United Kingdom: Start of the Battle of Britain
Background
"We may therefore, be sure that there is a plan, perhaps built up over years for destroying Great Britain, which after all has the honour to be his main and foremost enemy."
Winston Churchill in July 1940.
"My Luftwaffe is invincible. And now we start to turn to England. How long will this one last - two, three weeks?
Hermann Goering in June 1940.
We might, had the plans been ready, have crossed to England with strong forces after the Dunkirk operation".
General Guenther Blumentritt in June 1940.
"How long would they last in battle, they ran from Dunkirk, they deserted France completely for the safety of home, England is there for the taking."
General Hugo Sperrle June 1940.
But in the May of 1940, we can safely be assured that Hitler had no intention of invading England at this stage, but he had often mentioned that it was a possibility just as it was a possibility of invading the United States, but these were only possibilities, there is a great difference in what would be termed 'as a possibility' and an actual 'plan for invasion'. But how good was the word of the German Chancellor, already we have found that he was a man of deceit and deception, a man who it would be foolhardy to place one's trust and faith in.Way back in November 1939, Admiral Raeder the Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy gave the order for the 'possibility of invading England' to be examined. The Naval strategists stated that a seaborne assault on a grand scale across the North Sea would appear to be a possible expedient for forcing the enemy to sue for peace. The German Army then had made comments and suggestions that many were not acceptable to the Navy. The Luftwaffe in December 1939 made their views known which were at the time thought to be most sceptical. Peter Flemming in his book "Invasion 1940" states:
All variants of this early plan envisaged landings on the east coast. At no stage was it referred to OKW (Oberkommando der Wermacht) and there is no reason to suppose that Hitler knew that any preliminary planning for invasion had been done until Raeder had told him about it on May 21st 1940.
Peter Fleming Invasion 1940 Readers Union 1958 p35
Raeder had another meeting with Hitler on June 4th 1940, and despite the Navy's strong thoughts on an invasion, the subject was not even mentioned by either party. On June 17th 1940 General Jodl's deputy Warlimont mentions that "...with regards to a landing in Britain, the Führer has not up to now expressed any such intention as he fully appreciates the unusual difficulties of such an operation.”
While pressure was growing on Berlin to draw up and make plans for an invasion of Great Britain, but Hitler stood firm that an invasion was not the highest priority. There was still a possibility that the British government would sue for peace and so free him to invade Russia. Russia was high on the priority list of the Führer, and it was possible that if Germany did make an invasion of Russia, then Britain would have no alternative than to request talks of peace with Germany. On July 29th 1940, and with France obviously on its last legs, General Jodl who was Chief of Operations OKW called a meeting with Oberst Warlimont who was Chief of Plans OKW and his senior assistants and this took place at Bad Reichenhall Station at Berchtesgaden.
After making sure that all doors and windows were closed and secure in the dining car, Jodl announced that Hitler had decided that his next plan was to make a surprise attack on Soviet Russia to rid the world of Bolshevism, and that this should be done at the earliest possible moment. Hitler was worried that if Britain did not sue for peace, he would have to delay this attack until 1942 when he preferred northern summer 1941.
Jodl's visitors were astounded, 'Germany was strong and with power' said a surprised Warlimont, 'peace plans with Russia are not yet a year old, and now you want to reverse the situation and wage war, and pray tell me, how are you going to wage war on two fronts?"
Such were the plans of the Führer. At this stage, very few agreed with the decision, and once again all eyes turned back to forcing Great Britain into peace, or invading it. If Germany was to invade England, then surely the best time was when Britain was at their lowest ebb, that had been soon after the evacuation of Dunkirk, but even at this time, Hitler still had no immediate plans for an invasion. Admiral Raeder of the German Navy, the German Army and the Supreme forces of the Luftwaffe had all put forward their plans, but Hitler requested a peace treaty.
When this was turned down by Winston Churchill, Hitler stated that he had now no alternative but to contemplate an invasion of England. What this clearly demonstrated was deep-seated confusion in German Grand Strategy. This was done on 2nd July 1940, an order was issued by OKW and signed by Keitel: "The Führer and Supreme Commander has decided......that a landing in England is possible, provided that air superiority can be attained and certain other necessary conditions fulfilled."
So by now, the plans for an invasion were slowly becoming a reality, although one question still remained, would the invasion be on a wide front stretching from Dover in the east to Lyme Regis in the west, or would it be on a narrow front from Ramsgate in the east to Bexhill in the west. The arguments between the Führer, and the Army, Navy and his commanders continued while the chance to mount an invasion actually slipped away. The plan called for 25-40 divisions which would be the invading forces and it was imperative that these forces be highly mechanised and numerically superior to the British at the point of contact. Just two weeks later, the order issued by OKW was given complete approval, was ratified and was further backed up by the issuing of Directive No.16 which was Hitler's order that Britain be invaded.
"Since England, in spite of her hopeless military situation, shows no signs of being ready to come to a compromise, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and, if necessary, to carry it out"
Adolf Hitler in July 1940"
British Defence Plans
Dunkirk, was a disaster as it followed quickly on the heels of the British withdrawal from Norway, now the British Expeditionary Force and the French forces were being pushed back into a small pocket in the corner of north-eastern France. The plan to stop the Germans from making any advance into France had failed and the only option here was evacuation from the beaches at Dunkirk. To others, Dunkirk would go down in history as the most remarkable effort of evacuation ever undertaken, it was an evacuation that even surprised the Germans with 338,225 men, made up mostly of members of the BEF but including some 120,000 French were taken from France.
But Dunkirk had taken its toll, the men were tired, the Army’s military hardware had to be left behind but the worst was that for many of the soldiers it was their first taste of battle, they became disillusioned and disappointed that once again they had suffered defeat at the might of the German Army.
The Royal Air Force continued the fight in France, successes were mixed with defeats, they managed to survive even through a lack of organization, but the German armoured divisions were advancing rapidly through France and Paris soon fell. The RAF started their withdrawal from northern France, 501 Squadron being one of the last to depart, but even with the 400 or so obsolescent fighter aircraft and bombers, the RAF could hold their heads high even though they had fought well, and more importantly had learned much about their enemy.
To the Royal Air Force, the withdrawal from France was not looked upon as a defeat, because during their stay in France, they learnt about Luftwaffe combat tactics. The tight 'V' formation which was the general and accepted formation was dropped in favour of the 'Schwarm'. Pilots often complained that the fighters guns were harmonized at too far a range. This was corrected so that the bullets from the guns intersected at 250 yards instead of 400 yards as was the case previously. It was found that the Hurricane, which had its guns grouped much closer together than the Spitfire, and had a much denser bullet pattern, it was far more suited to attacking bombers rather than fighter aircraft. It was also borne in mind, that the Hurricane was not as maneuverable as the Bf109, so it was better that the Hurricane was best suited to attacking the bombers while the Spitfire was best suited to attacking the Bf109 especially as it could match the performance of the German fighter.
Phase 1. (July 10th – September 1st 1940) Attacks on the Coast and Channel Convoys.
The bulk of attacks were in the south where the Luftwaffe went on probing attacks on British shipping in the English Channel and in the outer Thames Estuary. Smaller raids, and a number of German reconnaissance aircraft were spotted along the east coast while other nuisance raids took place in the north. During this phase, the major cities remained unscathed, most people went about their business as usual.
Most of the attacks in the Channel were on the merchant convoys carrying coal, raw materials, machinery and foodstuffs to Britain. By sinking these merchant ships the Luftwaffe could prevent the RAF from intervening in France, analyse the strength of the RAF’s home defences and determine the speed and efficiency that the RAF could deploy its squadrons. Basically, the Luftwaffe was testing the efficiency and strength of the Royal Air Force. Spasmodic bombing raids continued throughout this first phase on such places as Portsmouth, Falmouth, Swansea, Newcastle and Merseyside, but these raids were spasmodic, unlike the channel convoy raids.
For most of this period, the Luftwaffe was quite content on attacking the convoys in the English Channel, some of the conflicts included just a couple of Ju87s dive bombing individual or small convoys, others included using U-boats while some of the larger convoys were attacked by numbers of Do17s backed up by German artillery from the French coast.
There were nuisance raids by small numbers of Ju-88 flying low, and other nuisance raids at night.
Such action as there was lay in the Channel. The skies over the Channel were a criss-cross pattern of vapour trails, then suddenly a Ju87 would come hurtling in a near vertical dive sometimes hotly pursued by a Spitfire or Hurricane. Depending where one was watching from, depended on the sky show to be seen, but the two areas that seemed to attract the most action was an area between the Isle of Wight and Weymouth, and the other was the in the vicinity of the Dover Straights now been given the name of "Hellfire Corner". So where was the expected invasion of England, where was the expected Battle of Britain that Churchill said would happen after the withdrawal from France, why was Germany just content on attacking the convoys that plied to and fro through the Channel?
The answer was that the Luftwaffe was rather busy. The French were still resisting for a time, but this was not really what kept them busy: it was the nearly impossible task of trying to keep the Luftwaffe’s support structures in contact with the forward airfields as the Wehrmacht advanced.
Phase 2. (September 1940) ‘The Battle of the Core’
The attacks on shipping continued, but after the failure to draw and destroy Fighter Command in the air, Germany's tactics were to now bomb and destroy the RAF airfields in the London-Margate-Brighton triangle and to destroy the radar stations along the south-east coast. This was the hard core of Fighter Command’s air defence system (although the Germans did not know that) and if defeated there, the coast was open to invasion. To the British, this looked like an all-out effort to overwhelm their defences and invade before they could re-arm post-Dunkirk.
It was during this phase, that German intelligence reported back to Berlin that the RAF total strength had now been seriously depleted and that with continued attacks the Luftwaffe would have command of the skies over the Channel and in Southern England.
Hitler then issued his directive No.16 which would put "Operation Sealion", the invasion of Britain into operation. This second phase was all important to Germany, as it had to destroy the RAF both in the air and on the ground if any attempt at an invasion crossing of the Channel was to be a success. It was during this phase that Fighter Command was stretched on the rack.
Phase 3. (October 1940) ‘The Battle of London’
Having severely degraded British defences in The Battle of the Core, the Luftwaffe overstretched and initiated the Battle of London while the Battle of the Core was still at full heat. Goering was sure that bombing attacks on the City of London would crack British morale and divert resources from the coast to defend the capital.
Attacks by massed formations of bombers redeployed after the fall of France initiated this phase, but heavy losses quickly forced the Luftwaffe to switch to heavy night raids. Extensive use of magnetic mines (which acted like a very powerful blast bomb) were a particular feature of this phase. These were quickly replaced with a mine casing and a contact fuze with an even heavier explosive charge, and much of London was severely damaged. Heavy attacks on the industrial factories and the dock areas of London's "East End" wrecked the eastern entry to the city on both sides of the River Thames. The Luftwaffe theory was that with mass bombing raids, they could inflict severe damage to the city and lower the morale and strength of the people while at the same time eliminate the last of the remaining fighters of Fighter Command with the fighter-ground attack sweeps continuing The Battle of the Core. This entire strategy failed, and failed badly.
Phase 4. Long Term Night Bombing
With the cancellation of Sea Lion, the Germans reappraised their tactics for a longer war. The need to hit British industry became pre-eminent. New bomber variants were developed to do this (A He-111 variant specialised for night work as they were cheap, and He-177 with its faults corrected to add throw weight and eventually He-277). Raids continued throughout the northern winter, ramping up as these new types appeared in quantity in early 1941.
Examples of the sort of fighting which occurred during the month included a major action on 10 July, and
10 July 1940
Heavy cloud at 9/10ths covered most of Britain. Rain was widespread over most of the west, the midlands and the north. Showers were prevalent over the south and the south-east and over the Channel.
OPERATIONS IN DETAIL:
The heavy clouds of the dawn along with the driving rain made most of the pilots turn over and take advantage of a 'lie-in'. In these conditions, the Germans made the most of the cloud cover and made photographic reconnaissance flights over possible and probable targets, but the Dornier 17s that usually made these flights often suffered heavy losses. But being as no 'scramble' calls were made during the early hours of this day by Fighter Command it was believed that the German Luftwaffe enjoyed the freedom of the skies although most kept out over the sea but keeping the distant English coastline in sight.
0730hrs (7.30am): 66 Squadron (Spitfires, Coltishall) got a 'scramble' call and one section took off into the driving rain after the Chain Home radar station at West Beckham had picked up a blip on the radar. (RAF aircraft carried a sensor unit attached underneath the fuselage which would show up on the radar screens as a friendly aircraft). The section was led by Pilot Officer Charles Cook and soon as they climbed first through the driving rain, then through the thick cloud they broke out into brilliant sunshine at about 10,000 feet. P/O Cook was given a vector bearing that led them in the direction to where the enemy aircraft was last spotted. It was radar that gave the RAF the upper hand in the Battle of Britain, it was an early warning system that informed Fighter Command that not only were enemy aircraft approaching the English coast, but it also told them the exact location, direction and with the aid of the Observer Corps, type of aircraft and about how many. Very often in the early stages of the war, the Germans could not understand as to why, whenever they were on a mission, the RAF was always there to meet them before they could reach their targets.
0815hrs (8.15am): 66 Squadron finally spots the enemy, a lone Dornier 17z of Kampfgeschwader 3 (KG3) possibly on one of those recon missions. As the Spitfires peeled off one by one, engines roaring, the crew of the Dornier spotted them and soon it was weaving and sliding in a desperate effort to evade the gunfire from the Spitfires. The gunners in the Dornier tried in vain in warding off the Spits but to no avail, the Spitfires continued to harass the bomber and in the melee P/O Cookes windscreen was hit and a hole developed in the canopy letting in extremely cold air. Then one of the Spitfires came up from underneath firing at the Dornier with all eight Browning's and went in close and the Dornier went into a banking glide bellowing smoke until it hit the sea between Yarmouth and Harwich. A couple of hours later, the three Spitfires of Pilot Officer C.A.Cooke, Pilot Officer J.A.P.Studd and Sgt F.N.Robertson landed back at Coltishall and rejoiced at their success.
Prior to July 10th when the RAF was busy regrouping, London was preparing its barricades and defences and indeed a quiet time for all, the Germans as mentioned previously were busy probing the RAF by attacking small convoys and other shipping in the Channel hoping that they would lure the fighters into battle. But at about 1030hrs (10.30am): Weather was still inclement, wet and miserable with shallow visibility, a Dornier on a recon flight and with an escort of about 20+ Bf109s was picked up on both Dover CH and Foreness CHL radar stations. 74 Squadron Hornchurch (Spitfires), in conditions that now seemed to be improving, were directed to the location where the enemy had been spotted. But the damage had been done, the Dornier had spotted a very large convoy (The convoy was code named "Bread") in the Channel heading towards the Dover Straits. Immediately the German radio operator dispatched a message giving the location of the convoy, size and its present course. The Spitfires of 74 Squadron (Hornchurch) located the Dornier and the Bf109s and as was the usual course, headed for the slower Dornier first, but not before the highly maneuverable 109s turned and got the Spitfires in their sights. Two of the Spitfires were hit, but not bad enough to put them right out of action, but they kept their course and as they approached firing range of the Dornier opened fire. Immediacy the front cockpit of the bomber exploded in smoke and flame, there would have been little chance of survival of the pilot and any other member who was with him.
The Dornier went down low and the Spitfires weaved and turned and engaged in combat with the Messerschmitt escort. Two Spitfires that were hit and were forced to return to Hornchurch while the other four remained for a while where only one Bf109 was hit and received only minor damage. The enemy was reinforced by another group of about 12 aircraft later just as the Spitfires of 610 Squadron, (Gravesend) arrived and the remaining four Spitfires of 74 Squadron returned back to base. 610 Squadron scored no 'kills' but managed to stop the 109s and they headed back towards the French coast.
In this combat, 74 Squadron Hornchurch had two of its Spitfires damaged during operations over the Channel while one Spitfire of 610 Squadron had to make a force landing at Hawkinge after being hit during the same combat.
The transmission that the Dornier made at 1030hrs must have been received loud and clear, because at 1350hrs(1.50pm): British radar picks up a strong signal that indicated that a German formation had been detected coming across the French coast just west of Calais and heading in the general direction of Folkestone. It seemed obvious what they were after, this was the largest number of bombers ever seen coming across the Channel. The main force was 24 Dornier 17s spread in three groups, 30 escorting Bf110s and 20+ Bf109s. The 'scramble' order went out to Manston, Biggin Hill, Croydon, Hornchurch and Kenley. Manston dispatched the Hurricanes of 56 Squadron (North Weald) who had been operating there, Biggin Hill dispatched 32 Squadron (Hurricanes), Croydon dispatched 111 squadron (Hurricanes), Hornchurch dispatched the Spitfires of 74 Squadron while Kenley sent out six Spitfires of 64 Squadron towards the closing stages of the battle.
The Dorniers turned and headed for the Channel convoy code named 'Bread' just as 74, 56, 32 and 111 Squadrons arrived on the scene. The Spitfires of 74 Squadron and the Hurricanes of 56 and 32 Squadrons engaged combat with the Bf109s and the Bf110s while the Hurricanes of 111 Squadron went straight in and attacked the Dorniers. The skies off the coast at Folkestone became a maze of vapour trails snaking in all directions. It was a tough dogfight with neither side gaining the upper hand, Flying Officer J Mungo-Park in a Spitfire swept past a Dornier and the resulting 'hit' saw the bomber drift down towards the waters of the Channel, another Spitfire of 74 Squadron scored a 'hit' on one of the Bf109s and saw it head in the general direction of France and safety. As the dogfight continued, the Dornier formation started to break up as many of the fighters began to harass them like dogs snapping at their tails, Flying Officer Tom Higgs of 111 Squadron took to a lone Dornier firing many rounds towards the weaving bomber that was desperately trying to evade the ensuing Hurricane, but Higgs went in closer than his firing range, and still with thumb on the firing button clipped the Dornier with his wing before spinning seawards out of control with one wing missing. The Dornier also spun out of control and hurtled to what seemed a watery grave. Both aircraft crashed into the Channel and a rescue launch that was soon on the scene picked up the pilot of the Dornier and another member of the crew, but there was no sign of the rest of the bombers crew or of Tom Higgs. This was the first major battle of the Battle of Britain, and considering the amount of aircraft that were in the air Higgs was the only British fatality, three Hurricanes were damaged as well as four Spitfires, two Dorniers were shot down and ten of the escort fighters. As far as the convoy "Bread" was concerned, only one ship was sunk the rest were not even attacked and continued their journey.
".......for this victory, we must thank the radar in which placed us in readiness and allowed us to send our fighter squadrons out to meet them. I think that the way that these brave pilots stopped the convoy being attacked shows the maturity attained since France"
Fighting in July and August
For the next two or three weeks, the Luftwaffe was quite content on attacking the convoys in the English Channel, some of the conflicts included just a couple of Ju87s dive bombing individual or small convoys, others included using U-boats while some of the larger convoys were attacked by numbers of Do17s backed up by German Artillery from the French coast. The skies over the Channel were a criss-cross pattern of vapour trails, then suddenly a Ju87 would come hurtling in a near vertical dive sometimes hotly pursued by a Spitfire or Hurricane. Depending where one was watching from, depended on the sky show to be seen, but the two areas that seemed to attract the most action was an area between the Isle of Wight and Weymouth, and the other was the in the vicinity of the Dover Straights now been given the name of "Hellfire Corner". So where was the expected invasion of England, where was the expected Battle of Britain that Churchill said would happen after the withdrawal from France, why was Germany just content on attacking the convoys that plied to and fro through the Channel
Throughout July and into August, the Luftwaffe maintained its onslaught of the Channel convoys. Some of the attacks were on a small scale while some of the others could be termed as full scale battles. The weather was vastly improved between 20th and the 25th July, and some heavier battles ensued. 24 July is an example of these actions
24th July 1940
Six Spitfires of 54 Squadron Rochford (Spitfires) attacked a number of Dorniers who were attacking a convoy in the Straits of Dover during the morning. However, the squadron had to break up to send a couple of flights to the Thames Estuary where another convoy was under attack, but they could claim no victories except to spoil the aim of the bombardiers on the Dorniers.
This day was the last day for 54 Squadron at Rochford, they had been there for a month and had now been posted back to Hornchurch. The Operational Record Book of 54 Squadron states that July 24th was the biggest and most successful day of operations since Dunkirk.
"B" Flight intercepted a formation of Do215s off Dover and Green Section under P/O Dorian Gribble managed to break up the formation forcing them to jettison their bombs and turn back across the Channel. An early morning raid on shipping in the Bristol Channel by Ju88s with a few ships damaged, but one Ju88 was shot down by 92 Squadron Pembrey (Spitfires). By 1100hrs, more Do17s returned to the Estuary to continue the attack on the shipping.
To be continued
