The Battle of Britain - a narrative on a breathtaking crossroads in military history

[Spartan JKM]

Hello all. I hope this isn't too muddled.

In the history of warfare, there has perhaps been no campaign fought between relatively equal powers, in terms of quantity of troop strength and material, that has been decided so swiftly and conclusively as the German conquest of the Low Countries and France in May and June of 1940. It was a victory in the classic style: a strategic success of a near-equal adversary (ies) achieved with economy of means and minimal losses. The brilliant Erich von Manstein drew up the plan, objecting directly to Hitler of the initial plan, which would have certainly been much less decisive. Beginning on May 10 1940, Manstein would force a 'decisive issue by land' by throwing the weight of the attack through the Ardennes, the weakest sector of the French defences, thus circumventing the proclaimed impenetrable Maginot Line.

In hindsight, many feel it is incomprehensible that on May 24 the armored divisions were ordered to halt on the canal line rather than attempt to move in and destroy the Allied forces, who were seemingly at their mercy; between Heinz Guderian's tanks to the south and Georg Reinhardt's divisions to the north and east of the Dunkirk-Lille pocket, the British and French were doomed. Well, it certainly is not unreasonable to consider Operation Dynamo, of which a terrific thread exists here on TWC, a miracle, we should consider that the terrain is bad tank country, particularly on the southern end of the pocket, as it is crisscrossed with canals and ditches etc. (particularly the Aa Canal). Coupled with this, armored divisions, it was deemed by should be conserved for the upcoming operations into France itself, and Hermann Goering, in his characteristically bombastic style, intervened with Hitler and promised to liquidate the entrapped Allies with his Luftwaffe alone, thus eliminating the the risk of wasting the valuable panzer divisions. He wanted to secure for his Air Force, after the smooth operations of the ground forces up to May 24, the decisive final act in this great battle and procure the glory of a substantial level of success. Well, even with the aid of divisions from Fedor von Bock's Army Group B, which, without any armor to speak of, was slowly driving back from the northeast the British and Belgians to the Channel, Goering proved incapable of achieving his objective. When on May 26 Hitler rescinded the stop order, mainly in view of British transports off the coast, and now agreeing with Franz Halder and Walther Brauchitsch that the panzer divisions should resume their advance on Dunkirk, it was too late; the 3 days of reprieve were enough for the cornered Allies to secure a line of defense strong enough to allow for the troops to begin slipping away to England. I'm sorry, these topics could, and should, comprise their own threads; I get wrapped up in backdrop. A grand total of 366,162 British and French soldiers were rescued, including 27,936 men before May 26 (the date attributed to the commencement of Operation Dynamo) and 191,870, of whom 144,171 were British, who were evacuated after June 4 (the official last day of Dynamo. Despite the appearance of 'official figures', discrepancies still exist amid many tables; basically, more than 215,000 British troops were evacuated, or little less than 60% of the total amount evacuated. The rest were French and a small number of other allies (30 Spaniards are mentioned, who found employment in France following the strife in their homeland). But on May 24, it seemed very likely that though many would escape, the operation would be battered worse than it actually was. Just five destroyers were sunk by the Luftwaffe (four British, one French); yet on June 17 three direct hits from a Junkers 88 bomber apparently caused the death of more than twice the estimated amount of the shipping personnel who perished by all the Luftwaffe attacks throughout Dynamo: the RMS Lancastria, horribly overloaded, was hit after embarking some 9,000 British personnel and civilian refugees at St. Nazaire during Operation Ariel (the evacuation of allied troops from western France following the nation's collapse). Sure, the material integrity on warships would doubtless hold up better, but they weren't impenetrable by any means. For all in all, it seems a little surprising, via hindsight (superfluous to state), that the Allied shipping didn't suffer more damage off Dunkirk. This one trait, air strikes upon shipping, is where the attack force of the Dai-Nippon Teikoku Kaigun Koukuu Hombu (the 1st Air Fleet was effective at Pearl Harbor, the Indian Ocean Raid, and the Battle of the Coral Sea) was superior to the Luftwaffe. However, they became too stretched and fatigued; the momentous Battle of Midway was fought with the Japanese First Carrier Striking Force without the services of two crucial carriers, Shōkaku and Zuikaku, due to damage suffered just a month earlier in the Coral Sea battle.

Halder would write in his diary,

"...Brauchitsch is angry...The pocket would have been closed at the coast if only our armor had not been held back. The bad weather has grounded the Luftwaffe and we must now stand by and watch countless thousands of the enemy get away to England right under our noses."

It is very likey Hitler believed an escape by sea was impossible, and the efficacy of the 'little ships' of sailors and vessels of all sorts that came over to the rescue, completely went beyond his estimations. In terms of the great air battle about to commence, the events at Dunkirk provided 2 important realizations: first, the fighters and pilots of the Royal Air Force, contesting the skies over the area, proved more than a match for the Luftwaffe, and secondly, the decision by the British government not to reinforce the RAF in France once it was clear the Germans would succeed, kept a solid core of aircraft and pilots ready to face the Luftwaffe in the upcoming summer over their home territory.

The French military situation was practically hopeless by the 2nd phase of the German offensive, code named Fall Rot, which saw a massive assault, beginning on June 5, along a 400-mile front across France form Abbeville to the Upper Rhine; some 65 French divisions were left to face 143 German ones. The RAF could not afford any assistance, if the British Isles were to be prepared for an imminent German attack. Maxime Weygand and Henri Petain signed the armistice on June 22, 1940 at Compiegne. The Low Countries and France had collapsed; Great Britain stood alone. Never has the appellation of the 'Great' in the country's name been so justified as in the summer of 1940.

Hitler deemed the war was over and the British, soundly defeated on the Continent, would accept terms. But would be infuriarated by British resolve and intransigence, mainly from the perorations of Winston Churchill, one of which was delivered to the House of Commons on June 18,

"...What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over; I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we ahve known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will say: 'This was their finest hour.'"

Hitler considered in Britain 'at present it is not reason that rules', and issued Directive No. 16 on July 16,

"Since England, despite her military hopeless situation, still shows no sign of willingness to come to terms, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and if necessary to carry it out. The aim of this operation is to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the carrying on of the war against Germany, and, if it should become necessary, to occupy it completely."

The proposed invasion of Great Britain was called Operation Seelowe (Sealion), and it was quite possibly a bluff - invasion preparations used as a means to instill intimidation and pressure on the British people. It never seemed practicable, as there never were adequate transports available to carry across the Channel some 100,000 men with equipment and supplies in the proposed 1st wave. Admiral Erich Raeder explained to Hilter that to utilize the numbers of barges, motorboats, transports, and tugs necessary for Seelowe to succeed, it would entail diverting all these vessels from their tasks within the inland-waterway transporation system, which the economic life depended upon, and would thus seriously hamper, even cripple, the German economy. On July 19, Hitler's last peace proposal to the British failed, as Lord Halifax rejected Hitler's peace offer on June 22. The Army and Navy bickered constantly, but there is one thing that was unanimous amongst all the German services: the Luftwaffe must achieve air superiority. Afterwards, an invasion would possibly not be necessary. But the British were certainly making painstaking preperations for defense.

With control of the air over the Channel, remnants of the Royal Navy could at the very least, theoretically, be held off enough to effectuate landings through a Calais-Dover cordon by the heightened preponderance of combined German air and sea power, firepower from huge coastal artillery batteries near Calais, and minelaying. But theory doesn't always translate into reality, and just about everything, including things put into practice, seemed to favor the British (coastal artillery against British shipping in the Straits of Dover wound up amounting to almost nothing). The Royal Navy (Home Fleet) without air cover against the Germans with air cover would balance the fight somewhat. But British minesweepers far outnumbered German minelayers, and coastal artillery, something Hitler placed confidence in, amounted to nothing when put to the test against British convoys in the region of the Straits of Dover. The Germans could certainly land some 1st wave troops and airdrop others. But airdropping troops was no piece of cake, and they wouldn't have possessed any tanks; effectively supplying them would have been very difficult to achieve, as the Royal Navy in the area simply possessed too many vessels for the Germans to adequately sustain efficient supply lines. So why bother in the 1st place? Fortune may indeed favor the brave, but not the insane! Those barges were simply pitiful for the task at hand; the wake alone created by a British destroyer could have capsized them, and the Luftwaffe, unlike the Japanese, didn't possess torpedo bombers, which, if they had, could have caused everyone to re-considered everything. Moreover, the JU-87 was ideal for attacking ships only after some intense training in doing so, something the Luftwaffe hadn't administered thoroughly, evidenced by the fact that only 6 of 39 destroyers - stationary much of the time - were sunk. But perhaps Stuka pilots would improve upon such an experience, and fighting in the air over the Channel would favor the Germans, whose superiority in numbers would be more telling without the disadvantage of lesser airtime - time which would now be more precious to the Sptitfires and Hurricanes.

Remember, all this is theoreticlly logical. But often theory does not translate to reality. Look at what happened at Dunkirk.

But fighting had already begun in the Channel; beginning on July 10, the Luftwaffe began a probing operation of attacking British convoys and harbor facilities from Plymouth to Dover. As far as the British were concerned, the Battle of Britain began on July 10, 1940. This 1st phase of the battle, Kanalkampf, lasted until August 11, and limited German success because the radar the British possessed could detect the German formations while still forming in northern France. This meant the RAF could mass their formations over the Channel ports, but they refused to commit more than a fraction of their fighters, as this opening phase was a German attempt to lure the RAF fighters to battle. The RAF stoutly and smartly declined to waste their fighter strength, which they would need as bombing augmented, but as a result considerable damage was inflicted upon shipping and to some of the ports; 4 destroyers and 18 merchant ships were sunk, but these preliminaries cost the Luftwaffe 296 planes destroyed and 135 damaged. The RAF lost 148 fighter. Both sides, at the time, exaggerated the figures in each's favor. My source for the figures comes from William L. Shirer's tremendous The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Thanks to the experience of the July fighting, a few things were established on both sides by August 11:

1) The ME Bf-110, which would later to prove very valuable as anight fighter, was totally outclassed by the Hurricanes and Spitfires.

2) The Stuka JU-87 dive bomber was a flying coffin when opposed by enemy fighters.

3) The Boulton-Paul Defiant was not up to any intense dogfighting against the German fighters, particularly the ME-109.

4) The British admiralty was hit with the reality that convoys running through the Channel had to be cancelled, as the German bomber escorts massivley outnumbered the convoy patrols.

From the German view, the Battle of Britain began with Adlerangriffe (Operation Eagle) on August 12, in which heavy attacks began on British coastal airfields and radar stations. Directive No. 17 came from Hitler on August 1,

"The Luftwaffe will use all the forces at its disposal to destroy the British air force as quickly as possible. August 5 is the first day on which this intensified air war may begin, but the exact date is to be left to the Luftwaffe and will depend on how soon its preparations are complete, and on the weather situation."

Let's take a look at the relative strengths of the opposing sides:

THE ROYAL AIR FORCE

Fighter Command, under the supreme command of Hugh Dowding, was divided into 4 Groups.

Group 10, under Quintin Brand, was assigned to the defense of SW England and Wales.

Group 11, under Keith Park, would bear the brunt of the upcoming great battle throughout the summer, as he was charged with defending SE England, which included the critical paths to London.

Group 12, under Trafford Leigh-Mallory, would defend the industrial midlands and East Anglia.

Group 13, under Richard Saul, would cover N England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

In all, these 4 Vice-Marshals had 656 serviceable and operational fighter planes on July 10, of which the majority, about 620, were the vaunted Hurricanes and Spitfires. The rest were comprised of the much inferior Bristol Blenheims and Boulton Defiants. Moreover, the British had the aid of some 140 excellently trained Polish pilots, veterans from 1939, who would contribute significantly, as they would down over 200 German planes throughout the battle. The British output of aircraft production was a key to the battle, and they never had less than 603, the July 24 figure - specifically, Spitfires and Hurricanes serviceable and available for operation; there were always some 100 additional available fighter aircraft, such as the Bolton-Paul Defiant and Bristol Beaufighter. On September 6, the 'key' (traditional) day on which things could have turned out differently, the RAF possessed 700 total operational and serviceable fighters (ie, ready to go up that very day), of which 610 were Spitfires and Hurricanes.

THE LUFTWAFFE

To obtain the decisive objective of bringing Great Britian to its knees, the Luftwaffe, under the supreme command of Hermann Goering, was divided into 3 air fleets.

Luftflotten 2, under Albert Kesselring, would operate from the Low Countries and northern France. He would target SE England and the London area.

Luftflotten 3, under Hugo Sperrle, based in northern France, was responsible for attacking the West Country of England, the Midlands and NW England.

Luftflotten 5, under Hans-Jurgen Stumpff, stationed in Norway and Denmark, would strike at N England and Scotland.

Luftflotten 2 and 3 had at their immediate disposal 929 operational fighters (702 ME-109s and the rest ME-110s), 875 medium bombers (HE-111s, DO-17s, and JU-88s), and 316 dive bombers (JU-87s). Luftflotte 5 had 123 bombers and 34 ME-110 fighters.

The Luftwaffe was, hands down, the most formidable air force in the world at this time. But it was designed for strategic bombing in support of a ground assault; no long range, 4-engine bomber was ever developed from Germany, even at any time during the war. Thus, despite their exorbitant superiority over the British in numbers, attacking England by air would be in a non support manner. Moreover, the ME-109 fighter, every bit a match for the Spitfire on relatively equal terms, possessed a poor fuel load and economy (by October 1940, drop-tanks were employed). Operating from the closest bases, the ones 20 miles away under Kesselring's air fleet, it was limited to merely 25 minutes (at most) over English territory before it had to swing back for home. The ME-110 twin-engine fighter did have the fuel capacity for home>target>home escort, but was incapable of fighter performance against the nimble, single-engine RAF fighters. For the British, fighting over home soil was a temendous advantage, as they didn't waste valuable fuel patrolling for German raiders. But this was wrought mainly because of the key, if we must pinpoint 1 major one, to British victory - radar, or RDF ('radio direction finding'), code named Chain Home. Despite some limitations and faults, the RAF had a system of ground control that allowed their fighters to be where they were needed in ample time. The Luftwaffe had no such system, and this disadvantage was instrumental in affecting the course of the battle. Moreover, the Luftwaffe initially lacked solid intelligence on Britian's defense system.

Initially, upon the opening of Adlerangriffe, the Germans didn't seem to appreciate how vital this novel machinery of detection was, and did not pursue the attack. On August 13 and 14 the Luftwaffe launched their first assaults on ground targets, mostly against RAF airfields and the radar chain. The construction of the tall, thin masts of the radar facilities constituted girders akin to radio broadcast antennaes, thus destroying them was difficult. But they did hit 5 of them and actually knocked one out completely. The Germans claimed to have knocked out 5 airfields, but in reality the damage was negligible, mainly because the airfields were dirt and/or grass strips rather than paved ones, which made them relatively easy to repair. Amid the fighting in on these 2 days, the Luftwaffe lost 47 planes, the RAF 13.

August 15 brought the 1st great battle in the skies. The Luftwaffe struck from all 3 Luftflottens, flying 801 bombing and 1,149 fighter sorties. Luftflotten 5, operating form Scandinavia, met disaster. By sending 800 bombers in a massive assault on the south coast of England, the Germans hoped to find the defenses on the northeast coast scanty at best, attacking with some 100 bombers, escorted by 34 ME-110s, upon the Tyneside. However, they ran into 7 squadrons of Hurricanes and Spitfires and were severely mauled. Luftflotten 5 lost 30 planes, mostly bombers, without any loss to the RAF. That was it, at least in strength, for Luftflotten 5 in the Battle of Britain.

But the Luftwaffe fared relatively well that same day with their attack in the south; 4 massive attacks were launched, one of which penetrated close to London. 4 aircraft factories were hit and 5 RAF airfields damaged. In all, the Germans lost 75 planes, against 34 for the RAF. However, the German numerical superiority was not offsetting the won/loss ratio favoring the RAF to the degree needed to drive the British from the skies.

Now Goering committed another tactical mistake - and he would do it again; though the attacks on radar installations a few days earlier were not completely fruitless, the Reichsmarschall called off entirely the attacks on the radar stations on August 15, thinking the attacks were completely futile. Idiot! The skill and precision of Fighter Command in committing its fighters to battle against vastly numerically superior forces was being fulfilled because of its shrewd use of radar. The German flight courses were accurately plotted, giving the RAF the ability to discern where and when to attack the Luftwaffe raids. This was something new in warfare, and quite a blow to Germanic pride, as the British were more advanced in the development and use of this electronic device.

However, the Luftwaffe identified something equally important - the sector stations. The Germans realized that the RAF fighter squadrons were being controlled from the ground by some procedure because they heard on their own radios British commands to fighter squadrons being accurately directed to their formations. The sector stations formed the underground nerve center from which, upon receiving the latest intelligence from radar, the Hurricanes and Spitfires were guided by radiotelephone into the battle. The Germans, as I stated, began to realize what they could hear over the air waves was the correspondence between the ground control centers and the RAF pilots. The Stuka dive bomber, an abject failure and a sitting duck in the skies, was now completely withdrawn from the battle by August 19. That day, the Luftwaffe lost 71 planes, the RAF 27. Bad weather from the 19 - 23 August precluded any activity. Up until this juncture the battle was going against the Luftwaffe. This situation was about to change. But the Germans had better hurry up, as they couldn't sustain high losses forever.

On August 24 a 3rd phase began. Now Goering showed he wasn't a complete fool; after reviewing things with his General Staff, he decreed that now the RAF was to be targeted - exclusively. Goering proclaimed on this critical juncture in August,

"We have reached the decisive period of the war against England...The vital task is the defeat of the enemy air force. Our first aim is to destroy the enmy's fighters"

From August 24 - September 6 the Battle of Britain entered its decisive stage - one of the most decisive couple of weeks in the history of warfare. The battle essentially became a slugging match between Albert Kesselring and Keith Park. Luftflotten 2 and 3 concentrated solely on knocking out Fighter Command, making repeated attacks on the airfields and sector stations. The majority of the ME-109s were transferred to the bases at Pas-de-Calais, the closest geographical point to England. Heavier fighter escort would force the RAF into a more loaded fight. Of 33 heavy attacks over this period, 24 were upon airfields. The Luftwaffe wasn't entirely accurate about its intelligence, but it was good enough to start making a difference: the German preponderance in numbers finally began to tell. 5 major fighter fields were extensivley damaged, and repeatedly hit, greatly hindering attempts at repairing them, and 6 of the 7 key sector stations suffered so severely that the entire communications system was on the verge of being completely knocked out. The integrity of Hugh Dowding's system was threatened to the point that emergency measures were taken to keep operations alive.

But the British aircraft factories, under the direction of Lord Beaverbrook, the Minister of Aircraft Production, maintained high production, replacing the RAF losses on almost a 1-to-1 ratio, just enough, as it would turn out. But replacing the pilots was a different story, as stopgaps could not do the job; they lost 103 pilots killed and 128 seriously wounded in this critical phase of the Battle of Britain - a quarter of the total available. The overall pace was also beginning to exact a toll on the RAF. In this crucial fortnight of August 24 - September 6 they actually lost more planes than the Germans; 466 fighters were either destroyed or badly damaged, with 295 lost (depending on the source). But Beaversbrook's people only replaced (destroyed or badly damaged) 269 planes (again, sources vary). Luftwaffe losses numbered 385 total aircraft, of which 214 were fighters. But we must remember that bailed out pilots and downed planes for the Luftwaffe were almost entirely lost for good. This was not the case for the RAF. The ME 109 was now matching the Hurricanes and Spitfires, now that they had a less time-consuming task. The scales had tilted against Fighter Command, as Churchill realized. The Luftwaffe was seemingly winning the Battle of Britain, and another 2 weeks or so would probably render SE England practically defenseless from the skies. But this would have been a long 2 weeks for the Luftwaffe, if they were going to continue along the same lines; their losses were very high in proportion to their strength, and nothing seems to indicate they were ready to draw upon squadrons located elsewhere (Germany wasn't at this time fighting any other fronts, though).

But Goering went and did it again, which would materially help the battered, reeling, exhausted RAF, and marked the turning point of the battle, perhaps of the entire war. The Luftwaffe could afford high losses where the RAF could not (at least for the next few weeks), and coupled with the losses now being suffered on the ground, the Luftwaffe would have almost certainly sustained longer than the RAF, despite the incredible valor and reslience of the British pilots. Suddenly, the Luftwaffe switched its policy of attacking the strategic targets on September 7 to massive night bombings of Great Britain's capital. The RAF was reprieved. But this cannot have been, at the immediate moment, any consolation to the poor civilians of London.

One of those 'things' in history, which get immersed in irony, simply happened on the night of August 24. A squadron of HE-111s dropped their bombs on the center of London; it seems they missed their targets of oil tanks and aircraft factories on the outskirts of London. Some homes were destroyed and civilians killed. The British deemed the act deliberate and retaliated by bombing Berlin the next evening with 81 bombers, something Goering had proclaimed was impossible. Material damage to the German capital was negligible, but it was a shock to German morale. The RAF attacked again in greater force on August 28-29.

Hitler was livid, as his maniacal ego was bruised! Waiting 2 weeks to display his wrath, he announced to the German people on September 4 that if Great Britain attacks their cities we will raze theirs to the ground! Thus began the Blitz on September 7. It was a political decision, based on revenge, more than a miltary one, as the British raids were mere pinpricks compared to what the Luftwaffe was exacting on England's cities.

But there was an element of strategic thinking behind this switch from the bombing of the RAF airfields and sector stations to civilian targets; the Germans were hoping that the nearly 300 or so RAF aircraft in reserve would be forced into action, and that the spirit of the British people would crack from the bombing of their cities. It didn't work, and proved to be one of the great miscalculations of WWII. Fighter Command was able to recuperate and regroup, and this change forced the German bombers too relinquish much valuable time for their fighter escorts, as they now had to penetrate deeper to London and Coventry etc. Civilian targets could not stop a German invasion; aircraft could. Air superiority was absolutely necessary for a German invasion, or occupation, of Great Britain.

On September 7, London was attacked by waves of German planes. The 1st wave saw 320 bombers, protected by every fighter they had, probably over 600, fly up the Thames and bomb many targets of power stations and depots etc. The entire area of Woolwich Arsenal was soon a conflagration. In one locality, civilians had to be evacuated by water. That same night, a 2nd wave of some 250 bombers resumed the assault, which was sustained by successive waves until dawn. The next night, another 200 or bombers attacked and continued bombing throughout the night. The German losses were proportionally negligible, as night defenses had not yet been perfected. The assault went on all week, night after night. Casualties numbered 842 killed and 2,347 wounded during the first 2 nights, thus many more were certainly killed and wounded throughout the week.

But then, spurred by what they deemed as substantial success, the Luftwaffe pressed their luck with a great daylight raid on the battered, burning capital. This led to one of the decisive engagements of the war on September 15. The Luftwaffe sent some 200 bombers, with maybe 3 times the number of fighters in escort, to attack London. But Fighter Command intercepted them before they reached London, and albeit some got through to inflict more damage on the city, many were dispersed or shot down before they could drop their bombs. A couple hours later an even bigger German formation appeared and was routed by the RAF fighters. The Luftwaffe lost 56 planes, of which 34 were bombers, and the RAF lost 26 fighters. But London was hardly touched in comaprison with the night bombings of the week prior. This day made the Luftwaffe realize that, after giving Fighter Command and its valuable sector stations and airfields a week to recuperate, they could not carry out a successful major daylight raid on Great Britain. The prospect of an effecting a lnding of any sort was now very dim. September 15 was the 'crux' of the Battle of Britain. Goering still claimed his bombers could serve as decoys for fighters, as he now proposed to destroy the RAF fighters with his own fighters. But even Hitler knew better, as did his Army and Navy commanders. On September 17, Seelowe was called off indefinitely.

Like I said, however, the people of London at the time had no reason to feel relieved, as the city took a terrible pounding for 57 consecutive nights until November 3, and Coventry suffered great damage. German bombing of the capital continued until May 1941. But British morale never came close to collapse, nor did armament production diminish. Actually, the British outproduced the Germans in total aircraft production in 1940 by 15,000+ to -11,000 planes. This is amazing, being only the British factories were targeted by the enemy. Moreover, the German war effort was more and more being directed towards Hitler's 'real' enemy, in the East.

The Luftwaffe losses over England in the summer of 1940 were so severe that could never be made up, and they never fully recovered from the blow they received over the skies from the RAF, whose pilots at times flew multiple sorties a day. Furthermore, the Kriegsmarine had been depleted in Norway the previous spring to the point it could not provide support for a German landing without air supremacy, thus for the first time in the war Hitler was halted, and just at a moment when victory was seemingly in his grasp.

Post-war analysis of records has shown that between July and September the Luftwaffe lost 1,887 aircraft, of which 873 were fighters. The RAF lost 1,023 fighters to all causes, but in addition lost 376 Bomber Command and 148 Coastal Command aircraft that undertook vital bombing, mining, and reconnaisance operations throughout the Battle of Britain. A common figure is 1,733 losses for the Luftwaffe, 915 for the RAF.

Total British civilian losses from July to December of 1940 were 23,002 killed and 32,138 wounded. A total of civilian losses exceeded 43,000 by May 1941 with the continuation of the Blitz.

The Luftwaffe's theory of strategic bombing, that the public would collapse with a dwindling of morale, was undone by British resolve and defiance. The numerical superiority of the Luftwaffe was only an asset when they implemented the strategy of August 24 - September 6. The strategy of Hugh Dowding and Keith Park of choosing when to engage the enemy formations and maintaining a coherent force, coupled with not committing reserves too rashly, was completely justified by the end result. The majority of American opinion also shifted to believing Great Britain could survive.

Perhaps the RAF, including Churchill, thought they were on a thinner edge than they actually were, and only later they realized they never were on the verge of defeat. But it must have been close: the important ground targets were close enough to Luftwaffe bases near the Cap Nez so that any superiority of the RAF, concerning radar and fighting over their own bases, was at its narrowest margin, and the ME-109 pilots were certainly superior to the raw recruits, whose training had to be minimized because they were desperately needed. However, the Germans were going to be suffering losses they couldn't sustain for too long. In fact, they suffered unsustainable losses right from the get-go.

However, and this is always proclaimed with hindsight, the Luftwaffe certainly could not have won the battle, in terms of blowing the RAF out of the skies over England, but very likely could have cleared SE England of the RAF if not for the egregious change of strategy on September 7; the RAF would have probably have been compelled to evacuate Sector 11 (Southampton^Oxford>Ipswich), in which the Germans could have established a foothold of some sort. Kurt Student and his crack airborne units could have possibly begun landing in SE England. However, many feel this isn't so, as pressure on Fighter Command squadrons still continued substantially with the attacks on London. One thing is certain: Fighter Command was never outfought, and the RAF suffered no important disadvantages in equipment, skill, and courage. But it seems likely there were neither enough operational squadrons nor sufficient reserves of pilots (this is the biggie) and aircraft to enable it to withstand the relatively heavy casualties of August and early September and still maintain its strength and efficiency to fight off what they were being hit with; its fighting strength had diminished even with more squadrons available at the end of October than at the beginning of July. But the Luftwaffe was being hit harder, in terms of ratio of loss, and probably couldn't keep up the onslaught for more than a couple of weeks after September 6, if they had continued the strategy which many feel would have won the battle, at least in terms of clearing the skies of SE England of the RAF. But - and this is worth looking into - I don't think the RAF suffered any less casualties after the switching of the German strategy on September 7, thus they weren't necessarily 'saved' and able to regroup solely because of the German change of strategy. But this wouldn't lessen the problem of the airfields and sector stations being threatened etc.

We must remember the mere presence of the Royal Navy, which dwarfed the German sea forces even with the Home Fleet, must have always been on the minds of the German commanders. For the invasion of southern and/eastern England, the Germans should have utilized their allies better, such as severing the sea line of communications in the Mediterranean, and spent time beforehand on the proposed landing craft, known as the Marinefahrprahm, which, unlike those river barges, could propel 200 men or 140 tons or so of equipment across the Channel. But it would have taken time to mass-produce them. I guess it's like saying 'if only' the Luftwaffee had possessed the tremedous FW-190 fighter for the Battle of Britain, which would have outclassed any fighter the RAF had. Though it 1st flew in June of 1939, the FW-190 wasn't extant in mass yet.

From T.C.G. James' The Battle of Britain, pg. 326,

"...for if the Command had continued to suffer the same casualties during the three weeks succeeding 7 September as in the previous fortnight there would have been no reserves of aircraft in the Aircraft Storage Units; and the pilot situation, while we can attempt no accurate forecast, would certainly have been so bad that no effective defence could have been made against continued attacks by day..."

Because of the great British triumph, the island nation was able to rebuild its miltary forces and establish itself as a stronghold amongst the Allied Forces. Great Britain was preserved as exactly what Hitler wanted to prevent, a great base for the possible Allied retaliation upon the Continent at a later date. But as we know, his thoughts, ones of abhorrent ideology, and paramount objective was elsewhere - to the East.

We can't finish this without Churchill's exhortation on August 20 to the House of Commons, although, and this is a little peculiar, the battle was still very much in doubt when he stated this, but he wasn't announcing final victory, but clearly trying to sustain hope in the trying times,

"The gratitude of every home in our island, in our empire, and indeed, throughout the free world, except in the abode of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the war by their prowess and devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few"

As it was, the battle was won and the German offensive petered out. It is almost certain that the decline in the German effort meant the checking of the ominous rate at which Fighter Command had been wasting away. Needless to say, heroism is always gauged from our own personal values and bias, but, in my opinion, the British pilots and their allies,the Few, over the skies of England in the summer of 1940, are incontrovertibly part of the upper echelon of the heroes of military history for their people's cause. Keith Park, a native New Zealander, is a veritable hero, and that the British victory was accomplished by a force so small, facing one nearly 4 times as large, was an achievement in air warfare that has never been equalled. But no doubt the presence and potential of the Royal Navy influenced decisions and inactions on the part of the Germans.

I Hope this wasn't too long.

Thanks and enjoy, Spartan JKM :original:

[MoROmeTe]

As always, great article you've written Spartan...

Interestingly the greatest influence on the Battle of Britain was not that of a sound planner like Sperle or Kesselring but that of the egoistic sychophant that was Goering.

I recently saw a documentary in which Goering was portrayed as a psihological "child" which only worked for two things: his own ammusemt (one should look at the extensive plundering of art and at his lavish life style) and pleasing the one that granted him power. This was Hitler. And Goering could only thing that, because he was deriving his power from the Fuhrer, he should please the Fuhrer by all means possible, even lying and shameless arse kissing... So he told Hitler what he needed to hear: he could reduce the Dunkirk pocket by himself (and by doing so he would obtain more glory and power that the Army); he could defeat Britain by himself; he could supply the trapped 6th Army by himself. Everything to please Hitler...

So I think we can launch a little what if: With Kesselring, Sperle or another air commander (suggestions?) at the helm, undetermined by Goering's idiotic self serving commands, could the Luftwaffe have blown the RAF out of the sky?

[turcopolier]

Excellent read Spartan! One wonders what might have happened if they hadn't changed the tactics in September...

[Salvantis]

Nice text :original: . But personally i'm still thinking that Battle for Britain and it's importance was highly overrated by Churchill propaganda. "Sealion" never was anything more than threat for there is absolutely no way that Wehrmacht could invade Britain as long as the Home Fleet isn't completely neutralized, or at least very seriously crippled. And in summer of 1940. that was impossible.

[Spartan JKM]

Thanks for the replies.

I agree Salvantis; the Germans were never going to gain the submission of Great Britain if it entailed a major invasion. They underestimated British resolve, sparked by the exhortations of Churchill. I don't think the British were in quite the danger in late August/early September 1940 he seems to present in his Memoirs. But the threat was very real.

So I think we can launch a little what if: With Kesselring, Sperle or another air commander (suggestions?) at the helm, undetermined by Goering's idiotic self serving commands, could the Luftwaffe have blown the RAF out of the sky?

No. Not even close; the RAF had too many fighters, and production was too thorough to prevent them from being eliminated. Perhaps the likes Kesselring and Sperle would have shown more foresight and initiative in attacking RAF ground control, thus SE England might have been evacuated by Dowding, but the RAF was always going to possess enough efficient fighters to continue the fight. As for suggestions of others, perhaps Hans Jeschonnek, who I believe was a general staff leader, and Gunther Korten.

From the crucial phase of August 24 - September 7, I don't think the radar was as advantageous as before August 24 and after September 7. It took 6 minutes for the German bombers with their escorts to cross the Straits of Dover, and another 10 minutes for them to be over 11 Group's sector airfields. The bomber waves were picked up by radar as they masked around Cape Griz Nev, but it took 4 minutes for the information to reach the squadrons and another 13 minutes to climb to 20,000 ft., while the top-cover ME 109 escorts swept down at 26,000 ft. It was in ascent and descent where the ME 109 was superior to anyhting Fighter Command had. Moreover, radar operators were dealing with a (relatively) crude new device, and at times found it difficult to predict the accurate size and height of bomber formations. Fighter Commnad's advanced information could be sparse and rarely covered planned raids to the degree of detail Hugh Dowding needed for effective preperation. Even worse, diversionary raids, and the 'sweeps' of German fighters, would commit 11 Group to attack well away from their airfields while the main attack fell on theirmground control centers. As a result, 12 Group indeed became stretched because they had to cover 11's airfields. A contunuation of this enforced dispersal would have stretched Fighter Command to the point they could not achieve the concentration necessary to wreck havoc on the bombers, who were coming in waves of 1,000 a day. After the RAF intecepters had dealt with one wave and landed to re-fuel and re-arm, they would be bombed on the ground by another incoming wave. This condition never reached so severe as being inexorable, but it would have with this course.

Before September, 11 Group had no time to undertake a mass attack on the Luftwaffe's Gruppes, units which comprised 30 aircraft. Keith Park had the only option of committing his fighters in penny-pickets of single squadron strength - 12 fighters. This could have easily have become easier, if the battle continued after September 7 with the German attack on airfields and factories etc., with experience and predictibility of the German bomber attacks becoming easier. As post war analysis would show, the Big Wings proposed by Trafford Leigh-Mallory, which was 3 (later 5) squadrons of 36 fighters (later 60) working as single unit, would take too long to form up, and fighters would be at greater risk of being caught on the ground refuelling.

Another issue is with regards to the JU 87 Stuka; though it proved to be very vulnerable, it still had achieved some success with precision bombing against shipping and other targets, the very bomber's raison d'etre, and improvement in this task was not implausible, with more experience. If future losses would have been deemed acceptable, and at least a good portion of the remaining Stuka force, about 1/3 of the entire Luftwaffe bomber force, had been used against the RAF ground targets, ones which required more precision which the Stuka could better offer than the other medium bombers, in the 2 weeks following August 18, the outcome could have been very different. True, the loss of so many experienced Luftwaffe pilots was very bad for morale, and the impending troop landings in England and the upcoming invasion of the Soviet Union necessitated the preservation of the Stuka in large numbers. But they didn't have to withdraw practically all of them. They could have possibly excelled over the parts of SE England where the ME 109 could stay long enough to help them find their targets.

A major problem for the Luftwaffe was that Hermann Goering was fed bad intelligence, which led him to believe the RAF was as good as defeated by September 7. But it was never authenticated, and he should have, in hindsight, simply stayed the course. Airfields were becoming pockmarked by bomb craters, which would have become more severe with the continued course. Communications networks were stretched and the early warning system threatened. If the Luftwaffe had not wrongly concluded from earlier that radar installations could not be wrecked by precision bombing, it is very likely that vital element in the chain of RAF fighter control would have been put out of action for good. However, all this deductive logic on my part is 'Monday Morning Quarterbacking', and the Germans did not know what we know now in post-Battle of Britain breakdowns. But it's a fact that in the critical phase the fighter squadrons began losing more planes than their German fighter opponents, and began to feel the pinch of bombed airfields.

But perhaps the most serious worry for the RAF was the serious shortage of well-trained pilots. The majority of the RAF pilots became the fledglings, or cannon foder, as the German pilots called them. Replacing pilots could not be dangerously rushed, and it was even risky to reduce final training from 6 to 3 weeks.

James Stokesbury wrote in his History of World War II,

"...By the first of September, the Germans were winning; the RAF had no more fresh squadrons to provide rotations, and on several days in this period they lost more planes than their factories produced , the factories themselves were under attack, and if the Luftwaffe could keep up the pressure, they were home free..."

Basically, if the Germans had continued to batter the ground targets, particulary the airfields (Biggin Hill had its operations room and all its communications wrecked at one point), and forced the RAF fighters to fight waves of Luftwaffe attacks with their escorts solely over SE England, which was within range of Luftwaffe airfields in Belgium and France, Fighter Command would have almost certainly been driven from SE England. With this contingency of German control of the skies over the area of Southampton^Oxford>Ipswich, a foothold could possibly have been achieved, in which the renowned Kurt Student would have perhaps come into play, landing troops with gliders and JU-52s, aircraft which did not suffer in the battle. However, this is not completely conclusive, as Hitler was on a timeframe, and airdrops, even if successful in capturing strongholds etc., always incurred high losses. Moreover, Hitler, was more and more seriously eyeing the East. Perhaps the Germans were never going to win from the point of view that they were too impatient; I don't think the RAF would have been even slightly neutralized by late September, even with them cleared of SE England.

But the Germans didn't continue what many seem to feel would have won the battle, and we have to take into account that Dowding astutely kept many fighters in reserve, which he would have been forced to use with the continued German strategy of August 24 - September 7. But British morale didn't crack, something the Germans planned on. Over-confidence will lose campaigns too, something that would cost the Germans in other phases of WWII as well.

There was a consistent, though not exorbitant, drop in available operational fighters from Aug 21 - Sep 18 for the RAF; each week became a little worse. As for the available pilots for the RAf, we also have some disparity, as Churchill tells us,

"...This same period (August 24 - September 6) had seriously drained the strength of Fighter Command as a whole. The Command lost in this fortnight 103 pilots killed and 128 seriously wounded, while 466 Spitfires and Hurricanes had been destroyed or serioulsy damaged. Out of a total pilot strength of about 1,000 nearly a quarter had been lost. Their places could only be filled by 260 new, ardent, but inexperienced pilots drawn from training units, in many cases before their full courses were complete. The night attacks on London for 10 days after September 7 struck at the London docks and railway centres, and killed and wounded many civilians, but they were in effect for us a breathing-space of which we had the utmost need."

This would make the pilot strength in the critical phase, including the stopgap pilots, whose inexperience could certainly not immediately remedy a situation becoming seemingly desperate; not including those not flying the Spitfires and Hurricanes, RAF pilot quantity was about 1,000.

From August 8-18, just before the critical phase, the RAF lost 213 fighters, of which 30 were destroyed on the ground; but less than 150 Hurricanes and Spitfires were produced during this period, and the squadrons could be brought up to strength only by drawing on reserve. The RAF did not know for certain the strength and industrial capacity of the Luftwaffe at this time, but the exaggerated British estimates of German casualties amid the fighting cannot have completely their vision of what the situation really was. The evidence pointed to the scenario that in the intense slogging match that reached its apex in early September, within a few weeks - within, barely, the German agenda - Fighter Command would be reduced to a guerilla force, operating form the north, unable to thwart the main aims of German strategy. It seems some accounts claim otherwise (Roger Parkinson and Len Deighton), but the consensus has the British incapable of closing the gap betweem losses and and replacements, or even to prevent it widening. The reserves, flying from bases no longer directly beneath them, would no longer enjoy the substantial advantage of airtime over the Luftwaffe fighters; it would now be reduced.

In every day's fighting from August 24 - September 6, the Luftwaffe had been bettered, in terms of losses, but on Aug 28, Aug 31, and Sep 3, the won/loss ratio was within just a few planes in favor of the RAF. But in every one of these days the RAF had suffered losses whose cumulative effect was bound to prove mortal in the end.

It seems winning the Battle of Britain entailed for the Luftwaffe gaining supremacy of the air over No. 11 Group's territory, and British morale being sapped to the point of terms being discussed for Germany's hegemony in Great Britain. It was from SE Englands ports landings could be achieved without significant resistence, not the destruction of virtually every aircaft of the RAF, which would be impossible (without the aid of exorbitant treachery). As long as Great Britain was determined to fight, and they certainly were, Germany was never going to completely occupy the Isles, particularly with Hitler eyeing the East. But SE England probably could have been cleared of the skies if not for the changing of the strategy on September 7. But that was a far cry from winning a complete victory over Great Britain. There are a few important things to consider as to what could have happened from there. We have to consider the Royal Navy beyond the Home Fleet, of which much of was tied down in the Mediterranean with the Italian threat.

I find Churchill's narrative dramatic and scary, from his Memoirs of the Second World War,

"...In the fighting between August 24 and September 6 the scales had tilted against Fighter Command. During these crucial days the Germans had continuously applied powerful forces against the airfields of South and South-East England. Their object was to break down the day fighter defence of the capital, which they were impatient to attack. Far more important to us than the protection of London from terror-bombing was the functioning and articulation of these airfields and the squadrons working from them. In the life-and-death struggle of the two Air Forces this was a decisive phase. We never thought of the struggle in terms of the defence of London or any other place, but only who won in the air. There was much anxiety at Fighter Headquarters at Stanmore, and particularly at the headquarters of No. 11 Fighter Group at Uxbridge. Extensive damage had been done to five of the Group's forward airfields, and also to the six Sector Stations. Manston and Lympne on the Kentish coast were on several occasions and for days unfit for operating fighter aircraft. Biggin Hill Sector Station, to the south of London, was so severly damaged that for a week only one fighter squadron could operate from it. If the enemy had persisted in heavy attacks against the adjacent sectors and damaged their operations rooms or telephone communications the whole intricate organization of Fighter Command might have been broken down. This would have meant not merely the maltreatment of London, but the loss to us of the perfected control of our own air in the decisive area. I was led to visit several of the stations, particularly Manston (August 28), and Biggin Hill, which is quite near my home. They were getting terribly about, and their runways were ruined by craters. It was therefore with a sense of relief that Fighter Command felt the German attack turn to London on September 7, and concluded that the enemy had changed his plan. Goering should have certainly persevered against the airfields, on whose organization and combination the whole fighting power of our Air Force at this moment depended. By departing from the classical principles of war, as well as from the hitherto accepted dictates of humanity, he made a foolish mistake..."

Now, to keep an open mind, Sir Winston may have been showcasing a little hyperbole and scaremongering.

Of note, Roger Parkinson, author of Summer 1940:the Battle of Britain, states that pilot losses and the anxiety mentioned by Churchill were not as bad as usually thought. He claims that official documents from the Air Ministry belied what the popular versions say, and that,

"...over-gloomy estimates given in the heat of battle, when the situation seemed worse than it actually was, can easily be understood...".

Maybe Parkinson was somewhat correct; pressure on Fighter Command squadrons still continued substantially even with the attacks on London. One thing is certain: Fighter Command was never outfought, except for the isolated and/or semi-isolated incidents between the raw recruits who went up against experienced Luftwaffe pilots, and the RAF suffered no important disadvantages in equipment, skill and courage. But it seems likely there were neither enough operational squadrons nor sufficient reserves of pilots (this is the biggie) and aircraft to enable it to withstand the relatively heavy casualties of August and early September, and still maintain its strength and efficiency to fight off what they were being hit with; its fighting strength had diminished even with more squadrons available at the end of October than at the beginning of July. But the Luftwaffe was being hit hard too, proportionally worse, and it couldn't keep up the onslaught for perhaps no more than a few weeks after September 6, if they had continued the strategy which many feel would have won the battle, at least in terms of clearing the skies of SE England of the RAF. It seems that the British thought they were losing more than they actually were, and the Germans thought they were winning more than they actually were.

But this is from T.C.G. James' The Battle of Britain, pg. 326,

"...for if the Command had continued to suffer the same casualties during the three weeks succeeding 7 September as in the previous fortnight there would have been no reserves of aircraft in the Aircraft Storage Units; and the pilot situation, while we can attempt no accurate forecast, would certainly have been so bad that no effective defence could have been made against continued attacks by day..."

As it was, the Battle of Britain was won and the German offensive petered out. It is almost certain that the decline in the German effort meant the checking of the ominous rate at which Fighter Command had been wasting away. Keith Park, a native New Zealander, is a veritable hero, and that the British victory was accomplished by a force so small, facing one nearly 4 times as large, was an achievement in air warfare that has never been equalled.

Thanks, Spartan JKM :original: