On 10 May 1940, the squadron commanders at Tangmere on the Sussex coast told their pilots that the Germans had “walked into France today” and we take off at one o’clock sharp for France. And since dawn the Hurricanes of 85 Squadron had been attacking German bombers over Belgium and Holland.
2 July 1940. Until this day Adolf Hitler had fully expected the British government, in the person of the new prime minister, Winston Churchill, to accept the reality of German might, its excellent army, its blitzkrieg armour and artillery, and its superb air force, and in assessing that overwhelming threat, yield to reason and seek an armistice with Germany. Surely, after the recent achievement of the Germans in rolling over Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Belgium and, especially France, the British must see the writing on the wall and accept the inevitable. So confident had Hitler been that the British would cower before the spectre of his armed forces and join the ranks of his conquests that he even partially demobilized the German army.
Two months earlier, a defiant Churchill had told the world “Hitler knows he must break us in this island or lose the war” Now, in the face of a genuine invasion threat by the Germans, Britain was, if anything, more defiant. With the defeat of France in June, the British were truly alone against the German enemy, but incredibly, they chose to resist and fight on against outrageous odds. Indeed, Churchill and his Cabinet had never even discussed the possibility of surrender.
By the 2nd of July, the German leader was persuaded that he no longer had a choice, but had to go ahead with development of a firm and final plan for the invasion of Britain. “Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of coming to an understanding, I have decided to prepare a landing operation and if necessary carry it out.” His purpose with the operation, called Sea Lion, was “to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the prosecution of the war against Germany.” On 19 July, Hitler railed against Churchill in a speech to the Reichstag. He then appealed to the common sense of the British people, telling them it was useless to continue the war, and inviting them to be reasonable and give up the struggle. That evening the London newspapers gave their response, an unequivocal NO!
Hitler was convinced, too, that for Sea Lion to succeed, his air force must gain air superiority over the British Isles. The strutting, arrogant Goering was barely challenged when this requirement was given to him. He boasted about crushing the Royal Air Force in two weeks or less. And, on 1 August Fuehrer Directive No 17 was issued: The Luftwaffe was to overpower the Royal Air Force in the shortest possible time;After achieving air superiority, the air war was to be directed against ports and food stores [London was then the largest port in the world].
The German Chief of the Operations Staff, Generaloberst Alfred Jodl, optimistically wrote to Hitler that “The final German victory over England is now only a question of time.” He told the Fuehrer that “all-out air attacks on the United Kingdom—with no holds barred—were not only an indispensable prelude to invasion, but offered the best chance of reducing the affair to an unopposed landing, or even making it unnecessary for troops to go ashore at all. If the Royal Air Force and its supporting industries could be smashed, then Britain would have lost her last weapon, for the Royal Navy would be powerless to injure Germany without air support. At the same time, attacks on ports and shipping must not be relaxed. On the contrary, the Luftwaffe must do all it could to hasten surrender by redoubling its efforts to interrupt supplies.”
The crew of a Dornier bomber after completing a raid on a British target; below: Barges being prepared for Operation Sea Lion, the German invasion of Britain, planned for autumn 1940.
Wholly confident in the ability of his Luftwaffe to destroy the RAF in a month or less, Goering pegged the start of his all-out air offensive against Britain on the completion of German naval preparations, which would take several weeks. He aimed to begin the major operations at the end of July or in early August. In the interim he intended to use Luftflotten 2 and 3 in an intensive series of bombing attacks on British ports and especially shipping. An added advantage to these attacks would be in aid of the main German air assault through forcing the RAF to wear down their fighter force prematurely in protecting the British convoys.
In the first week of July, Goering’s bombers and dive-bombers launched a series of attacks on the British coastal merchant ship convoys in the English Channel and the Straits of Dover, as well as those on their way from the North Sea to the Port of London. There was nothing particularly new for the Luftwaffe in these raids on enemy ports and shipping. They had been undertaking such attacks for more than a year, in the Firth of Forth, at Scapa Flow, and in an organized offensive against the merchant shipping. But the new operations were greatly intensified and, with the French defeat the two main German air bombing fleets were based in France and the Low Countries—much closer to their targets.
During the Battle of France, the RAF suffered the loss of more than 400 Hurricane fighters in a three-week period and were in deep trouble numerically in the Dunkirk evacuation. It was only thanks to an astonishing spurt of productivity by the British aircraft industry operating under the firm hand of Minister of Aircraft Production Lord Beaverbrook, that Fighter Command chief Dowding was able to remain competitive, though he was still short of more than 200 pilots. What, perhaps, mattered most about the Beaverbrook resupply of fighters at that time was that it allowed Dowding the capability to deal with the suddenly increasing pressure being applied by the Luftwaffe on British shipping in the Channel and the North Sea. This was the preliminary phase of the Battle of Britain.
Since April, when Air Vice Marshal Keith Park departed Stanmore where he had been working for Dowding as Senior Air Staff Officer, Fighter Command, Park had taken up a new post in command of No. 11 Group RAF, responsible for the fighter defence of London and southeast England. It was his job to arrange the fighter patrols over Dunkirk during the evacuation—and vitally—to cope with the greatest demands on Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain. Park had a well-earned reputation as a superb tactician and was a popular leader figure as a very much hands-on commander, personally taking direct command of the fighter squadrons on the most important dates in the Battle, Adlertag: 13 August, The Hardest Day: 18 August, and Battle of Britain Day: 15 September. Park had direct responsibility for forty percent of the RAF fighter force and was constantly aware that a significant mistake on his part, or any reckless use of his resources at any point in the Battle could cost Britain the war in a matter of hours.
In the early afternoon of 10 July, a west-bound British convoy sailed southwest through the Straits of Dover, where it came under the escort of six Hurricane fighters ordered up by Park’s headquarters to patrol the narrowest part of the Straits. The successful activities of the German U-boats in recent weeks had necessitated the re-routing of nearly all British shipping traffic to ports on the English west coast. However, a number of important local coastal convoys carrying coal and coke had to carry on as normal on their original routes and required Park’s escort service. As this particular coastal convoy was passing the port of Dover at 1:30 p.m., a nearby radar station began reporting the assembly of aircraft behind Calais and plot activity began on the operations tables of 11 Group and its sector stations, and at its Uxbridge command headquarters.
above: A Do 17 medium bomber ready for take-off; below: The crew of a Heinkel bomber discussing their imminent attack on a British airfield in August 1940.
top: Luftwaffe fighter pilot Horst Petzschler achieved twenty-six aerial victories in the Second World War; above: Oberst Werner Mölders was appointed Luftwaffe Inspector General of Fighters. He died in the crash of a He 111 during a heavy storm; below: The navigator and slightly-wounded pilot of a Heinkel bomber in 1940.
Park’s people immediately ordered a flight of Hurricanes of 56 Squadron up from Manston, near Ramsgate. They had flown over that morning from their base at North Weald in Essex. As the six RAF pilots climbed from the Manston runway they heard from the controller that the convoy was already under bombing attack In a few minutes they sighted the German bombing force and its large fighter escort stacked up high in three distinct formations. The low group was twenty Dornier Do 17 light bombers. Just above them were a group of Messerschmitt Me 110 close escorts and above them a top guard force of about twenty Messerschmitt Me 109 fighters.
As the Hurricanes approached, the Me 110s formed into the defensive circle that was their typical tactic in such combats, leaving the 109s to do the bulk of the fighting. Hugely outnumbered, the Hurricanes roared in to engage the enemy aircraft. Three of the RAF pilots went in after the bombers. In the action, all six Hurricanes engaged with the 109s at one point and, moments later when the enemy aircraft broke off and headed towards their French bases, three of their number had been shot down by the excited Hurricane pilots. Soon the RAF planes were back on the ground at Manston, one of them having to crash-land there, but the pilot was not seriously hurt. The elation of the Hurricane pilots after the day’s action was tempered considerably, however, by the realization that evening at Stanmore when reports from all the fighter groups had been received, that Fighter Command had flown more than 600 sorties that day, roughly twice the average daily effort since Dunkirk. For the results achieved it was an expensive day in terms of flying time and wear and tear on the equipment and personnel of a relatively small force desperately needing to save itself as much as possible for the big battle that everyone knew was coming. But Park and Dowding had to do what they could to cope with the demands of the Admiralty for fighter escort to protect the essential convoys steaming with increasing frequency along the English coasts.
On 11 July, at six a.m., Peter Townsend, flying with 85 Squadron, took off in a Hurricane from Martlesham Heath on a lone patrol of the nearby sea lanes. Ascending from the early ground mist into drifting raincloud, he was soon told by the controller to head seaward on a vector towards “a bandit in the vicinity.”
above: The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 singleseat fighter-bomber first appeared in large mumbers over France in 1941. Faster than any Allied fighter then in service, the 190 was also more heavily armed; below: The clean design and efficiency of the cockpit and panel layout of the Fw is apparent in this excellent view.
Passing through 8,000 feet and still climbing, he spotted an aircraft heading the other way through the thickening cloud cover, and identified it instantly as a Dornier Do 17 light bomber. Reacting quickly, he yanked the Hurricane around and began to shadow the enemy plane from behind and below, hoping he had not been seen by the German crew. As he edged closer to the Dornier, the heavy cloud and rain made it difficult to keep his target in sight. He judged that a few more seconds would put him in firing position and pulled the hood back to get a better look at the foe. Thirty years later, Townsend would meet Uffr Werner Borner, the wireless operator of the German bomber, and learn from Borner that the Dornier had been on the way back to its base that morning when Borner suddenly saw the Hurricane approaching from behind and shouted over the intercom “Achtung, Jäger!” as he began shooting.
Shot down over the English countryside during the Battle of Britain, this Bf 109 fighter is inspected by British Army personnel.
Townsend: “I waited a few more seconds while closing to point-blank range, then opened fire. Borner would never forget (any more than I) the crisscrossing of our bright red tracers. He could actually see me in the cockpit.”
Borner recounted to Townsend years later how two of the Dornier crew members had been hit by the Hurricane bullets, and there was blood everywhere in the interior of the bomber. A near miss to the pilot’s head had starcracked his windscreen and then another bullet struck Borner’s gun, knocking it from his hands. Before that, however, the German scored hits on Townsend’s fighter “… a bright orange explosion in the cockpit momentarily blinded me. My engine was hit, and the last Borner saw of my Hurricane was as it disappeared in the clouds, streaming black smoke. By some miracle I was not hit myself. I called the controller:‘I’m bailing out. One, two, three, four, five. Please fix my position.”
Townsend left the stricken fighter and made the long parachute descent to splash down in the sea about thirty miles from the English coast. There he floated around awaiting rescue which came thirty minutes later when the trawler Finisterre hauled him aboard. Warming him with a tot of rum, the crew of the trawler delivered Townsend safe and sound to dry land at Harwick and that same evening he was flying patrol again from Martlesham.
In their postwar conversation, Borner told Townsend that the Dornier had barely made it back to their base at Abbeville northwest of Amiens in northern France. After crash landing, the crew counted 220 bullet holes in their bomber.
Two weeks of patrols protecting the convoys had seen eighty-five German aircraft downed for the loss of forty-five RAF fighters; a seemingly impressive tally for the British, but Dowding worried whether his comparatively small resources in planes and especially pilots could somehow be maintained and marshalled for the full-scale offensive that was soon to begin. The win-loss ratio was impressive in his favour but there had been some profoundly difficult days in that period. On 19 July, six of the nine Boulton Paul Defiant interceptors of 141 Squadron were lost to enemy aircraft. The London papers, of course, continued to celebrate the sometimes exaggerated victories of the RAF over the Germans in the Channel actions, but Dowding and Park knew how tenuous their own position was as they were forced daily to spend the strength of their squadrons ahead of the looming real challenge.
The pressure on them continued on the 24th when Kesselring’s air fleet made simultaneous attacks on shipping convoys in both the Dover Straits and Thames Estuary. Keith Park’s forces were once again heavily outnumbered by those of the enemy, but again they prevailed thanks in large part to his good management of the squadrons at his disposal. Ever conscious of the many critics of his policy of always retaining some aircraft and pilots in reserve rather than throwing everything into the fight, he stuck with his basic approach and the results proved him right. It was mostly a guessing game, for no one in the Royal Air Force at any level could ever know for certain which of the many raids being tracked on the operations tables was the most important and therefore the most worrisome. Frighteningly, no one could tell when or where the big one would occur. Somehow, though, at the end of most days in this early stage, the results continued to favour the British.
25 July. In the late morning a twenty-one-ship convoy of colliers proceeded from Southend. They were escorted by two trawlers and six Hurricanes and were being stalked by a German reconnaissance aircraft as they were passing Deal. The R.D.F. radar stations in the area were picking up indications of an aircraft formation assembling across the Channel and the reports to 11 Group control caused five Spitfires of 54 Squadron to be launched from Hornchurch to patrol the Dover-Deal area.
An initial wave of approximately thirty Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers in the company of a large formation of Me 109 fighters, now arrived over the convoy and began their attack. Once again Park was extremely limited in the number of defending fighters he could send up against the German raiders. The slow, ungainly Stukas were easy meat for his Spitfires and Hurricanes, but the small number of fighters he was able to spare for this action, as usual, left them greatly outnumbered against the escorting 109s. Park scrambled some Hurricanes of No 111 Squadron from their forward airfield at Hawkinge near Folkstone, but the time they needed to climb, reach and engage the German aircraft negated whatever advantage they might have in the encounter. Dowding, too, was then under considerable criticism for not putting his forward airfields such as Hawkinge to greater use in that period.
The pilot and gunner of this Messerschmitt Me 110 day/night ground-attack and reconnaissance fighter are assisted by German personnel from the wreck of their aircraft brought down over France by enemy fighters.
In the attack, the Stukas managed to sink five of the colliers and heavily damage a further six, leaving them crippled in the Strait. Many of the Stukas were shot down in the raid, but the results of the bombing so emboldened the Germans that they determined to destroy the remainder of the convoy by sending out E-boats in an audacious daylight attack. In response, the Royal Navy arrived on the scene with two destroyers which scattered the E-boats, but the destroyers were severely shelled by German shore batteries and were finally recalled. As they sailed back to base they were attacked by Stukas and one was heavily damaged. That evening a number of E-boats arrived in the area in darkness and sank three of the crippled colliers.
The devastation to that convoy forced the Admiralty to temporarily suspend such merchant sailings through the Straits pending development of new arrangements forgetting such convoys through the dangerous passage under cover of darkness and for providing more effective escort by day. With the convoy activity stood down for the time being, Kesselring was ordered by Goering, despite the present lack of convoy activity in the area, to continue attacking by inflicting maximum damage on warships of the Royal Navy preparatory to the German invasion of England. Kesselring promptly sank two RN destroyers and severely damaged a third, which action caused the Admiralty to admit it had lost command of the Straits by daylight. It recalled its destroyers from Dover and withdrew them to Portsmouth.
In the late afternoon of 7 August, a new, entirely revitalized west-bound Channel convoy was assembled in the Thames Estuary. It was being escorted by two newly rearmed destroyers with improved anti-aircraft capability. The convoy was also being escorted by specially-modified vessels flying bar-rage-balloons for further protection against the enemy dive-bombers. The plan for the convoy called for it to be met at first light the next day a large RAF fighter escort. In the dark of that night, however, an unseen flotilla of enemy E-boats crept in on the merchant vessels of the convoy as it entered the Straits of Dover.
Early in the pre-dawn hours of the 8th, the E-boats attacked the ships of the convoy along the Sussex coast creating extreme chaos. Two of the merchant ships were sunk, with a third damaged, and in the confusion two merchant ships collided, raising the German tally to three sunk and two damaged. What now remained of the convoy was no longer a formation, but individual vessels scattered over a vast area of sea. There was no convoy for Park’s fighters to escort. At least six of the ships, including one sunk in the collision, were lost.
This early phase of the Battle of Britain was drawing to a close. Hitler had told Goering on 30 July to be ready to launch the main assault on twelve hours’ notice. The Luftwaffe chief was not quite ready to go yet, however, and took advantage of questionable weather predicted for the coming week before alerting his commanders to prepare for the start of the full-scale offensive on 10 August; it would in fact be postponed until the 13th, Eagle Day.