History of the Second World War (18 page)

Indeed, it was not until the Germans had set up their monitoring stations along the coast of France in July that they came to realise, from the stream of signals radiating from the radar masts along the English coast, that they were faced with something new and of vital importance. Even the range and effectiveness of British radar were underrated by the Luftwaffe chiefs, and little effort was made to jam it or destroy it. Nor did the discovery that the British fighters operated under close radio control dismay them as it might have — they drew the conclusion that the system made Fighter Command inflexible, and that mass attacks would swamp the system.

The tendency to exaggerate the opponent’s losses during intense air fighting was a fault common to both sides, but became more of a handicap on the German side. Initially Luftwaffe Intelligence assessed Dowding’s resources, correctly, as totalling about fifty squadrons of Hurricanes and Spitfires, with an operational strength of approximately 600 aircraft, of which 400-500 at the most were in the southern part of England. But after the battle started, miscalculation and confusion developed from the combined effort of overestimated British losses and underestimating British aircraft production, so that Luftwaffe pilots became puzzled, and then depressed, by the way the number of British fighters was maintained. Many more were reported shot down than actually existed.

Another cause of miscalculation was the habit of the Luftwaffe chiefs, when they bombed a Fighter Command base, of striking off, in red pencil, the number of the R.A.F. squadron there. That was partly due to poor photo-reconnaissance, and partly to unduly optimistic analysis of the results. For example, the Luftwaffe estimated that up to August 17 no less than eleven airfields had been ‘permanently destroyed’ — whereas, in fact, only one, Manston, was put out of action for any appreciable time. Moreover, effort was wasted in attacking airfields in the south-east that were not part of Fighter Command’s organisation. At the same time the Luftwaffe chiefs failed to realise the vital importance of the sector stations — such as Biggin Hill, Kenley, Hornchurch — in the Fighter Command organisation, and were unaware that their operations rooms were above ground — dangerously exposed. Thus the devastating attacks on sector stations that the Luftwaffe delivered at the end of August were not followed up.

Another German handicap was the weather, and that in a double sense: the weather over the English Channel was often unfavourable for the attacking side, and as it usually came from the west, the British usually knew about it first. The Germans had broken the cipher of the British radio meteorological reports from the Atlantic, but they profited little from it, and were often caught out. In particular, the timing of the rendezvous between their bombers and the fighter escorts was repeatedly upset by unexpected cloud and poor visibility. Banks of cloud over northern France and Belgium would delay the bombers, whose crews had little experience of ‘blind’ navigation, with the result that they arrived late at their rendezvous, and the fighters, who could not afford to waste fuel, would attach themselves to other bombers, so that one bomber formation would fly out with doubled protection and another without any escort — and suffer heavy loss. When the autumn approached, and the weather worsened, such hitches increased, with catastrophic effects.

In one respect, however, the Germans benefited by better planning. The British air-sea rescue service was at first very haphazard, and pilots who came down in the sea had to depend largely on luck for their chances of being picked up. That was the more serious because in mid-August nearly two-thirds of the air fights that had a definite issue were taking place over the sea. The Germans were better organised. They used some thirty Heinkel seaplanes for rescue work, while their fighter pilots and bomber crews were equipped with inflatable rubber dinghies, a life-jacket, a light-pistol, and a chemical that made a bright green stain on the sea round them. A fighter pilot who ‘ditched’ could reckon on having 40 to 60 seconds to get out before the plane sank. Without the reassurance given by these sea-rescue precautions the Luftwaffe’s morale might have declined quicker than it did.

The Luftwaffe s offensive had also to face formidable opposition beyond that of the R.A.F’s fighters, the anti-aircraft guns assigned for the Air Defence of Great Britain. These were provided by, and belonged to, the Army (like those which had accompanied the Expeditionary Force) although operationally linked with, and subordinate to, R.A.F. Fighter Command. If they brought down relatively few German bombers in the Battle of Britain they added much to the strain on the attackers by their upsetting effect in general, and on bombing accuracy in particular.

The G.O.C.-in-C. Anti-Aircraft Command was Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Pile. Originally a gunner, he had transferred to the Royal Tank Corps on its permanent formation in 1923, and soon became one of the most dynamic exponents and advocates of mobile armoured forces. But in 1937, after promotion to major-general, the Army Council had appointed him to the command of the 1st Anti-Aircraft Division, which covered London and the south of England. The next year the two existing A.A. divisions were expanded into five, and then into seven. At the end of July 1939, just before the war, ‘Tim’ Pile was promoted to overall command of the whole, including the light batteries that were being formed for the defence of airfields and other vital points against low-flying attack.

Another valuable element in meeting that kind of attack was the balloon barrage — a string of sausage-shape balloons anchored, at heights up to 5,000 feet, by steel cables. This was provided by the R.A.F. itself, and was under separate control, although under Fighter Command.

Throughout these pre-war years, the expansion of the anti-aircraft forces for home defence had been grudgingly agreed at the best, and often strongly opposed, by the Army Council — which tended to regard them as a regrettable subtraction from the strength of the Army. So Pile’s efforts to develop these anti-aircraft forces and their effectiveness met with much obstruction in the War Office, and brought him into disfavour there — with adverse effects on his prospects of re-entry, and further advancement, in the main stream of the Army. Fortunately for the country, however, he had succeeded in establishing close and harmonious relations with Dowding, a difficult personality, and they worked together remarkably well.

By the outbreak of war, at the beginning of September 1939, the approved establishment of Anti-Aircraft Command had been raised, successively, to a scale of 2,232 heavy A.A. guns — nearly double the so-called ‘Ideal’ plan rejected two years before — as well as 1,860 light A.A. guns, and 4,128 searchlights. But, as a result of the hesitations and delays, only 695 heavy guns and 253 light guns could be deployed when the war started — approximately one-third of the heavy guns and one-eighth of the light guns by then authorised. (That was at any rate a great improvement on the Munich Crisis a year earlier, when only 126 heavy A.A. guns were ready for action.) The searchlight situation was relatively good, as 2,700 were deployed out of an authorised scale of 4,128 — more than two-thirds.

After the war began a fresh complication came from the Admiralty’s demand for 255 heavy guns to defend its six Fleet anchorages — a demand that had not been made before the war when the Admiralty had shown great confidence in the unaided power of its ships to beat off air attack with their own A.A. armament. It now wanted no less than ninety-six guns to protect the anchorage at Rosyth in the Firth of Forth — as many as were then available for the whole of London, and four times as many as protected the Derby area where the vital Rolls-Royce engine works were situated.

The expedition to Norway in April 1940 brought a further large demand for, and drain upon, both heavy and light A.A. guns.

Then, after the fall of France in June, the situation of the Air Defence of Great Britain itself was changed radically for the worse, as Britain became enveloped by a ring of enemy air bases from Norway round to Brittany.

At that time, A.A. Command’s available strength had risen to 1,204 heavy guns and 581 light guns — respectively nearly double the number and over double the number at the outbreak of war. It would have been better but for the various drains upon it. During the next five weeks the fresh intake was 124 heavy and 182 light guns, but nearly half the former and a quarter of the latter had to be allocated for training purposes and for places overseas that were now endangered by Italy’s entry into the war on Germany’s side. At the end of July the Air Defence of Great Britain still had little more than half the scale of heavy A. A. guns, and barely one-third of the light A.A. guns, that had been considered necessary at the outbreak of war — when the strategic circumstances were far more favourable than they had become. Searchlights were more plentiful, nearly 4,000 being now available, almost up to the level of the establishment — although the changed circumstances now called for a large increase in the scale.

The preliminary phase of the Battle of Britain saw the gradual development of German air operations against British shipping and ports in the Channel, along with spasmodic efforts to lure out the British fighters. Until August 6 no precise instructions for the conduct of the offensive were sent to the chief Luftwaffe commanders, Kesselring and Sperrle — which serves to explain why the pattern of these early operations was so puzzling.*

* I was sent daily charts of the raids by General Pile in the hope that I might be able to find a clue, but could perceive no clear indication of pattern or purpose.

Regular attacks on shipping started on July 3, while next day a force of eighty-seven dive-bombers, escorted by Me 109s, attacked the Naval harbour at Portland, but without much effect. On the 10th a small force of bombers, with a large escort of fighters, attacked a convoy off Dover, and the Me 110s, significantly, fared badly against the Hurricanes sent out to defend the convoy. After a heavier attack on a convoy in the same area on July 25 the Admiralty decided to send convoys through the Straits by night, and some successful attacks on destroyers led it to the decision that those stationed at Dover should withdraw to Portsmouth. The passage of another convoy in the night of August 7 was spotted by German radar from the cliffs near Wissant, and the next day it was assailed by escorted waves of dive-bombers, up to eighty at a time. They sank nearly 70,000 tons of shipping — at a cost of thirty-one aircraft.

On the 11th, in confused combats, the R.A.F. lost thirty-two fighters. Even so, during this phase from July 3 to August 11, the Germans lost 364 bombers and fighters, while the R.A.F. lost 203 fighters — a loss nearly replaced by a week’s output from the factories.

Following Hitler’s belated order of August 1 — for the Luftwaffe to ‘destroy the enemy air force as soon as possible’ — and Goring’s discussions with his chief executives, the opening of the grand offensive was fixed for August 13. This was christened
Adlertag
— ‘Eagle Day’. Over-optimistic reports of Luftwaffe successes in the preliminary phase had convinced Goring that he could achieve air superiority in four days of good weather. By August 13, however, the weather had become less favourable than earlier.

Nevertheless on Eagle Day itself, the Luftwaffe launched its initial bombing attacks on British fighter airfields and radar stations in the south-east of England. The forward airfields at Manston, Hawkinge, and Lympne were badly damaged, while some of the radar stations were put out of action for several hours. The one at Ventnor in the Isle of Wight was put completely out of action, but the fact was concealed from the Germans by signals from another transmitter. The radar towers themselves tended to keep the dive-bombers away from the operations rooms at their base, and in any case the Germans mistakenly assumed that these would be safely placed underground. In this connection, tribute is due to the women radar plotters of the W.A.A.F., the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, who went on reporting raids until their own station was bombed.

The thick layer of cloud lying over south-east England caused Goring to postpone the main attack until the afternoon — but several formations failed to get the deferment signal and wasted their effort in disjointed raids. When the big attack was delivered in the afternoon it was too scattered, and its results disappointing. During that day the Luftwaffe flew 1,485 sorties, double the number of the R.A.F. For a cost of forty-five German aircraft, bombers and fighters, it only shot down thirteen R.A.F. fighters — although claiming to have destroyed seventy.

In this opening stage of the main offensive, much of the Luftwaffe effort was wasted in attacking airfields that were not those of Fighter Command — which should have been their key target and objective. It also suffered from poor co-ordination between bomber formations and their fighter escorts.

The next day, August 14, clouds helped to reduce the attack to about a third of its weight on the opening day, but when the weather cleared on the morning of the 15th, the Luftwaffe launched its biggest effort of the whole battle — a total of 1,786 sorties, in which over 500 bombers were employed. The first attacks were against the airfields at Hawkinge and Lympne, and although the former, the more important, escaped serious damage, the latter was put out of action for two days.

Then in the early afternoon over a hundred bombers of Luftflotte 5, in two formations, flew in over the North Sea to attack airfields near Newcastle and in Yorkshire. The larger one, of some sixty-five bombers from Stavanger in Norway, was escorted by about thirty-five Me 110s, but these proved of little protective value, and the force met such stiff resistance from the R.A.F. fighters of No. 13 Group and from anti-aircraft guns that it caused no serious damage anywhere, and had fifteen planes shot down while the R.A.F. lost none. The other attacking force, of some fifty bombers from Aalborg in Denmark, had no escort, but although No. 12 Group put up three squadrons to meet it, a large part of it succeeded in getting through to the R.A.F. bomber base at Driffield in Yorkshire, where it caused a lot of damage — although it lost seven of its bombers over England and three more on the flight back.