mutter tohimself a few days earlier as hereturned by car from Park’sheadquarters at Uxbridge: ‘Never inthe field of human conflict was somuch owed by so many to so few.’For all its subsequent reputation,the speech had, according to one ofChurchill’s private secretaries, ‘less

oratory than usual’. For much ofthe time ‘the speech seemed todrag’ in front of an audience madelanguid in the heat of anunaccustomed August sitting.22

Churchill devoted only a small partof his speech to the air battle,which focused on problems in theAfrican war against Italy; nor didhe single out Britain’s fighter pilotsfor praise. Fighter Command gotsix lines, but Bomber Command gottwenty-one: ‘On no part of theRoyal Air Force,’ Churchillcontinued, ‘does the weight of thewar fall more heavily than on thedaylight bombers who will play an

invaluable part in the case ofinvasion…’23

On the Fighter Commandstations Churchill’s remark wassoon turned into a joke about messbills. The journalists who dared thetrip to these southern airfields wererewarded with scenes that haveremained etched in the popularmemory of the battle. ‘You knew,’wrote Virginia Cowles, lookingback a year later, ‘the fate ofcivilization was being decidedfifteen thousand feet above yourhead in a world of sun, wind andsky.’ Aircraft could be seen ‘fallingearthwards, a mass of flames,

leaving as their last testament asmudge of black against the sky’.The pilots appeared like overgrownchildren, ‘little boys with blondehair and pink cheeks, who lookedas though they ought to be inschool’.24 German crewmen evokedthe same sentiments. When the MPHarold Nicolson saw two GermanAir Force prisoners at TonbridgeStation guarded by three soldierswith fixed bayonets, he thoughtthem ‘tiny little boys’. The otherpassengers treated them with a shyrespect.25

The toll on the men who flew theaircraft was severe. The persistent,

daily combat was physicallydraining and nerve-racking.Captured German prisoners at theend of August were said to showsigns of ‘nervous strain andcracking morale’, and ‘nervousexhaustion’. In his memoirs theGerman fighter commander AdolfGalland described the gradualdemoralization of the Germanfighter force from the strain onminds and limbs compounded withthe lack of any clear sign ofoperational success.26 They at leastdid not suffer the indignity of beingmachine-gunned as theyparachuted to earth. British fighter

pilots were regarded as combatantsas they floated down because theycould be back in a cockpit withinhours; German pilots could onlybecome prisoners-of-war. Dowdingin his ‘Despatch’ deplored thepractice, but confirmed that itaccorded, in his view, with the lawsof war.27

The strain on Fighter Commandcrew was evident to theircommanders. In August, Dowdingordered a period of twenty-fourhours’ rest for each pilot everyweek (which explained at least inpart the gap between numbersavailable and the numbers actually

flying that so enraged Churchill).In 11 Group efforts were made torepair the damage suffered by menswept round on a carousel of noise,danger and fear. Pilots were sentaway to distant billets to get anight of uninterrupted sleep. Moregames and physical exercises wereintroduced. The Treasury, aftermuch argument, finally agreed thatthe cost of electric lighting forairfield squash courts would be metfrom the public purse on thegrounds, robustly argued by the AirMinistry, that a good game ofsquash produced a better pilot. Lessenergetic games were denied the

public subsidy, and pilots had topay for the lights in billiard hallsout of their own pockets. Parkthoughtfully arranged for airfieldsto be visited by string bands ‘inorder to remove some of thedrabness of the present war’.28

By the beginning of Septemberthe toll was telling on both sides.Park reported to Dowding that,between 28 August and 5September, the cumulative impactof the pounding received byairfields had had ‘a serious effecton the fighting efficiency of thefighter squadrons’, which could bemet only by improvisation. Yet the

RAF withstood the assault farbetter than any other air forceattacked by German aircraft. Thesystem of reinforcement was notideal, but it provided an adequatepool of reserves, while the supplyof aircraft was maintained steadily.The three airfields temporarily putout of commission had not beenintended to stand in the defensivefront line. They were used for thebattle in France, but theirproximity to the coast made themless satisfactory as defensivestations. Dowding had under hiscommand a network of stationsand satellite fields which would

have kept a substantial force incontact with the attackingformations even had the forwardairfields been put permanently outof action. Only a carefully directedscheme of sabotage could havedisrupted the network ofcommunications, which was limitedas much by technical snags andhuman error as it was by the workof the enemy. Dowding commentedon Park’s report by pointing outthat his Group had survived 40attacks on 13 airfields, and hadbriefly lost the use of only three.29

The loss rate of men and machineswas as high in September when the

attacks on airfields wereabandoned.

At the height of this dourcampaign of attrition came anintervention from Hitler which isalways said to have saved FighterCommand and turned the battle. Ina speech on 4 September Hitlerannounced that the German AirForce was to switch the mainweight of attack on to British cities.London was singled out as the chieftarget and from 7 September, whenthe first mass daylight raid waslaunched on the capital, theGerman effort was concentrated onbombing the city by day and night.

The respite afforded FighterCommand, so it is argued, allowedit to revive and to inflictinsupportable losses on the Germanair fleets. The reason usually givenfor the sharp change in air strategyis the attack on Berlin by BomberCommand on the night of 25/26August. Hitler was said to be soincensed by violation of theGerman capital that he suspendedthe attack on the RAF in order tounleash annihilating retaliatoryblows against London; vengeanceattacks made little strategic sense,and German strategy thereafterwas doomed to failure.

The issues that led to the thirdphase of the battle were morecomplex than this. The centralproblem for Hitler and the militaryleadership was still to find a wayto bring Britain quickly to the pointwhere invasion could be carried outwith a reasonable prospect ofsuccess. Barring invasion, thereremained the hope that air attackswould prove so unendurable thatthe British government would atlast bow to public pressure andaccept the peace refused earlier inthe summer. The disappointingresults of the early wave of attacksin mid-August had already

prompted Hitler to take stock. ‘Thecollapse of England in the year1940,’ he told staff at hisheadquarters on 20 August, ‘isunder present circumstances nolonger to be reckoned on.’30

Nevertheless he did not cancelSealion, nor rein back the airassault, in the hope that thesituation might suddenly improve.Instead the air force moved on tothe next stage of the campaignplanned in July.

By late August the German AirForce commanders assumed fromthe intelligence they were fed thatFighter Command was a spent

force. Their instructions were nowto bring the rest of the countryprogressively under attack, startingwith industrial, military andtransport targets in and aroundmajor urban centres in preparationfor the invasion. Heavy bombattacks on Bristol, Liverpool,Birmingham and other Midlandcities at night preceded the attackson London. On 2 SeptemberGoering ordered the systematicdestruction of selected targets inLondon in line with the wider aimto reduce military capability andthe will to resist. On 5 SeptemberHitler directed the air fleets to

begin a general campaign againsturban targets and enemy morale,including London. With thisdirective, according to a lecturegiven in Berlin later in the war,‘economic war from the air couldbe embarked upon with full fury,and the morale of the civilianpopulation subjected at the sametime to a heavy strain’.31 Thedecision to launch attacks onLondon rested with Hitler, but allthe preparation was in place longbefore. When Hitler did authorizethe attack to begin, it was not asimple case of matching terror withterror, even though the first

instructions to the air fleetsdescribed the operation as‘Vengeance attacks’. Hitler insistedthat only war-essential targetsshould be attacked, and rejectedthe idea of inducing ‘mass panic’through deliberate attacks oncivilian areas.32 The raids on Berlinmay have affected the timing of thedecision, but even this is doubtful.At most they allowed Germanleaders what Goebbels described asan ‘alibi’: British airmen werepresented in German propagandaas military terrorists, while Germanoperations were presented as alegitimate attack on targets

broadly defined as essential forwar.33

Such a distinction is stillsometimes drawn sixty years later.It is an entirely false one. The twoair forces operated under almostidentical instructions to hit militaryand economic targets wheneverconditions allowed. Neither airforce was permitted to mountterror attacks for the sake of pureterror. The British War Cabinetissued a directive to BomberCommand early in June 1940instructing bomber crews overGermany to attack only when atarget was clearly identified, and

to seek out an alternative target incase the first was obscured. If nocontact was made with the target,aircraft were expected to bringtheir bombs back. On moonlessnights aircraft could attack‘identifiable targets in the centresof industrial activity’. With an eyeto publicity (or perhaps a futurewar crimes trial?), the authors ofthe directive observed that the newrequirements ‘will show up quitewell on the record if ever the timecomes when belligerents have toproduce their instructions tobombers’.34 German airmen werealso told to bomb only when they

had good visual contact with thetarget, and to bring their bombsback if they did not. Lecture notesfound on a German POW revealeddetailed instructions to avoidresidential districts (unlessjettisoning bombs!). Germanairmen were told that ‘on moonlessnights’ London could be attackedbecause it offered ‘a large targetarea’ in which something of valuemight be hit.35

The problem both air forcesfaced was the impossibility ofattacking single military targetswith existing air technologywithout spreading destruction over

a wide circle around them. Thisexplains why both sides believedthat the other was conducting aterror campaign against civilianmorale. By mid-September Parkwas telling Dowding that theGermans had abandoned ‘allpretence of attacking militaryobjectives’ in favour of ‘“browning”the huge London target’.36

Goebbels invited foreign newsmenon grisly tours of bombed schools,churches and hospitals. But even hecould see that journalists would notbe taken in entirely bycounterclaims that Germanaeroplanes only attacked military

targets, and was even prepared toadmit that it was ‘impossible toavoid civilian damage’.37 In an agelong before smart weapons,accuracy to within a mile at nightcould be considered aerial sharp-shooting. Bombers were underconstant threat of attack byfighters; they were shot at by anti-aircraft guns and trapped in conesof searchlight beams; they flew inpoor daytime weather, they flew inthe dark. What would now bedescribed by the cynicaleuphemism ‘collateral damage’ wasunavoidable, and German aircraftbegan to inflict civilian casualties

from the moment they attacked theBritish mainland in June.

The claim that the attack onLondon was retaliation for startingan air war against civilians withthe raid on Berlin on the night of25/26 August is equally hollow.The Berlin raid was very small-scale, and the amount of damageinflicted on the capital itselfnegligible. The psychologicalimpact was much greater on apopulation lulled into complacencyby months of propaganda on theinvulnerability of the city. ‘TheBerliners are stunned,’ wroteWilliam Shirer in his diary, ‘from

all reports there was a pell-mell,frightened rush to the cellars…’38

On 29 August British bombersreturned, this time killing tenBerliners (including four men andtwo women watching thepyrotechnic battle from adoorway). Goebbels made the mostof a golden opportunity. ‘Berlin isnow in the theatre of war,’ heconfided to his diary. ‘It is goodthat this is so.’ The Berlin papersplayed up the air terror and thegenocidal intention ‘ “to massacrethe population of Berlin” ’. 39

The raids on Berlin were inreality retaliation for the persistent

bombing of British conurbationsand the high level of British civiliancasualties that resulted. In July 258civilians had been killed, in August1,075; the figures included 136children and 392 women.40 Duringthe last half of August, as Germanbombers moved progressivelyfurther inland, bombs began to fallon the outskirts of London. On thenight of 18/19 August bombs fellon Croydon, Wimbledon and theMaidens. On the night of 22/23August the first bombs fell oncentral London in attacks describedby observers as ‘extensive’ and forwhich no warning was given; on

the night of 24/25 August bombsfell in Slough, Richmond Park andDulwich. On the night the RAF firstraided Berlin, bombs fell onBanstead, Croydon, Lewisham,Uxbridge, Harrow and Hayes. Onthe night of the next raid on Berlin,on 28/29 August, German aircraftbombed the following Londonareas: Finchley, St Pancras,Wembley, Wood Green, Southgate,Crayford, Old Kent Road, Mill Hill,Ilford, Hendon, Chigwell. Londonwas under ‘red’ warning for sevenhours and five minutes.41 Thebombing of London began almosttwo weeks before Hitler’s speech

on 4 September, and well beforethe first raid on Berlin.

The switch to attacks on Londonforced Fighter Command and theGerman Air Force to rethink thebattle. The main weight of Germanbombing slowly gravitated towardsnight attack, which produced muchlower bomber losses. Daylightoperations against the capital,which began in force on 7September, when 350 bombersraided the east London dock area,required German fighters to fly tothe very limit of their range.Bomber crews insisted that they begiven an adequate defensive shield

to try to reduce the heavy losses ofthe previous three weeks. Goeringordered fighters to fly not only infront and above the bombers, butnow to weave in and out of thebomber stream itself. Becausebombers were so much slower atthe higher altitudes chosen for theLondon attacks, fighters wereforced to fly a zig-zag course tokeep in contact, which used upprecious supplies of fuel andreduced their radius of action evenmore.

Fighter Command reacted to thechanged battlefield almost at once.The bombers attacked London in

three waves. Park ordered 11Group to put up six squadrons heldat ‘readiness’ for the first wave ofbombers; a further eight squadronswere held back to meet the secondwave; the remaining squadronswere detailed to attack the thirdwave, or to provide protection forairfields and factories in thebombers’ path. Aircraft from 10and 12 Groups protected 11Group’s own airfields. The higheraltitude flown by the attackeradded new difficulties. Radar hadproblems estimating the greaterheights precisely; fighters had toclimb further and could seldom get

above the incoming aircraft, whereattack was most advantageous. Theproblem was tackled bywithdrawing from the coastalstations, to give fighters more timeto assemble. When fighters wereascending, they gave false heightreferences over the radio to bringGerman fighters to altitudes belowthem. Finally, on 21 SeptemberPark instituted standing patrols,with Spitfires flying high to engagefighters and with Hurricanes atbomber altitude.42 The chief resultof these changes was to reduceFighter Command’s loss rate and toimpose escalating destruction on

an already overstretched bomberforce. In the first week of attackson London, the German bomberarm lost 199 aircraft.

Over the period from 7September to 5 October, whendaylight bombing raids peteredout, there were 35 major attacks,18 of them on London. It wasduring this phase of the battle thatthe so-called ‘Big Wing’ controversyemerged. ‘Big Wings’ or ‘Balbos’(after the flamboyant Italianairman Italo Balbo) were inspiredby one of the legends of the battle,Wing Commander Douglas Bader.Flying with 12 Group, he

developed the idea that fightersshould fly in large formations inorder to hit the approaching airfleet with maximum strikingpower. His commander, Air Vice-Marshal Leigh-Mallory, supportedthe innovation, but Park wasstrongly opposed on the groundsthat concentration of fighter forceswould simply let the successivewaves of bombers fly onunimpeded while fighters sat onthe ground rearming. Whatseparated the two Groups werefacts of geography. Park had tofight incoming waves of bomberswith strong fighter escort; Leigh-

Mallory’s fighters met bomberforces further inland, with weakerfighter defences and their positionclearly known. Under thesecircumstances the concentration offighter forces made greateroperational sense. Nevertheless, asPark took pleasure in remindingDowding, 12 Group aircraft couldengage the enemy in ‘Big Wings’only seldom. In September, Bader’sDuxford-based squadrons flew inlarge formations only five times; inthe second half of October theymanaged only ten sorties and shotdown just one enemy aeroplane. InPark’s judgement the use of ‘Big

Wings’ would have ‘lost the Battleof London’.43

The air battles in the weekbetween 7 September and 15September were decisive in turningthe tide of the battle. During thatweek the German Air Force lost298 aircraft; Fighter Command lost120, against 99 enemy fighters.The greatest damage was inflictedon the German attack on 15September, which has beencelebrated since the war as Battleof Britain Day. A force of morethan 200 German bombers, heavilyescorted by fighters, attacked byday in the conventional three

waves. They were met by morethan 300 Spitfires and Hurricanes.A total of 158 bombers reachedLondon, but visibility was poor andthe bombs were widely scattered.The returning bombers wereharried by fighters as far as theChannel. It was officiallyannounced that night that 185 ofthe enemy had been destroyed. Infact during the course of the day 34German bombers had beendestroyed, 20 more extensivelydamaged and 26 fighters shotdown. Of the original force of 200bombers the loss rate was 25 percent.44 These were rates that no air

force could sustain for more than afew days; they were very muchgreater than the worst loss ratesexperienced by Allied bombers overGermany in the air battles of 1943and 1944. This was the last greatdaylight raid. On 18 Septembersome 70 bombers attacked Londonwith heavy losses. After that theattacks switched to night-time.

The fifteenth of September wasalso the date agreed earlier inAugust for the start of OperationSealion. Enthusiasm for invasionwas waning fast at Hitler’sheadquarters. On 30 August thedate for possible invasion had been

switched to 20 September to meetthe navy’s revised schedule. On 6September Hitler discussed theinvasion plan with Admiral Raeder.The navy took the view thatSealion was possible only if theweather and air supremacyallowed it, but Raeder began topress again for an indirectstrategy. Army and navy leadersrecommended a Mediterraneancampaign, in collaboration withMussolini’s Italy and Franco’sSpain. Hitler now faced a numberof options. Sealion was not yetruled out, though it looked anunattractive prospect in

deteriorating weather; there wasthe possibility of destroyingBritain’s position throughout theMediterranean basin and theeastern Atlantic, which would cutthe Empire in two and leaveBritain geographically isolated;there was a chance that the airassault on London might be‘decisive’ by itself.45

On the afternoon of 14September a conference assembledat Hitler’s headquarters. Theservice chiefs were there; the issueunder discussion was ‘the Englandproblem’. Hitler reminded hisaudience that the quickest way to

end the war was to invade andoccupy southern Britain. Heannounced that naval preparationswere now complete (‘Praise to theNavy,’ the army chief of staff wrylynoted in his war diary); hesuggested that the air forcecampaign was poised for decisivesuccess (‘Praise above all’ thistime).46 None the less, Hitlerconcluded that air superiority hadnot yet been achieved. He did notcancel Sealion, but promised toreview the situation on 17September for possible landings on27 September or 8 October. Threedays later, when the evidence was

clear that the German Air Forcehad greatly exaggerated the extentof their successes against the RAF,Hitler postponed Sealionindefinitely. A directive on 19September ordered preparations tobe scaled down. On 12 OctoberHitler ordered his forces tomaintain the appearance of aninvasion threat in order to keep up‘political and military pressure onEngland’. Invasion was to bereconsidered in the spring or earlysummer of 1941 only if Britain hadnot been brought to her knees byair attack.47

The end of Operation Sealion in

September 1940 did not end theBattle of Britain. At the meeting on14 September Hitler gave the airforce the chance to show what itcould do on its own to defeatBritain: ‘The decisive thing is theceaseless continuation of airattacks.’ Shortly before themeeting, Raeder had presentedHitler with a memorandum urgingthat air attacks ‘should beintensified, without regard toSealion’. The air force chief of staff,General Hans Jeschonnek, graspedthe opportunity with both hands.He asked Hitler to allow him toattack residential areas to create

‘mass panic’. Hitler refused,perhaps unaware of just how muchdamage had already been done tocivilian targets. The air force wasordered to attack military andeconomic targets. ‘Mass panic’ wasto be used only as a last resort.Hitler reserved for himself the rightto unleash the terror weapon. Thepolitical will to resist was to bebroken by the collapse of thematerial infrastructure, theweapons industry, and stocks offuel and food. On 16 SeptemberGoering ordered the air fleets tobegin the new phase of the battle.Like the campaign in Kosovo in the

spring of 1999, air power wasexpected to deliver the politicalsolution by undermining militarycapability and the conditions ofdaily existence.48

The popular fantasies of victorythrough air power, sustained in the1930s by a stream of alarmistfiction (including L. E. O.Charlton’s War over England,published in 1936, in which Britainwas forced to surrender in twodays after a devastating Germanattack on the Hendon Air Show),became a horrible truth in the lastmonths of 1940.49 The fear ofinvasion was replaced in

September with a realization thatBritain’s population wasconfronted with a test of endurancefor which there was no precedent.The survival of the will to fightthrough the period of intensebombing is now taken for granted,but it was a will that ordinarypeople had to find in circumstancesfor which no fiction can haveprepared them. When the bombingbegan in June, Home Intelligenceobservers reported a generalcalmness, even indifference: ‘ “Abore rather than a terror.” ’ 50 On aLondon housing estate inStockwell, tenants busied

themselves setting up home-from-home in their air-raid shelters:carpets, beds, furniture, decoration(‘portraits of the King and Queen,artificial flowers, Union Jacks…’),and cleanly scrubbed floors. Theyplanned an open night, ‘to showoff their shelter to theirneighbours’. (Not everyone was sofortunate. Home Intelligence notedearly in September a great manycomplaints about what weredelicately described as ‘ “insanitarymesses” ‘ and ‘improper behaviour’,which caused distress ‘among themore respectable elements of thecommunity’.)51

The raids in August produced achange in mood. With theintensification of bomb attack,Home Intelligence found thatmorale stiffened; the spirit of thosein raided areas was regarded as‘excellent’, the shock of war on thehome front even produced atemporary exhilaration. Londoncame through its first weekend ofraids ‘with confidence andcalmness’ (though the inhabitantsof Croydon were reportedly‘resentful’ when the all-clearsounded just ten minutes beforeGerman bombers appearedoverhead to disgorge their loads).52

In August the author JohnLangdon-Davies rushed out abooklet which he titled Nervesversus Nazis. It was marketed as amanual for ‘successful mentalcounter-attack’ against air raids,and Langdon-Davies wrote it afterwatching ‘400 typical Londoners’descend to their shelters with ‘nofear, no panic’. He offered adviceon coping with fear, whichincluded his own practice of‘counting slowly from the momentthat I hear the first bomb. If I countup to 60 and am still counting,then I know that I have survived…’He encouraged his readers to buy a

large-scale local map, mark theirown house with a blue dot, standon a chair with 50 grains of saltand drop them on the plan. Thereader would then be reassured bythe discovery that ‘most of the saltgrains have not hit any building atall… it will be a strange mischanceif any grain of salt has actually hitthe blue pencil point, which marksyour own home’.53

When the bombing began on alarge scale in early September, thestrain of constant attack began totell. Home Intelligence found thatin the aftermath of the raids onLondon’s docks there was more

evidence of panic and massevacuation, of ‘nerve cracking fromconstant ordeals’.54 It is noreflection on the courage or powersof endurance of the bombedpopulations that they sought a wayout of the turmoil. In a great manycities refugees from bombingspread out into the surroundingcountryside. At the end ofSeptember it was reported that itwas ‘practically impossible to get aroom anywhere within seventymiles of London’. The heavy raidson Plymouth and Southampton leftthousands of people living in tentsand rough camps on the outskirts.

Thousands of Londoners left fordestinations they believed safer. Inthe East End there werewidespread anti-semitic rumoursabout Jews who fled first andfastest, or sat in air-raid shelters allday.55 Even the West End was notimmune from such prejudices.When the author George Orwellheard the rumours, he went toinvestigate a sample ofunderground stations converted tobomb shelters by night: ‘Not allJews,’ he noted in his diary, ‘but, Ithink, a higher proportion of Jewsthan one would normally see in acrowd of this size. What is bad

about Jews is that they are notonly conspicuous, but go out oftheir way to make themselves so.’56

By late September the initialpanics had died down; smallthanks, perhaps, to Langdon-Davies. ‘Morale in generalcontinues good,’ ran the HomeIntelligence weekly report. Thiswas attributed in official circleseither to the fact that ‘the moredepressed have evacuatedthemselves’, or to the discoverythat air raids ‘are not so terribleonce you have got used to them’.57

It owed something to the fact thatthe threat of German invasion was

now palpably receding. Rumours ofinvasion had surfaced throughoutthe summer and autumn, most ofthem in areas very remote from thesouth coast. The militaryauthorities were themselvesexposed to regular invasion scaresfrom a variety of intelligencesources. The Joint IntelligenceCommittee reported early in Julythat full-scale invasion could beexpected at any time from themiddle of the month, but the chiefsof staff took the view that invasionwould only come after the airbattle, and no further alert wasissued until early September when

photographic reconnaissance andisolated items of Enigmainformation suggested theconcentration of German forcesopposite the south coast. On 7September the codewordCROMWELL was issued to prepareall home-based forces forimmediate action.58

The Air Ministry had provided akey numbered 1–3 for differentstates of readiness (1 = attackimprobable, 2 = attack probable, 3= attack imminent); on 27 Augustthe key was suddenly reversed tomake 1 the more dangerous option.On 7 September code 1 was

activated for an invasion ‘likely tooccur in the next twelve hours’.Some stations failed to get the alertat all; others still used the old 1 – 3code.59 Even if the alert had beenproperly managed, FighterCommand was entirely absorbedby the air defence battle, andwould have been severely pressedto fight off invasion at the sametime. The weekend of 14 – 15September was popularly regardedas ‘Invasion Weekend’ because ofthe conjunction of favourable tidesand a full moon. On the south coastthe fields and farmyards filled withtroops ordered to sleep with their

boots on. When nothing happened,alert no. 2 was issued, only for‘invasion imminent’ to bereinstated on 22 September. Onlyon 25 October was no. 3 introducedpermanently, by which timefragments of intelligence fromEurope indicated that invasion wasno longer likely.

During October and November,bombing replaced invasion as thechief public concern. ‘There isneither fear nor expectation ofinvasion,’ ran the HomeIntelligence report for the thirdweek of October. After two monthsof bombing there was evidence of a

strong desire to restore some senseof normality in cities wherebombing occurred only seldom, andwhere damage was less than atfirst feared. Even in London, wherethere were 24 attacks inSeptember, and an attack everynight during October, themaintenance of daily life was a keyto survival and a weapon againstdemoralization. The familiarimages of workers and shopperspicking their way through bombdebris each morning is mutetestimony to the efforts made toreassert the rhythms of ordinarylife. The Daily Express ran a

campaign under the caption ‘Don’tbe a Bomb Bore’. When theMinistry of Information began tocompile lists of ‘Questions thePublic Are Asking’ in October, thenewsletters were full of mundaneinquiries: ‘Are animals allowed inshelters?’; ‘Are people liable to payrent and rates if their houses aremade uninhabitable?’; was therecompensation for the loss of ‘falseteeth, spectacles, gas masks…?’60

There was little evidence ofwidespread hatred of the enemy,however understandable it mighthave been. Violence erupted brieflyagainst Italian premises in London

in June when Italy entered the war(one Italian grocery, the SpaghettiHouse, hastily changed its name toBritish Food Shop).61 HomeIntelligence found that public callsfor bombing reprisals were directedagainst Italy as much as Germany.There was surprisingly slenderevidence of sustainedGermanophobia. The call forreprisals died down in October, butwas more marked in areas wherethere had been no bombing. TheMinistry of Information observedin November that populations thathad not experienced raids ‘seemmore prone to exaggeration and

self-pity than others who have beenbadly bombed’. In one opinion pollcarried out in the north-east, only58 per cent favoured bombingreprisals against Germany. Earlierin the summer the Ministry hadbegun an orchestrated campaign to‘stir up the people’s more primitiveinstincts’. Some uncertaintyprevailed about how to do this, andthe propagandists were left withthe unhelpful conclusion that it was‘merely sufficient to impress thepeople that they were in factangry’. The campaign was quietlydropped.62

The transfer to night bombing in

September altered the nature of theaerial battlefield once again.Fighter Command was responsiblefor the night-fighter force, made uppredominantly of Blenheims andBeaufighters, but in the absence ofadequate aerial radar to findbombers in the dark, contact withnight raiders was largelyaccidental. At night the anti-aircraft defences were the mainline of defence. When concentratedattacks began on London, gunswere brought in from other parts ofBritain to provide a moresatisfactory barrage. Anti-aircraftbatteries claimed 337 aircraft

destroyed from July to September,but of those only 104 were atnight, when it was estimated that abarrage used up to ten times asmany shells per aircraft as visualfiring.63 The reality was thataircraft were very difficult to shootdown at night from the air or fromthe ground until the advent of newdetection equipment. German airfleets found that half theircasualties from October onwardswere caused by accidents resultingfrom poor weather conditions andice.

By day the bomber forcegradually disappeared. It was

substituted by large formations offighters, a small group converted toa fighter-bomber role with theaddition of one 250 kg bomb, andan escort of between 200 and 300combat fighters. The shift had twopurposes. First, fighter bomberscould keep up the pressure on theurban population by regular small-scale attacks which strainedalready jangled nerves; second, thefighter sweeps were intended toengage Fighter Command in asteady war of attrition to try tocomplete the process of wearingdown the fighter force begun inJuly. The strategy made sense only

in the light of the persistentmisrepresentations of FighterCommand strength by German AirIntelligence, which continued toassert that the enemy was down toits last 200–300 aircraft and thatBritish aircraft production wasfalling sharply under the hail ofbombs. In October, 253 of thenuisance raids were mounted; inNovember, 235.64 Aircraft flew ataltitudes well above 20,000 feet,where the Me 109 was at anadvantage thanks to its two-stageengine supercharger. At suchheights the slow ascent from RAFairfields to meet the enemy proved

a grave handicap and loss ratiosbegan to favour the attacker.

Fighter Command switchedtactics once more. Standing patrolsof high-flying Spitfires were used toreconnoitre incoming fightersweeps. On sighting the enemy,other fighter squadrons patrollingat lower altitudes flew up to battlestations. Air fighting at highaltitude brought new difficulties.British aircraft did not havepressurized cabins and the hoodwas prone to leak at altitude,inducing terrible cramps for theunfortunate pilot. Fighting at highaltitude was more physically

draining, particularly for RAFsquadron commanders whoseaverage age was almost thirty.Losses in October totalled 146Hurricanes and Spitfires; Germanair fleets lost 365 aircraft, of whicha high proportion were bomberssubject to increasingly hazardousflying in the late autumn nights.65

Nevertheless the loss of pilots inFighter Command was down toonly 10 per cent of the force inOctober, and in November losses ofboth aircraft and pilots fell to anew low point as the daylight airbattle died away as falteringly andinconclusively as it had started.

From October the Germanleadership placed its faith in thepolitical impact of bombing forwant of any other form of directpressure on Britain. Some airmenfavoured a short and brutalcampaign of terror against Britishcities and food supplies to bring aswift capitulation, along the linesfirst outlined by the Italian GeneralGiulio Douhet in his classic study ofair power published in 1921,Command of the Air. The ‘England-Committee’ of Ribbentrop’s foreignoffice also strongly favoured ashort terror campaign to drive theinhabitants of the East End of

London across what they called the‘social fault line’ into the West End,where London’s well-to-do wouldbe frightened into making peacefrom fear of social revolution.66

Though the German Air Forcenever formally adopted terrorbombing, the tactics of widelyscattered attacks, the use of aspecial incendiary squadron tostart fires for other bombers tofollow, the relaxation of rules ofengagement over London onmoonless nights, the deliberatedecision to target the enemypsychologically by attackingintermittently round the clock (and

for as long as possible at night),the use of aerial mines and thetargeting of administrative areas ofthe capital, all reveal the gradualabandonment of any pretence thatcivilians and civilian morale wouldnot become targets. The death ofmore than 40,000 people duringthe Battle of Britain and the Blitzmay not have been deliberatepolicy, but must surely stretch theidea of ‘collateral damage’ beyondthe limits of meaning. In BerlinGoebbels gloated in his diaryalmost daily throughout the lastmonths of 1940 over the horrors ofair warfare. ‘When will Churchill

capitulate?’ he asked in November.On 5 December he noted thefrightful reports fromSouthampton: ‘The city is onesingle ruin… and so it must go onuntil England is on her knees,begging for peace.’ On 11December Goebbels heard Hitleraddress the Party bosses: ‘the waris militarily as good as won…England is isolated. Will bit by bitbe driven to the ground.’67

A VICTORY OF SORTS

I think we have managed to avoidlosing this war. But when I thinkhow on earth we are going to winit, my imagination quails.

HAROLD NICOLSON, DIARY, 8 NOVEMBER

19401

We shall win, but we don’t deserve it; at least wedo deserve it because of our virtues, but notbecause of our intelligence.

WINSTON CHURCHILL, 10 AUGUST 19402

Britain was not driven into theground in 1940 and Germany did

not win the war. These statementsare commonplace enough. Thedifficulty is to decide what, ifanything, connects them, for theBattle of Britain did not seriouslyweaken Germany and her allies,nor did it much reduce the scale ofthe threat facing Britain (and theCommonwealth) in 1940/41 untilGerman and Japanese aggressionbrought the Soviet Union and theUnited States into the conflict. Theissues in 1940 cannot be reduced toa simple dividing line betweenvictory and defeat.

In the first place the threat fromthe German Air Force was just one

of the problems Britain faced in theautumn and winter of 1940. Thewar against Italy in north and eastAfrica was a major contest, whoseoutcome was just as critical for thelong-term survival of Britain’sglobal imperial position. In AugustItalian armies invaded Somaliland,and in September crossed intoEgypt. The large Italian Navyforced Britain to fight a majornaval campaign in theMediterranean at a time whenships were desperately needed fordefence against invasion and toprotect the vital trade routes acrossthe Atlantic on which Britain’s

long-term survival depended. Thiswar against Italy exposed howfragile Britain’s position was in1940, fighting two European greatpowers, her navy under constantsubmarine threat, the economy incrisis, a predatory Japan in easternAsia, waiting for Britain’s star tofall like France before her. In theend only a small portion of the wareffort of Britain and theCommonwealth was exertedagainst the German Air Force inthe autumn war in the air.

The German threat itself wasonly partly reduced as a result ofthe air battles. In late November

1940 a pessimistic Churchill wasreportedly still anxious thatGermany ‘will strive by everymeans to smash us before theSpring’.3 The one thing that theBattle of Britain could not preventwas the bombing. Even during thedaylight clashes between July andSeptember, a high proportion ofbombers reached and bombed theirtargets. German air fleets could notbomb at will, and they sustainedwhat proved to be debilitating lossrates by day, but there was noeffective way of preventingbombing, even when thenavigational beams were finally

jammed by British counter-measures in November. The factorsthat undermined the effectivenessof the bombing campaign both byday and by night were self-inflicted: bomb attacks werecarried out with small bomb-loads,with relatively small numbers ofaircraft, and over a widelyscattered number of targets. Manyof these targets were of secondaryimportance; no target system,whether airfields, communications,ports or industry, was attackedrepeatedly, systematically oraccurately. When British AirIntelligence analysed the German

bombing effort in late September1940, they found the results‘remarkably small in proportion tothe considerable effort expended’.In the absence of any observablyconsistent bombing strategy, theBritish concluded that the GermanAir Force bombed ‘with the primaryobject of lowering morale’, which itfailed to do in any significantsense.4

The onset of the bombing war inSeptember 1940, the ‘Blitz’ as itsoon became known, revivedanxieties about a suddenoverwhelming strike from the skyto force surrender on a stunned

people. When Harold Nicolsonvisited the Master of Corpus ChristiCollege in Cambridge in January1941, he was warned that thepublic had no idea ‘how giganticthe German knock-out blow will bewhen it comes’.5 Gas warfare was apersistent fear. In November theLabour Leader Clement Attlee wasgiven responsibility to get Britain’sstock of poison gas up to the levelof 2,000 tons agreed before thewar, in case the Germans used gasas a final resort. Churchill becamemore anxious as time passed thatdesperation might push the enemyto resort to chemical weapons. In

February 1941 a cypher messagearrived from Budapest, courtesy ofthe American legation, warningnot only that the invasion ofBritain was scheduled for March,but also that German scientists hadperfected ‘a new soporific gas’whose effects would last for thirty-six hours whilst German forcesstormed ashore. To Churchill’simmediate inquiry about Britain’sgas capability, the Air Staff repliedthat the RAF could attack theGerman population with gas bombsfor only four or five days, but if gaswas mixed in with high-explosivebombs the campaign might last for

two or three weeks.6

That same month came furtherintelligence from Switzerland thatGermany had retained a secretforce of 10,000 aircraft to hitBritain with one massive aerialblow at a critical moment.Churchill now asked the Air Staff totell him what kind of aerial‘banquet’ the RAF could lay on inretaliation. Though the RAF wasrightly sceptical about any secretair force, they relayed to Churchillthe cheerless statistical conclusionthat Germany could probably sendacross some 14,000 aircraft, whilethe RAF could scrape together only

6,514, including 2,000 trainers and3,000 reserves.7

The edginess evident amongBritish political circles reflected thewidespread belief that invasion hadonly been postponed in September1940 by the exertions of FighterCommand, not cancelled. In thespring of 1941 the Ministry ofInformation renewed thecirculation of pamphlets aboutinvasion in an effort to challengepopular complacency; FighterCommand was issued with newoperational instructions early inMarch for the fight over theinvasion beaches. Information from

Europe was ambiguous, partlybecause Hitler had ordered acampaign of deception to mask theoperational preparations to attackthe Soviet Union by apparentlymaintaining the pressure onBritain; and partly because Hitlerdid not entirely exclude thepossibility of invasion if Britainbecame sufficiently weakened ordemoralized. In discussion with theGerman Navy commander inJanuary, he suggested that theaerial and naval blockade of Britishimports might lead to victory asearly as July or August 1941, orcreate the conditions necessary to

permit successful invasion andoccupation, or, finally, produce thecoveted ‘negotiated’ peace.8

It is evident that Hitler’s view ofthe British problem did not alter agreat deal between the summer of1940 and the spring of 1941. Theair battles of August and September1940 were regarded from theGerman side as just one part of acampaign that lasted almost a yearto find ways of bringing sufficientpressure on Britain to get her togive up. The campaign included apolitical offensive to persuadeSpain and Italy to collaborate indestroying Britain’s precarious

military position in theMediterranean and North Africa(an effort that stumbled onFranco’s refusal to join the war,and Mussolini’s decision, keptsecret from Hitler, to move into theBalkans instead by invading Greecein October 1940). The naval war,which grew into what becameknown as the Battle of the Atlantic,developed as a blockade strategylargely independent of the invasionoperation, and one that pushed theBritish war effort to its limit longafter the Battle of Britain. Invasionitself was always just one option,and one for which Hitler himself

had deep reservations.It is open to debate whether the

air battle of the autumn of 1940was the decisive factor affectingthe German decision whether ornot to invade. There were otherreasons for delaying. It is oftenforgotten that there stood morethan an air force between Hitlerand conquest of Britain. TheGerman Navy was heavilyoutnumbered by the Royal Navy,even one stretched taut by thedemands of other theatres. TheGerman Navy as a result alwaysremained half-hearted about thewhole operation, and made its

views felt throughout the weeks ofpreparation. The British army maynot have been a match for theGerman army in the field, but itrepresented a considerable threatto a landing attempt. The Germanarmy leadership undertook whatpreparations they could, but theywere faced with an operation forwhich there was simply noprecedent in German militaryhistory, and one for whichpreparation was at bestimprovised. General Günther vonBlumentritt, an army staff officerassigned to Operation Sealion,later described the preparations

carried out in 1940 as woefullyinadequate: ‘It must not beforgotten that we Germans are acontinental people,’ he wrote. ‘Weknew far too little of England. Weknew literally nothing ofamphibious operations. At the timewe were preparing Sealion plans,accounts of the campaigns ofCaesar, Britanicus and William theConqueror were being read…’9Above all, the German leadershiprecognized, as the western Allieswere to realize in the invasion ofNormandy, four years later, thatdefeat would be a political andmilitary catastrophe. ‘It is

imperative,’ wrote General AlfredJodl, Hitler’s Chief of Operations,in August 1940, ‘that no matterwhat might happen the operationdare not fail.’10

There need be no doubt thatunder the right circumstancesHitler was serious about invadingBritain in 1940. There remained,none the less, a genuineambivalence in his attitude to theBritish problem. He understoodhow difficult the practical questionswere and was keen to avoid ‘riskyexperiments’ and ‘high losses’. Heconfessed to an audience of Partybosses that he was ‘shy of the

water’, which may explain why helistened so closely to what Raederand the navy had to say in 1940.11

He wanted invasion to befoolproof, ‘absolutely assured’. Hekept the door open to a politicalsettlement: ‘Even today the Fuehreris still ready to negotiate peacewith Britain,’ ran the minutes of aFührer conference in January1941.12 Hitler’s view of Britain iswell known: a curious blend ofenvy and admiration, of contemptfor her current state of decadenceand respect for a famous history. Inhis memoirs Adolf Galland recalleda conversation with Hitler when he

came to Berlin from the air battlein September 1940 to collectGermany’s highest military award,the oak leaves to the Knight’sCross. Alone with Hitler, Gallandtold him the unalloyed truth abouthow tough air combat againstBritain had proved to be. Instead ofthe diatribe of contradiction he hadexpected, Hitler explained hisrespect for the Anglo-Saxonpeoples, his regret at the life-and-death struggle between the twostates – the ‘world-historicaltragedy’ that now promised onlytotal destruction where there mighthave been fruitful collaboration.13

It is evident that not a lot wasneeded to deter Hitler from theidea of invading Britain. FighterCommand tipped the scales. Thefailure to destroy the Royal AirForce ruled out the possibility of acheap, quick end to the war in thewest and kept alive an armed anti-Axis presence in Europe. The fullsignificance of this outcome wasnot realized on the British side asthe air battle shifted to its new andmore deadly phase from September1940. But when Dowdingforwarded to the Air Ministry inmid-November a report on theprevious two months of air fighting

compiled by Air Vice-Marshal Park,he began at last to develop somesense of what his force had nowachieved:

… the point to remember is that the lossessustained by the enemy were so great that heavyday attacks by bombers were brought to astandstill and that the Command did, in fact, wina notable victory; since, if the attacks had notbeen brought to a standstill, the invasion wouldhave been facilitated and the war might well

have been lost.14

It is this achievement that came tobe described as the Battle ofBritain.

Victory in this narrow but

important sense has beenexplained in many ways. Germanairmen were at a disadvantageattacking over enemy territorywith very limited fighter range.Fighter Command was able to drawon the resources of the other nine-tenths of the British Isles outsidethe range of the Me 109. Even ifthe forward airfields had been lostpermanently, British fighter forcescould still have been deployed frombases further inland, though theymight then have taken a lower tollof the enemy bomber force. TheGerman fighter force became tiedto the bomber stream as the battle

drew on, limiting its radius ofaction and manoeuvrabilitywithout affording the bombers realsecurity from attack on the way outor the way back. All the timeFighter Command was improvingthe means to identify and engagethe enemy through radar andsignals intelligence.

In a great many respects,however, the two forces wereremarkably matched. Bothcommanded a small group ofcommitted, highly trained andcourageous pilots; both forcesresponded with considerabletactical ingenuity to sudden

changes of direction in the courseof the battle; both exploited fighteraircraft at the cutting edge ofaviation technology; both forcesfought the battle with operationalcommanders of real distinction –Dowding and Park, Kesselring andSperrle. There were periods in thebattle that favoured the Germanside, others in which FighterCommand began to exact a highertoll. Every small technical ortactical drawback suffered by oneforce can be matched by problemsexperienced by the other.

The contest was not, of course, adraw. German air fleets did not

gain air supremacy over southernBritain, for all their skill andtechnical competence. Two factorsgave the edge to the RAF: thebalance of forces between the twosides, and the role of intelligence.For the whole of the battle period,the British aircraft industryoutproduced the German by aconsiderable margin. This alloweda continuous flow of replacementsto compensate for the higher lossrates sustained by FighterCommand. The Command grewsteadily stronger between June andOctober. On 19 June there were548 operationally ready fighters

(with 200 more ready for thefollowing day); on 31 Octoberthere were 729 ready to fly, 370 instore at a day’s notice, and afurther 110 at four days’.15 Germanlevels of production andserviceability were too low toestablish an effective numericalsuperiority. German fighters flewin large groups with the bombers,which gave an impression ofoverwhelming numbers, whileFighter Command aircraft weredivided between Groups, not all ofwhich were in the front line. ButDowding’s system of rotationensured that most squadrons saw

service in southern England, andthat each German attack was metin sufficient force to exactcasualties.

The balance of pilots was alsomore favourable than the legend ofthe ‘few’ suggests. German single-engined fighter pilots available forthe battle remained below theBritish figure throughout the threemonths of combat. The impact ofregular fighting under difficultconditions eroded combat numbers.At the beginning of September only74 per cent of German fighterpilots were operationally ready,and that month pilot losses reached

almost one-quarter of the force,23.1 per cent.16 Moreover, andimportantly, German pilots andaircrew were lost to the battle ifthey were shot down and capturedon British soil. Between 1 July and31 October, 967 prisoners weretaken and 638 bodies definitelyidentified. The ΡOWs were found tobe experienced pilots. Only twohad been trained since the warbegan. The oldest was fifty-oneyears old, a veteran of the FirstWorld War; the oddest was the 47-year-old Oberleutnant Haffl vonWedel, a Berlin history professorrecruited to write the air force

official history, who was permittedto fly in combat to give hisscholarship a practical foundation.He was shot down on his twenty-fourth mission.17 The pre-warorigin of the pilot populationsuggests that the German Air Forcesuffered the loss during the battleof a high proportion of its cadreforce. Nor was there to be anyheroic break-out from POW camps;three-quarters of those capturedwere shipped overseas toCanada.18

The true balance of forces wasnever properly understood oneither side. The result was a mutual

misperception that played a criticalpart in the conduct of the battle.Throughout the summer, indeedever since the outbreak of war,German Air Intelligence, run byColonel Josef ‘Beppo’ Schmidt, hadgreatly underestimated the size ofthe RAF and the scale of Britishaircraft production. Across theChannel the Air Intelligencedivision of the Air Ministryconsistently over estimated the sizeof the German air enemy and theproductive capacity of the Germanaviation industry. As the battle wasfought, both sides exaggerated thelosses inflicted on the other by an

equally wide margin. However, theintelligence picture formed beforethe battle encouraged the GermanAir Force to believe that such lossespushed Fighter Command to thevery edge of defeat, while theexaggerated picture of German airstrength persuaded the RAF thatthe threat it faced was larger andmore dangerous than was actuallythe case.

German misperceptionencouraged first complacency, thenstrategic misjudgement. The shift oftargets from air bases to industryand communications was takenbecause it was assumed that

Fighter Command was virtuallyeliminated. On 16 September, theday after the mauling inflicted onthe daylight bomber raids againstLondon, Goering announced thatFighter Command had just 177operational aircraft left. GermanAir Intelligence estimated thatthere were only 300 British fightersleft altogether, including reserves,and a monthly output of 250. On19 September Fighter Commandhad an actual operational strengthof 656; there were 202 aircraft inimmediate reserve, 226 inpreparation; output of fightersbetween 7 September and 5

October was 428.19 Thediscrepancy was critical. Germanairmen were ordered to fight inSeptember as if Fighter Commandhad been all but eliminated; thereality was a level of attrition sohigh that the German Air Forcecould not sustain it for more than afew weeks. The casualties of thisparadox were German aircrew whofought a battle that bore littlerelation to the one theircommanders told them to expect.

Fighter Command, on the otherhand, could not afford to becomplacent. The high lossesinflicted on the German Air Force

reduced the threat, but as long as itwas assumed that the enemy wasmuch stronger there could be noquestion of relaxing any particle ofeffort. In the western intelligencecommunity there existed aprofound misapprehension of thescale and character of the Germanair fleets, even though by Augustdetails were being suppliedregularly from ‘Ultra’ decrypts ofGerman Air Force Enigma traffic.For a long time it was assumed thateach German squadron wasstronger than it actually wasbecause the balance betweenreserves and operational aircraft

had not been properly understood.American air intelligence officerscalculated German aircraft outputat around 26,000 in 1940, rising to42,000 in 1941, with at least31,000 pilots trained between July1939 and December 1940 to flythem; German first-line combatstrength was estimated at 11,000,with 100 per cent reserves. Britishestimates were more modest thanthis: Air Intelligence suggestedoutput of 24,400 aircraft in 1940,and a front-line strength of 5,800in August. The true figures were farbelow these estimates. Aircraftoutput was in fact only 10,247 in

1940 and 12,401 in 1941; GermanAir Force first-line strength inSeptember 1940 was 3,051 aircraftof all types, of which 2,054 (68 percent) were serviceable. Of thisfigure approximately 80 per centwas used for the assault onBritain.20 Some intelligenceestimates were better than others(the Ministry of Economic Warfarewas spot on with an estimate of3,000 front-line strength, but wasdisregarded by the airmen). Notuntil the spring of 1941 didestimates begin to approachreality. The British fought the airbattle as if it were a last-ditch

struggle against an overwhelmingenemy; the German side foughtagainst a force persistentlymisrepresented as technically andtactically inept, short of aircraft,pilots and bases. This psychologicalcontrast put the German Air Forceat a perpetual disadvantage.

The German failure to win airsupremacy was beyond doubt byOctober as the air conflict slowlysubsided. Neither side was defeatedin any conventional sense. Thoughthe battlefield was littered with thedebris of combat, the two fighterforces in October each had around700 operational aircraft and

sufficient numbers of trained pilotsto fly them, a balance of forces notvery different from the start of thebattle. German losses greatlyexceeded those of the RAF becauseof the vulnerability of bombers anddive-bombers. Between 10 July and31 October the RAF lost 915aircraft, the German Air Force1,733. Losses on both sides weresoon made good. The outcome wastechnically a stalemate. Britishforces had little prospect of re-entering Continental Europe;German forces could not, underpresent circumstances, invade oroccupy Britain.

The public was at first onlydimly aware of the significance ofthe battle they had witnessed dayafter day, framed against theautumn skies. When Orwell readthe official narrative in April 1941,he was surprised by ‘the way inwhich “epic” events never seemvery important at the time’.21 Theconflict was not yet presented asthe familiar Battle of Britain. WhenChurchill used the term in a speechin June, he was referring to thewhole field of conflict, not simplyto the battles of air defence. Whenthe speech was reprinted later inthe year, the Battle of France was

capitalized, but the ‘battle ofBritain’ was not. Park talked aboutthe Battle of London; the armycommander-in-chief of SouthernCommand, General (later FieldMarshal) Alexander thought thatthe heavy night bombing in thewinter heralded the onset of whathe called the ‘Battle of England’.22

The lack of any clear sense that agreat battle had been won wasreflected in the treatment of thosewho had won it. The fighter acesfor the most part remainedanonymous because the RAFwanted to avoid the pitfalls ofglamorizing a few heroes at the

expense of the rest of the force.Once the daylight battles wereover, the commanders who broughtvictory were dispensed with.Throughout the battle a backstairsintrigue was conducted againstNewall and Dowding, involving,among others, the veteran airmanLord Trenchard and the Minister ofAircraft Production, LordBeaverbrook. A whisperingcampaign against Newall’s allegedincompetence, begun by a juniorofficer in the Air Ministry, reachedSinclair and Churchill. Enough ofthe mud stuck. On 2 October it wasdecided that Newall should be

replaced by Air Marshal Sir CharlesPortal. Dowding in the meantimefound himself once again at oddswith the Air Staff, who believedthat he was not taking effectiveaction against German night-bombing. Despite Churchill’ssupport for him earlier in the year,the political pressure to get rid ofthe man who had just led FighterCommand to victory becameirresistible. Dowding was finallyreplaced in November by SholtoDouglas. He departed under acloud; he was posted to America tohelp promote Britain’s campaignfor economic aid, but he was not a

success. He retired in 1941 toindulge his enthusiasm forparanormal phenomena.23

The Air Ministry decision topublish a publicity pamphlet on theair battles finally gave the conflictthe narrative shape it had hithertolacked. Battle of Britain, a 32-pageaccount of the air battle, wasproduced in March 1941. Morethan a million copies were sold inBritain alone. It was printed anddistributed separately in the UnitedStates and the Dominions. TheMinistry chose 8 August as the datethe battle started, and 31 Octoberwas selected arbitrarily for the end.

More than anything else, Battle ofBritain gave the conflict thelegendary dimensions it has borneever since. Dowding was notinvolved, or even mentioned in thetext. He was supposed to have beeninvited to write his own despatchon the air operations, but theMinistry forgot to authorize it.Only later in 1941, when Churchillasked to see what Dowding hadwritten, did the Ministry invite himto offer his views on the battle. The‘Battle of Britain Despatch’ wascompleted in August 1941. A yearlater Churchill asked once againwhat impact the despatch had had

when it was distributed, only to betold that it had been too sensitive adocument to circulate beyond aselect few in the Ministry.24

Dowding’s views on the battle,which were a good deal more hard-headed than those presented in theAir Ministry pamphlet, were lockedaway until the war was over.

One of the purposes in producingthe pamphlet was for propaganda,particularly in the United Stateswhere the battle had attracted lessattention than the Blitz. Theimages of blazing London filed byAmerican journalists, along withpoignant eye-witness accounts of

the bombing, stirred popularopinion, though it did not bring theUnited States any nearer tobelligerency. The battle had lessresonance abroad, in part becauseit was just one corner of a largercanvas of war. The Americanpublic maintained a livelyscepticism over the claims madeabout German aircraft losses, andChurchill in August 1940 thoughtabout banning Americanjournalists altogether from the fieldof battle.25 The American publicwas more interested in theJapanese war with China and thewar at sea, and leaders and led

alike were absorbed in Roosevelt’sefforts to be elected president foran unprecedented third term. Manyinfluential Americans came tofavour giving Britain economicassistance, but in governmentcircles the view still circulated thatBritain might well be defeated asFrance had been, and Americangoods fall into the wrong hands. InAugust, at the height of the airbattle, the most important issue inAnglo-American relations was theargument over the precise terms ofthe deal to give Britain 50destroyers in exchange forAmerican bases on British colonial

territory. Even a lifeline as slenderas this was interpreted at homeand abroad as a symbol ofAmerica’s willingness to supportthe efforts of an embattled sisterdemocracy. Yet in the long run, asChurchill rightly recognized,Britain’s successful defiance ofGermany made possible American’slater entry into Europe, withoutwhich Britain’s hope of victory wasslight.

The Battle of Britain matteredabove all to the British people, whowere saved the fate that overtookthe rest of Europe. The result wasone of the key moral moments of

the war, when the uncertaintiesand divisions of the summer gaveway to a greater sense of purposeand a more united people. This wasa necessary battle, as Stalingradwas for the eastern front. In JuneKenneth Clark reported to theMinistry of Information the effectsof a recent morale campaign. Heconfessed that the campaign hadnot been a success: ‘people do notknow what to do… difficulty arosein satisfying the people that thewar could be won’.26 By Novemberthe mood was less desperate. AGallup Poll showed 80 per cent ofrespondents confident that Britain

would win in the end. Ministryinformers reported a widespreaddesire to end the propaganda‘Britain can take it’ and tosubstitute the slogan ‘Britain cangive it!’27

Even civilians enjoyed the sensethat they, too, could contributedirectly to the war effort throughtheir own sacrifices andendeavours. There emerged anevident mood of exhilaration whenthe population found itself fightingat last after months of inactivity.Men flocked in thousands to jointhe Local Defence Volunteers,though they were poorly organized

and scarcely armed by the timeinvasion was likely: many wouldhave been treated, as the Germanside made clear at the time, asirregular militia, subject tosummary execution. The Battle ofBritain and the Blitz that followedcontributed to the growing sensethat this was a people’s war. Thereis more than a touch of irony thatthe battle was actually won by atiny military elite, and at the costof only 443 pilots in four months.28

The heroic defences on the easternfront, of Moscow and Sevastopoland Stalingrad, cost the defender,soldier and civilian, millions of war

dead. The efficiency of Britain’sdefensive effort in 1940 was one ofits most remarkable features. The‘few’ did indeed save the manyfrom a terrible ordeal.

The air battles were necessary torouse the self-belief and stayingpower of a people demoralized bythe sudden collapse of democraticEurope in the summer of 1940. Noone pretends that the Battle ofBritain decided the war, or that itpapered over all the cracks thatappeared in British morale andoutlook in 1940. With hindsight itmight have been fought moreeffectively, though British air

defences were manifestly betterorganized than most other areas ofBritain’s war effort. The cost oflosing the battle would have speltnational disaster. No appeasingpeace with Hitler could havemasked the reality of defeat. TheBattle of Britain was the first pointsince 1931, when Japan occupiedManchuria, that the forces ofviolent revision in world affairswere halted. In a radio broadcastin 1942, George Orwell remindedhis listeners that Trafalgar Day hadjust been celebrated. He suggestedthat Trafalgar played the samepart in the Napoleonic wars ‘as the

Battle of Britain in 1940 occupiedin this one’. In both cases invasionand defeat would have meant aEurope ‘given over to militarydictatorship’. After Trafalgar theinvasion scare subsided ‘andthough it took another ten years towin the war, it was at any ratecertain that Britain could not beconquered at one blow’.29 To theBritish people, then and now, thatwas sufficient.

NOTES

The following abbreviations havebeen used throughout the Notes:

ADAP:Akten zur deutschenausäwrtigen Politik

AHB:Air Historical Branch,Ministry of Defence,London

BA-MA:

Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv,Freiburg

CAS: Chief of Air Staff

COS: Chiefs of Staff

FCNA:Führer Conferences on NavalAffairs, 1939–1945 (London,1990)

GAF: German Air Force

IWM:Imperial War Museum,London

OKW:Supreme Command of theArmed Forces

Public Record Office, Kew,

PRO: London

RAF: Royal Air Force

RDF: Radio Direction Finding

ONE THE SETTING

1 PRO AIR 14/381, Plan W1, ‘Appreciation ofthe Employment of the British Air StrikingForce’, April 1938, p. 1.2 R. Rhodes James (ed.), ‘Chips’: The Diaries ofSir Henry Channon (London, 1993), p. 215; gasmasks in PRO INF 1/264, Home Intelligence,summaries of daily reports, 28 March 1940.3 K.-H. Völker, Dokumente und Dokumentarfotos

zur Geschichte der deutschen Luftwaffe (Stuttgart,1968), doc. 200, pp. 469–71.4 PRO AIR 1/5251, report by the Brooke-Popham Committee, 16 July 1940, p. 3.5 PRO AIR 14/181, Commander, Advanced AirStriking Force to Bomber Command HQ, 5 March1940; AIR 9/117, Anglo-French staffconversations, ‘The Attack on German RailwayCommunications’, 26 April 1939.6 AHB, ‘Battle of Britain: Despatch by Air ChiefMarshal Sir Hugh Dowding, 20 August 1941’(hereafter: AHB, Dowding ‘Despatch’), p. 8.7 PRO CAB 120/294, Air Ministry report to WarCabinet, 24 June 1940; German losses in N. L. R.Franks, The Air Battle of Dunkirk (London, 1983),p. 194. British losses over Dunkirk totalled 177,including 106 fighters: see R. Jackson, Air WarOver France May – June 1940 (London, 1974), p.121.

8 Lloyd George in G. Eggleston, Roosevelt,Churchill and the World War II Opposition (OldGreenwich, Conn., 1979), p. 130; Churchillspeech in M. Gilbert (ed.), The Churchill WarPapers, vol. 2 (London, 1994), p. 368.9 R. A. Callahan, Churchill: Retreat from Empire(Delaware, 1984), p. 79; P. Addison, ‘LloydGeorge and Compromise Peace in the SecondWorld War’, in A. J. P. Taylor (ed.), Lloyd George:Twelve Essays (London, 1971), p. 381.10 PRO ΡREM 7/2, letter from Foreign Office toDesmond Morton, 28 May 1940.11 PRO INF 1/264, Home Intelligence dailyreports: 28 May 1940, p. 1; 31 May 1940, p. 1.12 Addison, ‘Lloyd George…’, pp. 365,378; A.Roberts, The ‘Hοly Fox’: A Biography of LordHalifax (London, 1991), p. 243.13 PRO INF 1/878, War Cabinet conclusions, 18May 1940, p. 3.

14 PRO PREM 7/2, note from Morton toChurchill, 30 May 1940, enclosing note byCadogan dated 25 May 1940.15 PRO INF 1/264, Home Intelligence dailyreports, 17 June 1940.16 PRO INF 1/264, Home Intelligence dailyreports, 17 June, 18 June, 20 July 1940.17 PRO AIR 9/447: War Ministry, Plans Division,‘Eire’, 31 May 1940, pp. 1–3; COS meeting onhome defence, 7 July 1940.18 PRO AIR 9/447, Air Ministry minute, 20 June1940.19 PRO INF 1/849, Ministry of Information,Policy Committee: meeting of 8 July 1940, p. 2;meeting of 23 July 1940; meeting of 24 July1940; INF 1/264, Home Intelligence daily reports,20 July 1940. See too D. Cooper, Old Men Forget:The Autobiography of Duff Cooper (London,1953), pp. 286–7.

20 V. Cowles, Looking for Trouble (London,1941), pp. 416–17.21 W. Boelcke (ed.), The Secret Conferences of DrGoebbels (London, 1970), p. 60, meeting of 3June 1940.22 H.-A. Jacobsen (ed.), Generaloberst Halder:Kriegstagebuch (3 vols, Stuttgart, 1963), vol. 2,pp. 30–31, entry for 22 July 1940.23 FCNA, pp. 110–11, ‘Conference with theFührer’, 20 June 1940; Jacobsen (ed.),Kriegstagebuch, p. 3, entry for 1 July 1940.24 ADAP, Serie D, Band X, p. 56, minute of statesecretary, 30 June 1940.25 IWM, EDS collection, OKW Aktennotiz,‘Chefbesprechung’, 12 June 1940.26 ADAP, Serie D, Band X: p. 105, Schulenburg toGerman Foreign Office, 5 July 1940; pp. 202–3,Prince Max von Hohenlohe to German ForeignOffice, 18 July 1940; p. 216, Dublin Embassy to

German Foreign Office, 22 July 1940.27 M. Muggeridge (ed.), Ciano’s Diary, 1939 –1943 (London, 1947), p. 275, entry for 7 July1940.28 FCNA, pp. 116–17, Directive 16, ‘Preparationsfor the Invasion of England’.29 M. Domarus, Hitler: Reden undProklamationen 1932 – 1945 (3 vols, Munich,1963), vol. 2, pp. 115–18; W. Shirer, BerlinDiary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent,1934 – 1941 (London, 1941), PP. 355–8.30 Shirer, Berlin Diary, pp. 355–6.31 On Halifax see Roberts, ‘Holy Fox,’ p. 249; onBerlin see Shirer, Berlin Diary, p. 360.32 See J. Förster, ‘Hitler Turns East – GermanWar Policy in 1940 and 1941’, in B. Wegner (ed.),From Peace to War: Germany, Soviet Russia andthe World, 1939 – 1941 (Oxford, 1997), pp. 117–24; E. M. Robertson, ‘Hitler Turns from the West

to Russia, May – December 1940’, in R. Boyce(ed.), Paths to War: New Essays on the Origins ofthe Second World War (London, 1989), pp. 369–75.

TWO THE ADVERSARIES

1 PRO AIR 22/72, Air Ministry weeklyintelligence summary, report for 18 July 1940, p.4.2 FCNA, pp. 124–5, ‘Conference with theFührer’, 31 July 1940.3 M. Dean, The Royal Air Force and Two WorldWars (London, 1979), ΡΡ.100–101.4 Details in R. Wright, Dowding and the Battle ofBritain (London, 1969), PP. 73–6,138–44.5 PRO PREM 3/29, summarized order of battle,

19 June 1940, 9 August 1940.6 AHB, ‘The Battle of Britain: A NarrativePrepared in the Air Historical Branch’, n.d., p.574.7 PRO AIR 22/293, Cabinet Statistical Branch,‘Statistics on Aircraft Production, Imports andExports, Schedule D, Exports of Fighters’.8 PRO AIR 22/493, Schedule C, weekly importsApril–November 1940.9 PRO AIR 8/372, War Cabinet conclusions, 22May 1940; minute, Chief of Air Staff, 22 May1940; Cripps to the War Cabinet, 26 June 1940.10 PRO AIR 16/365, ‘Fighter Command,Operational Strength of Squadrons and Order ofBattle’.11 PRO AIR 22/262, ‘Daily Returns of Casualtiesto RAF Aircraft’, 25 June–29 September 1940.12 AHB, Dowding ‘Despatch’: p. 27; on self-sealing tanks, Appendix F. See too PRO AIR

16/715, HQ no. 24 Training Camp to HQ FighterCommand, 1 October 1940, ‘Notes ofConversations with Fighter Pilots’.13 PRO AIR 22/296, Cabinet Statistical Branch,‘Personnel: Casualties, Strength, Establishment ofthe RAF’; W. Murray, Luftwaffe: Strategy forDefeat, 1933 – 1945 (London, 1985), p. 54; C.Webster and N. Frankland, The Strategic AirOffensive against Germany 1939 – 1945 (4 vols,London, 1961), vol. 4, p. 501, Appendix 49(xxviii).14 PRO AIR 8/463, Air Intelligence, ‘Present andFuture Strength of the German Air Force’,November 1940.15 PRO PREM 7/2, Churchill to General HastingsIsmay, 26 June 1940; War Cabinet Polish ForcesCommittee, meeting of 1 July 1940; ‘Minute,Position of the Polish Air Force in England’, 30June 1940. On efforts to find pilots, see AIR

6/70, Air Council minutes, 23 July, 6 August, 22August 1940; AIR 19/162, Churchill to Sinclair,12 August 1940.16 PRO AIR 22/296, ‘Casualties, Strength,Establishment of the RAF’; AIR 16/659: forChurchill’s comment see Churchill minute, 24June 1940; for Ismay, Fighter Command toIsmay, 27 June 1940. It took only three minutesto refuel a fighter, but ten minutes to rearm it.17 AHB, Dowding ‘Despatch’, pp. 11–12.18 PRO CAB 120/309, ‘Notes of Meeting, 16September 1940, on Inland Looking’; on theObserver Corps see D. Wood and D. Dempster,The Narrow Margin: The Battle of Britain and theRise of Air Power, 1930 – 1940 (London, 1961),pp. 153–8.19 S. Cox, ‘A Comparative Analysis of RAF andLuftwaffe Intelligence in the Battle of Britain,1940’, Intelligence and National Security, 5

(1990), pp. 432–4; F. H. Hinsley et al., BritishIntelligence in the Second World War, vol. 1(London, 1979), pp. 177–82.20 Details in AHB, Dowding ‘Despatch’, p. 10. A‘Purple’ warning was later added at night to warnservices such as stations and docks to extinguishall work-essential lighting as an attacking forceapproached. Cooper’s remark in PRO INF 1/849,Policy Committee meeting, 1 July 1940. On anti-aircraft defences see B. Collier, The Defence of theUnited Kingdom (London, 1957), pp. 153–4.21 PRO AIR 9/136, Air Ministry, draftmemorandum, ‘Measures to be Taken in theEvent of a German Invasion of England’, 29October 1939, pp. 1–8.22 PRO AIR 16/212, Fighter Commandoperational instructions, 8 July 1940, pp. 1–8;operational instructions, 18 September 1940, pp.2–4.

23 PRO AIR 9/136, ‘Measures to be Taken…’, p.2.24 PRO WO 199/22, report for GHQ HomeForces, 31 July 1940, prepared by Major-GeneralB. Taylor; Commander, London area, to GHQHome Forces, 24 August 1940. ‘Despatch’, p. 18.25 PRO PREM 3/88 (3), War Cabinet, COSmemorandum, ‘Plans for Employment of Gasfrom the Air in Retaliation for its Use against Usby the Enemy’, 8 October 1940; AIR 9/136, AirMinistry memorandum, ‘Bomber and FighterEfforts Available to Counter an AttemptedInvasion’, 5 March 1941.26 PRO AIR 9/447, Air Ministry, Plans Division:draft directive to Air Officer Commanding inIreland, 24 June 1940; ‘Minute from Director ofPlans’, 2 June 1940.27 W. Green, Warplanes of the Third Reich(London, 1970), p. 544.

28 The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force,1933 – 1945 (London, 1983, reprinted from AHBnarrative, 1948), pp. 75–6.29 Pre-war planning in National Archives,microcopy T177, roll 31, ‘Nachschubzahlen fürLuftfahrtgerät’, 1 April 1938 (which estimatedoutput of 1,753 per month on mobilization).Plans 15 and 16 in ΒΑ-MA, RL3 159,Lieferprogramm Nr 15,1 September 1939, andFlugzeug-Beschaffungs-Programm Nr 16, 28October 1939. The 1940 plan in ΒΑ-MA, RL3162,Lieferplan Nr 18,1 July 1940.30 British figure from PRO AIR 22/293,‘Statistics: Aircraft Production, Imports andExports, Schedule B’ (production from 1 June to30 September).31 D. Irving, The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe:The Life of Erhard Milch (London, 1973), p. 136.32 PRO AIR 16/635, HQ 11 Group to HQ Fighter

Command, 7 November 1940, ‘German Attackson England 11 September–31 October 1940’, pp.6–9.33 Murray, Luftwaffe, pp. 54–5; Webster andFrankland, Strategic Air Offensive, vol. 4, p. 501.34 PRO AIR 22/72, Air Ministry weeklyintelligence summary, 8 August 1940, p. 3.35 PRO AIR 22/72, weekly summary, 15 August1940, p. 4.36 AHB, ‘Battle of Britain’ narrative, Appendix37, ‘German Views on the Battle of Britain’, p. 1(based on interviews with Field Marshal ErhardMilch and General Adolf Galland).37 H. Trevor-Roper (ed.), Hitler’s War Directives1939 – 1945 (London, 1966), pp. 74–9, Directive16,16 July 1940; pp. 79–80, Directive 17, 1August 1940. AHB, ‘The Course of the Air Waragainst England’, translation of German AHBstudy, 7 July 1944, pp. 1–2.

38 PRO AIR 40/2444, O. Bechtle lecture,‘German Air Force Operations against GreatBritain, Tactics and Lessons Learned 1940–1941’,2 February 1944, pp. 2–4.39 E. Fröhlich (ed.), Die Tagebücher von JosephGoebbels: Sämtliche Fragemente (4 vols, Munich,1987), vol. 3, pp. 264, 270, 271.40 Goebbels, Tagebücher, p. 277.

THREE THE BATTLE

1 PRO AIR 40/2444, Bechtle lecture, pp. 7–8.2 AHB, Dowding ‘Despatch’, p. 5.3 PRO AIR 22/478, RAF Wireless IntelligenceService, daily summary, 13 August 1940. See tooAIR 22/72, Air Ministry weekly intelligencesummary, 15 August 1940, p. 1 – activity was

‘much higher than had been normal’.4 PRO AIR 16/432, report on enemy activityover Great Britain, 27/28 June 1940.5 C. Goulter, A Forgotten Offensive: Royal AirForce Coastal Command’s Anti-Shipping Campaign1940 – 1943 (London, 1995), pp. 111–22.6 PRO AIR 9/447, Air Ministry, Director ofPlans, memorandum, ‘Employment of the AirStriking Force’, 8 July 1940.7 Webster and Frankland, Strategic Air Offensive,vol. 4, pp. 118 – 24.8 PRO AIR 22/296, ‘Casualties, Strength andEstablishment of the RAF’. In mid-August thedeficiency of bomber pilots reached a peak of219; the highest deficiency of fighter pilots was181 on 24 August.9 PRO AIR 16/432, Home Security intelligencesummary, 31 July/1 August.10 PRO AIR 16/216, HQ 11 Group to all Group

controllers, 19 August 1940.11 AHB, ‘Course of the Air War…’, p. 2; FCNA,p. 128, OKW directive, 16 August 1940.12 AHB, ‘Battle of Britain’ narrative, Appendix 8III, ‘Table of Chief Attacks on Airfields and RDFStations’, pp. 1–9.13 AHB, ‘Battle of Britain’ narrative, Appendix34 II, ‘Fighter Command Aircraft Destroyed orDamaged on the Ground’.14 This paragraph and following account in PROAIR 16/635, ‘Notes of Damage and Repairs atCertain Fighter Aerodromes’, 21 September 1940.15 PRO AIR 16/216: HQ 11 Group to all Groupcontrollers, 19 August 1940; telegram from 11Group HQ to all airfields, 20 August 1940.16 AHB, ‘Battle of Britain’ narrative, Appendix 8III.17 Jacobsen (ed.), Kriegstagebuch, vol. 2, p. 81,entry for 30 August 1940; Rise and Fall, p. 85.

18 PRO AIR 22/293, Schedule E, ‘Number ofAircraft in Storage Units’; PREM 3/29 (3),summarized order of battle, 6 September 1940;AIR 16/635, Fighter Command HQ, operationalstrength, 1 September 1940.19 PRO AIR 22/262, ‘Daily Return of Casualtiesto RAF Aircraft’, 25 June–29 September 1940.20 Rise and Fall, pp. 82–3; see too O. Groehler,Geschichte des Luftkriegs (Berlin, 1981), p. 272,for figures on aggregate German losses.21 AHB, Dowding ‘Despatch’, pp. 21–4.22 J. Colville, The Fringes of Power: 10 DowningStreet Diaries 1939 – 1945 (London, 1985), p. 227,entry for 20 August 1940. Colville confessed in afootnote that he did not even notice the sentencewhen he sat listening to the speech. Theinvention of the remark can be found in J.Winant, A Letter from Grosvenor Square: AnAccount of a Stewardship (London, 1947), pp.

29–30.23 Gilbert, Churchill War Papers, pp. 693–4,speech to the House of Commons, 20 August1940.24 Cowles, Looking for Trouble, pp. 424–6.25 N. Nicolson (ed.), Harold Nicolson: Diaries andLetters 1939 – 1945 (London, 1967), p. 111, entryfor 7 September 1940.26 PRO AIR 8/315, Chief of the Air Staff,‘Analysis of the G. A. F. Personnel Losses, July–October 1940’; AIR 22/72, Air Ministry weeklyintelligence summary, report for 12 September1940, p. 3; A. Galland, The First and the Last(London, 1955), p. 34.27 AHB, Dowding ‘Despatch’, p. 20.28 AHB, Dowding ‘Despatch’, p. 24; PROT265/19, Treasury Inter-Service Committee,meeting of 3 October 1940 for final decision; AIR16/635, HQ 11 Group to HQ Fighter Command, 7

November 1940, ‘German Attacks on England 11September-31 October’, p. 14.29 PRO AIR 16/635, HQ 11 Group to HQ FighterCommand, 12 September 1940, pp. 6–7;Dowding to Air Ministry, 22 September 1940,‘German Attacks on England 8 August–10September’, pp. 1–2. See too AHB, Dowding‘Despatch’, pp. 18–19.30 IWM, EDS documents, AL 1492, OKWAktennotiz, 20 August 1940.31 PRO AIR 40/2444, Bechtle lecture, p. 4; K.Maier, ‘Die Luftschlacht um England’, in Dasdeutsche Reich und der zweite Weltkrieg, vol. 2(Stuttgart, 1979), p. 386. See too J. Ray, TheNight Blitz 1940 – 1941 (London, 1996), pp. 97–102.32 Jacobsen (ed.), Kriegstagebuch, p. 100, entryfor 14 September 1940.33 Goebbels, Tagebücher, p. 313.

34 PRO AIR 9/447: COS meeting, ‘BombardmentPolicy’, June 1940; Air Ministry, Director ofPlans, memorandum, 8 July 1940.35 PRO AIR 40/2444, Bechtle lecture, p. 5; AIR22/72, Air Ministry weekly intelligencesummaries, 8 August, 12 September 1940.36 PRO AIR 16/635, HQ 11 Group to HQ FighterCommand, 12 September 1940, p. 5.37 Goebbels, Tagebücher, p. 315, entry for 9September 1940.38 Shirer, Berlin Diary, pp. 381, 384.39 Goebbels, Tagebücher, p. 296, entry for 27August 1940; Shirer, Berlin Diary, p. 384.40 Maier, ‘Luftschlacht’, p. 405.41 PRO AIR 16/432, Home Security intelligencesummaries, reports of operations, 24/25 August,25/26 August, 28/29 August.42 PRO AIR 16/635: HQ 11 Group to HQ FighterCommand, 7 November 1940, pp. 1–5; HQ 11

Group to HQ Fighter Command, 12 September1940, pp. 4–6; AHB, Dowding ‘Despatch’, pp.11–12.43 PRO AIR 16/635, HQ 11 Group to HQ FighterCommand, 7 November 1940, pp. 3–4,12.44 Bekker, Luftwaffe Diaries, p. 226; Collier,Defence of the United Kingdom, pp. 244 – 5.45 FCNA, pp. 133–5, ‘Conference with theFührer’, 6 September 1940; p. 136, Naval Staffmemorandum, 10 September 1940. Maier,‘Luftschlacht’, pp. 386–7.46 Jacobsen (ed.), Kriegstagebuch, vol. 2, pp. 98–9, entry for 14 September 1940.47 FCNA, pp. 136–9: ‘Conference with theFührer’, 14 September 1940; OKW directive, 19September 1940; OKW directive, 12 October1940. Jacobsen (ed.), Kriegstagebuch, vol. 2, p.99.48 FCNA, p. 137, memorandum from Admiral

Raeder, 14 September 1940; Jacobsen (ed.),Kriegstagebuch, vol. 2, p. 100; Maier,‘Luftschlacht’, pp. 390–91.49 L. E. O. Charlton, War over England (London,1936), pp. 158–81.50 PRO INF 1/264, Home Intelligence dailyreports, 27 June 1940.51 PRO INF 1/264, reports for 28 June, 6September 1940.52 PRO INF 1/264, report for 23 August 1940.53 J. Langdon-Davies, Nerves versus Nazis(London, 1940), pp. 7, 14, 17–18.54 PRO INF 1/264, Home Intelligence dailyreports, 6 September 1940.55 PRO INF 1/264, reports for 9,10 September1940.56 G. Orwell, ‘War-time Diary: 1940’, entry for25 October 1940, in The Collected Essays,Journalism and Letters (4 vols, London, 1968),

vol. 2, pp. 427–8.57 PRO INF 1/292 Part I, Home Intelligenceweekly reports, report for 30 September–9October, p. 1.58 Hinsley, British Intelligence, vol. 1, pp. 172–3,184–5.59 PRO AIR 16/356: Air Ministry to Dowding, 1August, 27 August 1940; cypher messages,Fighter Command, 7 September, 22 September,24 September, 13 October, 25 October.60 PRO INF 1/283, Ministry of Informationnewsletter, ‘Questions the Public Are Asking’, 23September, 9 October; Cowles, Looking forTrouble, p. 446.61 Orwell, ‘War-time Diary: 1940’, p. 394·62 PRO INF 1/292 Part I, Home Intelligenceweekly report, 4 November–11 November 1940,pp. 1–2; INF 1/849, Ministry of InformationPolicy Committee, meeting of 4 June 1940, p. 1.

63 AHB, Dowding ‘Despatch’, Appendix C.64 AHB, ‘Course of the Air War’, p. 3.65 PRO AIR 22/263, ‘Daily Returns of Casualtiesto RAF Aircraft’, 29 September 1940–31 January1941; AIR 16/635, HQ 11 Group to HQ FighterCommand, 7 November 1940, ‘German Attackson England 11 September–31 October 1940’, pp.6–12; German figures in Groehler, Geschichte desLuftkriegs, p. 272.66 Maier, ‘Luftschlacht’, p. 392; Groehler,Geschichte des Luftkriegs, p. 270.67 Goebbels, Tagebücher: p. 429, entry for 12December 1940; p. 410, entry for 24 November;p. 420, entry for 5 December 1940.

FOUR A VICTORY OFSORTS

1 H. Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, p. 126, letterfrom Nicolson to Vita Sackville-West, 8November 1940.2 Colville, Fringes of Power, p. 266.3 Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, p. 129, diary 22November 1940.4 PRO AIR 22/72, Air Ministry weeklyintelligence summary, 19 September 1940, pp.4–5.5 Nicolson, Diaries and Letters, p. 140, diary 23January 1941.6 PRO PREM 3/88 (3): Churchill to Ismay, 26December 1940; cypher message from MrO’Malley, Budapest, 4 February 1941; Portal(CAS) to Churchill, 13 February 1940.7 PRO AIR 8/463, Portal to Churchill, 18February 1941,20 March 1941.8 PRO AIR 9/136, Air Ministry memorandum,‘Bomber and Fighter Efforts Available to Counter

Attempted Invasion’, 5 March 1941; FCNA, p.172, ‘Conference with the Führer’, 8/9 January1941.9 G. Blumentritt, ‘Operation “Sealion” ’, in D.Detweiler (ed.), World War II German MilitaryStudies (24 vols, New York, 1979), vol. 7, pp. 10–11.10 H. Greiner, ‘Operation Seelöwe and IntensifiedAir Warfare against England up to October 301940’, in Detweiler, German Military Studies, vol.7, p. 10.11 Goebbels, Tagebücher, p. 429, entry for 12December 1940.12 FCNA, p. 172, ‘Conference with the Führer’,8/9 January 1941.13 Galland, First and Last, p. 45.14 PRO AIR 16/635, Dowding to Air Ministry, 15November 1940, p. 2.15 PRO PREM 3/29 (3), summarized order of

battle, 31 October 1940.16 Murray, Luftwaffe, p. 54.17 PRO AIR 22/72, Air Ministry weeklyintelligence summary, 26 September 1940; AIR8/315, CAS, ‘Analysis of GAF Personnel Losses’,July–October 1940.18 PRO 8/315, War Cabinet to CAS, 29 August1940.19 Maier, ‘Luftschlacht’, p. 391; PRO AIR16/365, Fighter Command operational strength,19 September 1940.20 Library of Congress, Washington DC, ArnoldPapers, Box 246: Chief of Intelligencememorandum, ‘Estimate of German AirStrength’, 21 January 1941, enclosing G2 report,‘Germany, Domestic Production, Capacity andSources of Aviation Equipment’, 16 January1941, pp. 1–9. PRO AIR 8/463: CASmemorandum, ‘Strength of the GAF’, 8 July

1940; ‘Present and Future Strength of the GermanAir Force’, 1 December 1940, pp. 1–3.21 Orwell, ‘War-time Diary: 1941’, p. 443, entryfor 8 April 1941.22 R. Churchill (ed.), Into Battle: Speeches by theRight Hon. Winston S. Churchill (London, 1941),p. 234, speech broadcast 18 June 1940; Nicolson,Diaries and Letters, p. 132, diary 31 December1940; PRO AIR 16/635, HQ 11 Group to HQFighter Command, November 1940, p. 4.23 See S. Ritchie, ‘A Political Intrigue against theChief of the Air Staff: The Downfall of Air ChiefMarshal Sir Cyril Newall’, War & Society, 16(1998), pp. 83–104.24 PRO AIR 19/258, letter from Air Ministry toSinclair, 5 April 1941, for details on thepamphlet; on the Despatch see AIR 2/7771,circulation list for Dowding’s Despatch, 14September 1941, CAB 120/311: Churchill to

Sinclair, 15 June 1941; Churchill to Portal, 23August 1942; Portal to Churchill, 27 August1942.25 PRO CAB 120/294, Churchill to Sinclair, 21August 1940. See N. J. Cull, Selling War: TheBritish Propaganda Campaign against American‘Neutrality’ in World War II (Oxford, 1995), ch.3.26 PRO INF 1/849, Ministry of InformationPolicy Committee, meeting of 21 June 1940, p. 1.27 PRO INF 1/292, Home Intelligence weeklyreport, 18–24 December 1940, p. 1.28 PRO AIR 22/100, ‘Fighter Command DailyCasualties’. According to the daily statisticsreported to the Air Ministry, from 1 July until 1November 1940 Fighter Command lost 284 pilotskilled on operations and 159 killed in non-operational situations. The discrepancy betweenthe two figures is difficult to explain. Post-war

calculations of total pilot casualties give a slightlyhigher figure of 458, most of whom died incombat. The number of genuinely accidentaldeaths has been calculated at somewherebetween 30 and 50. The Air Ministry figuressuggest that combat was defined more narrowlyat the time, which may explain the differencebetween wartime and post-war statistics. Inaddition to the pilot deaths, more than 200suffered serious injury.29 W. J. West, Orwell: The War Commentaries(London, 1985), pp. 168–9, broadcast 24 October1942.

TABLES AND MAPS

THE HURRICANE AND THE SPITFIRE:PRODUCTION, OPERATIONAL STRENGTH ANDLOSSES

Table 1: Production per week, June–November1940

Date Hurricanes Spitfires

1–7 June 87 22

8–14 June 79 22

15–21 June 67 25

22–28 June 75 21

29 June–5July

68 26

6–12 July 65 32

13–19 July 57 30

20–26 July 67 41

27 July–2August

65 37

3–9 August 58 41

10–16 August 54 37

17–23 August 43 31

24–30August

64 44

31 August–6September

54 37

7–13September

54 36

14–20September

56 38

21–27September

57 40

28September–4October

58 34

5–11 October 60 32

12–18October

55 31

19–25October

55 25

26 October–1November

69 42

Total 1,367 724

Table 2: Operational strength:number of squadrons, July–October1940

DateHurricanesquadrons

Spitfiresquadrons

14 July1940

10 Group 2 2

11 Group 12 7

12 Group 6 5

13 Group 5 5

Total 25 19

1September1940

10 Group 4 4

11 Group 14 6

12 Group 6 6

13 Group 9 2

Total 33 18

30

September1940

10 Group 6 3

11 Group 13 7

12 Group 6 6

13 Group 9* 3

Total 34 19

28October1940

10 Group 6 3

11 Group 13 8

12 Group 7 6

13 Group 7** 3

Total 33 20

Table 3: Operational losses perweek, July–November 1940(aircraft totally destroyed)

Date Hurricanes Spitfires

10 May–29

July 173 110

30 July–5August

2 9

6–12 August 47 25

13–19 August 84 38

20–26 August 39 33

27 August–2September

96 48

3–9September

86 53

10–16September

50 24

17–23September

21 19

24–30September

60 29

1–7 October 17 19

8–14 October 21 19

15–21October

18 14

22–28

October 22 16

29 October–4November

17 11

Total 753 467

(aspercentage)

61.7 38.3

Sources:Table 1: PRO AIR 22/293, ‘WeeklyOutput of Fighters’.Table 2: PRO AIR 16/365, ‘FighterCommand, Operational Strength ofSquadrons and Order of Battle’.

Table 3: PRO AIR 22/262, ‘DailyReturns of Casualties to RAFAircraft’, 25 June–29 September1940.SINGLE-ENGINED FIGHTER PILOT STRENGTH,RAF AND GERMAN AIR FORCE

Table 1: Fighter Command pilotstrength

Weekending

EstablishmentOperationalstrength

30 June1940

1,482 1,200

27 July 1,456 1,377

1940

17 August1940

1,558 1,379

31 August1940

1,558 1,422

14September1940

1,662 1,492

28September1940

1,662 1,581

19October1940

1,714 1,752

2November1940

1,727 1,796

Table 2: German Air Force, single-engined fighter pilot strength

DateFully operationalpilots

1 June 1940 906

1 August 1940 869

1 September1940

735

1 November1940

673

Sources:Table 1: PRO AIR 22/296,‘Personnel: Casualties, Strengthand Establishment of the RAF’.Table 2: C. Webster and N.Frankland, The Strategic AirOffensive against Germany (4 vols,

London, 1961), vol. 4, p. 501; W.Murray, Luftwaffe: Strategy forDefeat 1933–1945 (London, 1985),p. 54. For September, Webster andFrankland give a figure of 688operational pilots.

Index

Adlertagy 57–8Advanced Air Striking Force, 6–7air fleets see German air fleetsair intelligence

American, 115British, 38, 105German, 70, 72–3, 96, 113–14

Air Ministry (British), 3, 14, 31–2, 38, 46, 61, 64,70, 76, 110, 118–19

air raids see bombing; Blitzaircraft

British: Avro Lancaster, 54;Boulton-Paul Defiant, 35;Bristol Beaufighter 35, 95;Bristol Blenheim, 7, 35, 44, 95; Hawker

Hurricane, 7–8, 34–7, 52, 71, 73, 85–6, 145–7; Vickers Supermarine Spitfire, 8, 35–7, 52,

71, 73, 85–6, 97, 145–7German: Dornier 17, 54; Heinkel He 111, 53–4;

Heinkel He 113 (118), 53; Junkers Ju 87B,53, 72; Junkers Ju 88A–1, 54; MesserschmittMe 109 (Bf 109), 47, 50, 52, 97, 109, 111;Messerschmitt Me 110 (Bf 110), 53

Soviet: I 16 fighter, 35aircraft production, 33–4, 50–51, 114–16, 145Alexander, Harold, General, 117Anti-Aircraft Command, 42–3antisemitism, 92Atlantic Ocean, 14, 87Attlee, Clement, 105Australia, 15

Bader, Douglas, Wing-Commander, 85Balbo, Italo, 85Baltic states, 22Battle of the Atlantic, 107–8Battle of Britain Day, 86

Battle of Britain Despatch, 119Battle of Britain pamphlet, 118–19Beaverbrook, Lord 118Beaverbrook, Lord, 33–5Bechtle, Otto, 61Belgium, 48Bentley Priory (Fighter Command HQ), 39–40Berlin, 18, 21, 56–7, 78–83, 109Bern, 18Bessarabia, 22‘Big Wings’, 85–6Biggin Hill, 69Birmingham, 79Blitz, 66, 89–98, 106, 119, 121blockade, 17, 23, 56, 63, 107–8Blumentritt, Günther von, General, 108–9Bomber Command, 4–7, 44–5, 63–6, 74–5, 78–81bombing, 4, 55, 63–6, 79–82, 86–96, 104–5Brand, Quintin, Air Vice Marshall, 39Bristol, 79

Britain, 6–7, 14–23, 32, 34, 38, 50–51, 62, 78,88–90, 98, 103–9, 120–22

British Army, 108Brittany, 47Brooke, Sir Alan, General, 44Budapest, 105–6Butler, R. Α., 11Buxton, Charles Roden, 11

Cadogan, Sir Alexander, 12Cambridge, 105Canada, 15, 34, 113Carinhall, 56–7Chain Home radar stations, 40–41, 71–2Chamberlain, Neville, 3–6, 9–10Charlton, L. E. O., 89Cheadle, 42Chigwell, 83China, 120Churchill, Winston, xiii, 9–12, 16, 18, 29, 31, 38–

9, 46, 74–6, 98, 103–6, 117–20Ciano, Galeazzo, Count, 19–20Clark, Kenneth, 14, 120–21Coastal Command, 63, 65Command of the Air, 97–8Condor Legion, 48Conservative Party, 10Cooper, Duff, 43–4Cornwall, 66Coronation Chair, 10Cowles, Virginia 15, 75Crayford, 83Cripps, Sir Stafford, 18, 35CROMWELL, 93Croydon, 83, 90Czech crisis, 3

Daily Express, 94Danzig, xiiDean, Sir Maurice, 29

Devon, 66Douglas, Sholto, Air Marshall, 118Douhet, Giulio, General, 97–8Dover, 72Dowding, Sir Hugh, Air Chief Marshall, 8, 30–31,

37, 49, 61–2, 65, 76–7, 81, 86, 110–12, 118–19Dublin, 18Dulwich, 83Dunkirk (Kent), 72Dunkirk evacuation, 8–9, 15Duxford, 86

Economic Warfare Ministry, 116Egypt, xi, 104Eire see IrelandEl Alamein, Battle of, xi‘England-Committee’, 98English Channel, 16, 27, 42, 55, 62–4, 67, 86‘Enigma’, 42, 93, 115

Farnborough, 62Fighter Command, 8, 30–48, 54–7, 64–5, 71–9,

83–6, 93–7, 106–18operational strength, 32, 72–3, 112, 114, 116,

14610 Group, 32, 71, 8411 Group, 31, 67, 71, 74–7, 8412 Group, 32, 71, 74, 84–613 Group, 32, 74

First World War, 29–30, 51, 113France, 6–9, 12, 15–18, 21, 47–8, 55, 69, 77, 104,

117Franco, Francisco, General, 87, 107

Galland, Adolf, 109–10gas masks, 4German air fleets, 48German Air Force, 4, 27–8, 33, 42–55, 64–8, 75–

9, 83, 86, 88, 98, 103–4, 114–17operational strength, 32–3, 72–3, 116

German Army, 17, 22, 49, 108German Foreign Office, 17, 98German Navy, 16–17, 63, 88, 108German-Soviet Pact (1939), 11Germany, 14–17, 22, 33, 45, 47, 51–4, 64, 87–8,

95, 103, 120Glasgow, 43Goebbels, Joseph, 16, 19, 56–7, 80–82, 98–9Goering, Hermann, Reich Marshal, 19–20, 28–9,

50–51, 56–7, 68, 73, 79, 84, 89, 114Groups see Fighter Command

Halder, Franz, General, 16Halifax, Lord, 9–12, 20–21Harrogate Programme, 33Hart, Basil Liddell, 11Harwich, 62Hawker Aircraft Company, 37Hawkinge, 69Heinkel, Ernst, 53

Hendon, 83Hendon Air Show, 89Hitler, Adolf, 9–22, 27, 50, 56–7, 78, 87–9, 99,

107–10, 122Home Intelligence (British), 10–13, 90–95Hook of Holland, 63

Ilford, 83India, 15, 30Information Ministry, 14, 94–5, 106, 120–21invasion, 16–19, 68, 87–8, 92–4, 106–9Ireland, 13, 46–7Irish Republican Army (IRA), 14, 46Isle of Wight, 19, 72Italian Navy, 104Italy, 34, 74, 87, 94–5, 103, 107

Japan, 104, 120, 122Jeschonnek, Hans, General, 89Jodl, Alfred, General, 109

Joint Intelligence Committee (British), 13, 92

Kent, 47, 68–9Kesselring, Albert, Field Marshall, 48–9, 57, 111King’s Lynn, 57Kosovo, 89Kroll Opera House, 19

Labour Party, 10, 105Langdon-Davies, John, 90–92Leicester, 57Leigh-Mallory, Trafford, Air Vice-Marshall, 32,

85Liberal Party, 10, 29Liège, 45‘Linatex’, 37Liverpool, 43, 62, 79Lloyd-George, David, 9, 11Local Defence Volunteers, 121London, 7, 35, 43, 47, 55, 78–87, 90–95, 98, 117

losses, 72–3, 86–7, 96, 116–19, 147Lufthansa, 51Lympne, 69–70

Manchuria, 122Manston, 69–70Mediterranean, 87, 104, 107Middle East, 34–5Milch, Erhard, Field Marshall, 51Mill Hill, 83Ministry see under Ministry titleMoscow, 35, 121Mussolini, Benito, 87, 107

Netherlands, 48‘New Order’, 21New Zealand, 15Newall, Sir Cyril, Air Chief Marshall, 30–31, 34,

49, 118Newcastle, 62

Nicolson, Harold, 75, 103, 105Normandy, Battle of, xi, 109Norway, 47

Observer Corps, 40–41Old Kent Road, 83Olympia, 39Operation Barbarossa, 22Operation Sealion, 19, 22, 27, 56, 79, 87–9, 108–

9Operational Training Units, 73–4Orwell, George, 92, 117, 122Ostend, 63

Park, Keith, Air Vice-Marshall, 31–2, 39, 62, 67,70–71, 74–7, 81, 84–6, 110–11, 117

Pas de Calais, 48Passchendaele, Battle of, xiPile, Sir Frederick, Lt General, 42–3pilot numbers, 37–9, 54–5, 73–4, 112–13, 148

Plymouth, 91poison gas, 46–7, 105–6Poland, 3, 6, 55Polish Air Force, 7Polish Fighter Command squadrons, 38–9Portal, Sir Charles, Air Marshall, 118

Quade, General, 27

radar (RDF), 4, 40–42, 69, 72, 84Radio-Telephony Direction Finding (R/T-D/F),

40–41Raeder, Erich, Grossadmiral, 16–17, 27, 87–8Ramsgate, 19Red Army, 22Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 17–19Richmond, 83Richthofen squadron, 28Romania, 22Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 120

Rotterdam, 55, 64Royal Air Force (RAF), xii–xiii, 6–8, 23, 29–30,

35, 44–5, 49, 52, 56, 63–6, 72–7, 88, 106, 110–17

Royal Flying Corps, 29–30Royal Navy, 6, 63, 108

St Pancras, 83Schmidt, Josef ‘Beppo,’ Colonel, 114Schulenburg, Friedrich von der, 18Scotland, 13–14Scunthorpe, 62Sevastopol, 121Shirer, William, 20, 82Shropshire, 66‘Silent Column’ campaign, 14Sinclair, Sir Archibald, 28–9, 38, 118Slough, 83Somaliland, 103–4Somerset, 66

Somme, Battle of, xiSouth Africa, 15Southampton, 62, 91, 98Southgate, 83Soviet Union, 22, 34–5, 103, 107Spain, 87, 107Spanish Civil War, 48Sperrle, Hugo, Field Marshall, 48–9, 57, 111Stalingrad, 120–21Stanmore, 39–40Stockwell, 90Stumpff, Hans, General, 57Sudetenland, 13–14Surrey, 47Sussex, 47, 68–9Switzerland, 106

terror attacks, 5, 89, 97–8Tonbridge, 75Trafalgar, Battle of, xi, 122

Trafalgar Day, 122Treasury, 76Trenchard, Lord, Marshall of the RAF, 118

Udet, Ernst, Colonel, 51–3‘Ultra’ see ‘Enigma’United States of America, 103, 118–20USSR see Soviet UnionUxbridge (11 Group HQ), 74

Ventnor, 72

Wales, 13–14War Office, 13Warrington–Morris, A. D., Air Commodore, 41Warsaw, 55Wedel, Haffl von, Lt, 113Wembley, 83Western Front, 28Wimbledon, 83

Wood Green, 83

*includes 2 half-strength squadrons

**includes 1 part-strength squadron