Foreword

Authors’ introduction to original edition

In 1940 one of the most significant battles of history was fought in the skies over Britain. Its outcome had a profound effect on the future of the civilised world.

The Battle of Britain saved the country from invasion. If the R.A.F. had been defeated all the efforts of the Army and Navy could hardly have averted defeat in the face of complete German air superiority. With all Europe subjugated, Germany and Japan would later have met on the borders of India.

The undivided weight of the German war effort would then have fallen on Russia with the United States completely isolated.

It is unlikely that there will ever be a parallel to the Battle of Britain where armies and navies, immobilised on either side of the Channel, watched a few thousand combatants meet in the air above.

The battle was not, however, won in the period from July to October 1940 alone. The outcome was the culmination of the preparation, good judgment and error made in the preceding seven years.

On the face of it the Luftwaffe should have won the battle. It possessed superiority in numbers and bases stretching round two-thirds of Britain, but lacked any effective plan of campaign, intelligence facilities and above all operational scientific knowledge.

The battle marked the advent of controlled scientific warfare, which is the basis of defence strategy today. Science and enlightenment were employed in the British and not the German camp.

We have endeavoured to show, step by step, how the military machines of both sides were built up and how they finally came to grips in the summer of 1940. The battle has been laid out for the first time in the form of a complete operational day-to-day diary.

Most previous accounts of the battle have been divided into four phases, but close analysis of official records reveals a clear cut separation for the R.A.F. into five phases between July 11th and October 30th. The diary has accordingly been divided in this form.

German historians still persist in regarding the ‘Luftkrieg gegen England’ (air war against England) as one continuous battle from the summer of 1940 up to May 1941. Their own records refute this assertion. The beginning of all-out night blitz in November 1940 and the fading out of day bombing marked the end of a complete chapter in the air war. Invasion was no longer possible and direct assault on the R.A.F. and southern England gave way to a war against industry, the shipping lifelines and morale.

We have therefore ended the narrative in October, by which time Hitler had cancelled operation Seelöwe and already turned his eyes to the east.

The appendices have been made as comprehensive as possible to avoid the use of lengthy footnotes and cross-references. Original official British and German designations and nomenclature have been used except in one case where the prefix Me is given for the Messerschmitt Company. The abbreviation Me was not officially used until 1944 and Messerschmitt fighters were known by the letters Bf (Bayerische Fleugzeugwerke).

So many official German sources adopted the prefix Me in 1940 that it became a generic term in the Luftwaffe and the R.A.F. We have therefore used it to avoid confusion.

Throughout, the losses quoted for both sides are the official figures and not estimates. Suggestions have been made from time to time that the Luftwaffe casualty figures put out by the Air Ministry after the war were based on original records which were falsified for German propaganda purposes. Close examination of these records has shown that they are completely accurate. Losses were laid down in great detail in the Luftwaffe Quartermaster General’s returns for the period, and these were used as a basis for the replacement of aircraft and crews for pensions and administrative purposes. It is impossible to imagine any commander deliberately understating his casualties and thus losing the fresh aircraft and personnel he so vitally needed.

A military history which casts a net as wide as The Narrow Margin cannot be written without the help and goodwill of those who witnessed the events described. In the two years it took to write the book the paths of inquiry have led us to many people in Britain and the Continent of Europe to whom we should like to record our gratitude.

Particularly we are indebted to John Chappell, who advised on both layout and text from the early stages and who undertook the arduous task of reading the manuscript and the proofs.

We should also like to record our debt to the Air Ministry, in particular to Mr. L. A. Jackets and Mr. W. H. Martin of the Air Historical Branch. Much of the manuscript could not have been compiled or checked without their unfailing efforts. We are grateful, too, for the access permitted to official documents, some of which are quoted in this book. These are Crown Copyright.

Our thanks also go to General a. D. Paul Deichmann, Oberstlt d. O. Greffrath, and Herr F. W. Fischer of the German Air Historical Branch (Studiengruppe Luftwaffe bei der Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr), who supplied valuable material.

John Blake spent many hours ensuring the high accuracy of the maps and drawings. Our thanks go to him, and also to Flight Lieutenant J. H. Holloway, who compiled the full list of aircrew in the Battle of Britain which is appended at the end of this book.

In addition we are grateful to the Right Honourable The Earl of Swinton; Air Chief Marshal The Lord Dowding; Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park: Air Marshal W. P. G. Pretty; Air Commodore F. R. Banks; the late Air Marshal Sir Raymund Hart; Professor R. V. Jones; Sir Sydney Camm; Group Captain E. Fennessy; Group Captain R. Scott-Farnie; Professor P. M. S. Blackett; Dr. E. C. Williams; Mr. M. N. Golovine; Group Captain J. A. Kent; Group Captain A. C. Deere; Group Captain J. H. Hill; Group Captain T. P. Gleave; Wing Commander Havercraft; Wing Commander R. M. Milne; Wing Commander J. Seldon; Wing Commander J. Cherry; Squadron Leader R. M. Dye; Observer Commander F. W. Mitchell; Observer Commander G. A. D. Bourne; Observer Lieutenant R. D. T. Onions; Mr. E. C. Baker (G.P.O. Archivist); Major C. H. Vallence; Dr. and Mrs. H. Rieck; Field Marshal Erhard Milch; General W. Martini; General W. Gosewisch; Kapitàn Zür See H. Giessler; General A. Galland; General J. Steinhoff and Dr. Gaertner.

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the late Dr. E. E. Heiman, founder and proprietor of Interavia, and of the staff of the magazine, who were most helpful in providing material for this book.

There are many others who gave freely of their time, memories, documents and photographs; to them also we express our thanks.

The authors thank Cassell & Co., the publishers of Sir Winston Churchill’s History of the Second World War, for permission to quote from Volume Three of that work.

Introduction to revised, illustrated edition

It is unusual for an author to find himself writing a fresh introduction to a book which first appeared eight years before.

In this case, it is necessary because this is not just another edition, but a complete revision with a great deal of new material, plus more than two hundred illustrations. The only omission is the synopsis chapter which has made way for more pressing items.

When I approached the problem of illustrations my one fear was that there would be insufficient genuine pictures to do justice to the project. In fact the opposite has been the case and the only difficulty has been one of selection. On the British side long hidden photographs have come to light in private collections, while in Germany the Bundesarchiv collection of thousands of top-grade official illustrations of the 1940 period proved a revelation.

So many have assisted with this new volume that it is difficult to enumerate them all. First, however, I must place on record my gratitude to my colleague Derek Dempster for his continued aid.

I am deeply indebted to Lord Dowding for writing the Foreword and for the terms he has used. Robert Wright, whose book on Lord Dowding is shortly to appear, has also given most valuable assistance and guidance.

Wing Commander K. J. Powell gave unstinted help with both the first edition and this new version. An old friend and colleague, Mr. Roger Gillyns, provided many leads and introductions.

Mr. Christopher Elliott loaned a number of most useful maps and publications from his collection and also provided valuable information. Mr. Dennis Knight made available a great deal of new factual material and rare photographs from the very comprehensive Knight-Foote Collection.

I am very grateful to Mrs. Gillian Howell and Mr. Henry Howell for their help and permission to use documents, log books and photographs of the late Squadron Leader F. J. Howell.

Lt. Colonel Aviateur BEM M. Terlinden possesses an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Belgian Air Force and gave freely from his files. The Belgian Ministry of Defence kindly gave access to their excellent records.

The Imperial War Museum, as always, proved to be a mine of useful photographs and Mr. Hine was most helpful.

Mr. William Green gave freely of his time and his excellent archives, while Mr. W. O. J. Pyemont of Image In Industry Ltd. performed the impossible in turning out prints and copy negatives at a moment’s notice.

Thanks are also due to Lt. General Baron Donnet, Air Commodore P. M. Brothers, Professor Dr. Gley, Herr H. Walther, Group Captain J. Kent, Colonel P. Hordern, Mr. J. M. Bruce, Mr. John W. R. Taylor, Captain J. H. Mann, Mr. T. Angelle Weisse, Group Captain T. F. U. Lang, Herr Horst Burgsmuller, Wing Commander Asher Lee, Wing Commander R. P. Beamont, Mr. G. Squire and Mrs. J. Wiltsher.

Finally I would like to thank my wife who has not only done a great deal of work from the beginning, but has provided constant encouragement and put up with the midnight oil being burned on many occasions.

DEREK WOOD

Cuckfield, March, 1969

Prologue

In the spring of 1939 the giant airship Graf Zeppelin was presumed to be in honourable retirement in its shed at Frankfurt-am-Main after nearly eleven years of flying.

Instead, it was being prepared for the first military electronics reconnaissance in history, twenty-one years before the American U-2 hit the headlines with its crash in Russia.

General Wolfgang Martini, head of the Luftwaffe signals organisation, had for many months been interested to discover whether Britain possessed a workable radar for detecting aircraft. German firms were busy developing such equipment, and his suspicions had been heightened by the appearance of unusual 350-foot-high aerial masts round the south and east coasts of England.

When the first masts had gone up at Orfordness in Suffolk the German Air Force maps labelled them as belonging to a radio-transmitting station. Then Bawdsey showed similar towers and these were followed by others at Dunkirk and Dover in Kent and Canewdon in Essex. By early 1939 masts were up, or in process of erection, from the Isle of Wight to the Orkneys.

Martini urgently required to know the state of British radar, its wavelength and the number of sites operational. The tall masts with their crossed lattice aerials appeared, however, to be unsuited to the wavelengths which German scientists had deemed best for their own secret Freya and Würzburg radars. Accordingly, at a meeting with Göring, Milch and other air force commanders. Martini proposed that twelve airships be made available for high-frequency ‘research’.

At first the assembly was hostile to the idea, but began to show a more helpful attitude as Martini explained his purpose. He could not, he pointed out, use an aeroplane, as it was too small, lacked endurance and could not remain motionless in the air. With an airship he would have all the space necessary, many hours of flying time and the ability to stop and take readings where necessary.

Göring and Milch felt that any production of airships would use up large quantities of materials urgently needed for aircraft. Finally, however, it was agreed that Martini should use the two existing Zeppelins, L.Z.127 and L.Z.130, and if the experiments were successful four more should be ordered.

Work was immediately started on converting one of them into an airborne radio interrogation station. A number of new high-frequency receivers were installed and an aerial array rigged underneath the gondola.

Towards the end of May 1939 preparations were completed. Under cover of night the 776-foot-long airship slipped her moorings at Frankfurt and headed out over the North Sea. Her course stood westwards in the direction of the Bawdsey Research Station in Suffolk where the tall radio-transmitting masts were situated.

General Martini himself was on board for this trial run, which was mainly concerned with testing the receivers. Off Bawdsey, Graf Zeppelin turned north and flew parallel to the British east coast. The operators and technicians in the gondola anxiously waited for some response from the radio receivers, but each set emitted a loud crackling noise and nothing else.

At Canewdon and at Bawdsey the staff were amazed to find the largest ‘blip’ they had ever seen, travelling very slowly across the cathode-ray-tubes.

Fighter Command filter and operations rooms immediately began tracking on the map tables. It became evident that the strange visitor, because of its size and speed, could only be an airship. From its course along the coast it was correctly deduced that some sort of radar interrogation was in progress.

One by one the east coast Chain Home radars picked up Graf Zeppelin as it progressed northwards. Over the Humber estuary the airship transmitted a position report back to Germany. This was picked up by British radio intelligence who informed Fighter Command that the German ‘fix’ was a few miles off the coast of Yorkshire.

At the Bentley Priory operations table this news caused considerable amusement, as Graf Zeppelin’s correct position had just been established, in cloud, over Hull itself—well inland. Air Marshal Pretty (then a flight-lieutenant on radar duty at Fighter Command) recalls that ‘We were sorely tempted to radio a correction message to the airship but this would have revealed we were actually seeing her position on radar, so we kept silent.’

Off the north-east coast Graf Zeppelin turned for home, having picked up nothing but an appalling noise in the receivers. General Martini still did not know whether British radar was operational.

It was assumed that the interference was due to an installation defect and the reflections from the airship’s envelope. Modifications were made to the sets and to the aerial and further trial runs were made over Germany.

During one of these the engineer responsible for the aerial, Dr. Sailer, slipped on the ladder between the gondola and the special basket holding the aerial. The altitude was too low for his parachute to open fully, and he fell into a forest, severely injuring his spine. This incident gave rise to later ill-founded rumours of a photographer in the under-basket with a special long-focus lens to record the radar masts on film.

Finally, all was ready for a second run up the east coast. This time Martini was not on board and the senior officer was Oberstleutnant Gosewisch, now Generalmajor retired and regional director of civil defence in Bonn.

At midnight on Wednesday, August 2nd, 1939, the Graf Zeppelin again slipped her moorings and steered for the North Sea. Her instructions were to keep close to Britain, but maintaining about fifteen miles distance from the shore. The wave-length strength and position of all high-frequency emissions was to be noted.

The night had been chosen for its poor weather and low cloud which gave adequate protection against sighting from the land. During the morning of August 3rd the airship came abreast of Bawdsey and turned north towards the Wash.

Once again no transmissions were detected and more faults developed in the receivers. Curiously, British radar did not pick up the airship, although the stations were operating.

It was not until three o’clock on the 3rd that the Graf Zeppelin was located visually off the coast of Kincardineshire proceeding north towards Scapa Flow. Half an hour later another sighting was obtained by coastguards at Collieston, Aberdeenshire. Two auxiliary air force fighters took off from Dyce, and identified the airship, which was well outside the three-mile limit.

The last sighting was by the lighthouse-keeper at Girdleness who was surprised to see the airship overhead at below 1,000 feet. Graf Zeppelin cruised on up to the Scapa Flow base, catching glimpses of British warships through the clouds. In the early evening she turned back to Germany—empty-handed. No high-frequency signals had been detected.

The London Daily Telegraph was quick to report the airship’s appearance over the islands. At 4 o’clock in the morning Gosewisch had retired to bed after the long flight, but was promptly awakened by General Jeshonnek, air force chief of general staff. The General wanted to know whether Graf Zeppelin had in fact crossed the British coast as the newspaper suggested. Gosewisch denied that this had occurred.

On the following day, August 4th, a highly amusing official communiqué was issued concerning the reconnaissance flight. Berlin denied that the Graf Zeppelin had intentionally left the Reich or had approached the coast of England. The statement went on: ‘The airship cannot leave Germany without special permission. There can be no question of an intention to fly over near British territory. There have, however, been severe storms during the last day or two and it is possible that the airship could have been blown off her course over the North Sea.’ A few days later a further flight was carried out, but again with no results.

So ended the Zeppelin’s career in radar survey. Within a month war had broken out, and afterwards both Graf Zeppelin 1 and Graf Zeppelin 2 were destroyed in the sheds at Frankfurt.

Neither side realised that the opening round of the air war against Britain had been fought and lost by Germany.

If the airship’s equipment had worked properly in the first place there would doubtless have been many more reconnaissance flights. Radar would then have merited serious study by the Luftwaffe Command staff and intelligence departments.

This in turn would have produced new German tactics for the Battle of Britain, a sustained assault on the coastal radar stations and the employment of airborne jamming devices. Such steps would have deprived the R.A.F. of its long-range-warning cover and the outcome of the Battle of Britain might have been very different.

As it was, the German Air Force made no efforts to investigate the radar chain or the fighter-control system to which it was linked. Bombing of radar stations was abandoned early in the battle. The German High Command chose to ignore the advent of science in warfare.