Many Not the Few: The Stolen History of the Battle of Britain

by Richard North

  Throughout this whole period, Hitler had openly declared his reluctance to make war with Britain. Whether this was a tactical ploy, or genuinely meant, is not known. Possibly, it was both. No student of politics can be unaware that part of the skill set of any successful politician is the ability to hold and affirm entirely different and contradictory principles – sometimes simultaneously. And Hitler was the consummate politician.

  To demonstrate his good faith, Hitler on 13 June had granted unprecedented access to Karl von Wiegand, a Hearst Newspapers journalist, for a prolonged interview. Von Wiegand was chief European correspondent for the New York Journal American, the principal isolationist newspaper in the Hearst stable. To him, Hitler had denied wanting to destroy the British Empire. “On the contrary,” he had told Wiegand, “just before the outbreak of this war … I submitted a proposal to the British Government wherein I went to the length of offering armed assistance of the Reich for safeguarding British Empire.” The published interview transcript was circulated to the War Cabinet on 15 June – rather bizarrely marked “secret”.43

  Less secret, but in the longer term almost as problematical for Churchill was the issue of what had become known as “war aims”. Throughout the early part of the war, there had been considerable pressure for an open statement, and events this day were shaping up to increase that pressure.

  The source was Harold Nicolson, who had brought up the matter at the policy committee of which he was a member. Writing in his diary, he confided that there were two issues. On the one hand, there was the possibility of Hitler calling a European Economic Conference, announcing the economic consolidation of Europe. On the other, when the bombing began on a large scale, people would ask, “What are we fighting for?” In order to combat the first, Nicolson wrote, we needed free trade and pooled resources. For the second, we needed socialism. With his committee, he agreed to draft in leaflet form a manifesto promising the world free trade, and in Britain “equality of opportunity”. But, he wrote, “Would it be difficult to get Duff Cooper to put it to the War Cabinet? Will it not be felt that we had better leave this sleeping tiger to sleep in its own way?”44

  In the air fighting, a pattern was now beginning to emerge, plus a degree of continuity that marked it out as a battle, rather than a series of disjointed actions. So it was that, after fog in the Channel had cleared, radar picked up aircraft heading for convoys “Agent” off North Foreland and “Booty”, twelve miles north-east of Orfordness. The heavier attack was aimed at “Booty”. Sections from six squadrons were scrambled but they were unable to stop the destroyer Vanessa being disabled by near misses from German bombs. Meanwhile, the RAF was taking the fight to the enemy. Blenheims were sent out for a search-and-destroy mission of enemy aircraft. One was attacked by twelve Me 109s. The crew made it back to their base on Thorney Island where their aircraft crashed on landing.

  The publicity continued to give the impression that action was confined to the south-east and Home Counties, stoking up fears of an invasion. But there is a major and serious gap in most popular narratives. This day and throughout the battle, the Germans were carrying out “nuisance” raids all over the country, some by day but mostly by night. Never at any time was the entire resource of the Luftwaffe focused on a single, strategic objective, and never was there one localized battle.

  County Durham, for instance, saw a large number of incendiary bombs dropped on railway lines leading to a small village with the unlikely name of Seaton Snooks. Others fell in West Hartlepool. Incendiary bombs fell in a village near Consett. In an almost comedic incident, a cow was killed and a house slightly damaged by fire.45 There was nothing in the least bit amusing when Aberdeen was raided, though. The single He 111 was shot down, but not before it had killed twenty-six and injured seventy-nine, and caused considerable damage. The day became known locally as “Black Friday”.46

  At “the end of play”, the “cricket score” was rushed out with a speed that did not permit reflection or accuracy. Once published, it was difficult to correct results without loss of face, especially if adjustments had to be substantially downwards. Fighter Command admitted to four lost, in 670 sorties, and claimed twenty-two Germans downed. The actual figures were nine and eight-respectively. With a Coastal Command Blenheim and a Whitley bomber also lost, the day brought eleven losses to the RAF, putting the Germans ahead. A combat exchange rate of more than 5:1 was being claimed, when the ratio was closer to 1:1. Furthermore, five British fighter pilots had been killed, one reported “believed drowned”. Cumulative fighter pilot losses in three days stood at ten, almost enough to man a squadron.

  This day being a Friday, a weekly résumé on the naval military and air situation had been sent to the War Cabinet. Throughout the war, a secret appraisal was sent every Friday.47 This one covered the period from noon on 4 July to noon on 11 July. It conveyed the sense of an escalating air war, noting more operations by the German long-range bomber force. Ports on the south coast and shipping in the North Sea had become important targets. While U-boat activity had decreased, enemy aircraft had inflicted considerable damage on shipping in the Channel.

  General Alan Brooke, in an entry in his diary, wrote that: “This was supposed to be a probable day for an invasion!” He had spent the day in the office.48 Also recording an entry on the invasion was another diarist and a vital witness in the ongoing narrative. This was 25-year-old John “Jock” Colville, Churchill’s private secretary. He heard Churchill talking with two of his generals, Paget and Auchinleck, referring to “the great invasion scare”. This, Churchill had said, was serving a most useful purpose. It was well on its way “to providing us with the finest offensive army we have ever possessed and it is keeping every man and woman tuned to a high pitch of readiness”. Churchill had doubts on whether it was a “serious menace”, although he intended to give precisely the opposite impression, and to talk about “long and dangerous vigils, etc.”, when he broadcast two days hence.49 The threat was to be exploited as a unifying and motivational force.

  What may have triggered the discussion was that the Prime Minister had received a response to his memorandum of 10 July on the invasion. It had come from the First Sea Lord, Admiral Dudley Pound, who told him: “[W]e have to take into account the characteristics of the Hitler regime”. Complete disregard of losses could be expected if this would help gain the objectives. It could not be assumed that “past military rules” could be relied upon. Under certain conditions, the Germans might be able to land as many as 100,000 troops on British soil, without being intercepted by naval forces. The real question was whether they could be kept supplied. Unless the German air force had overcome both our air force and our navy, Pound wrote, this “seems practically impossible”.50

  As to the invasion of England, the German military had been studying the problem. It was now in the hands of Colonel General Alfred Jodl, twice-wounded veteran of the First World War who had celebrated his fiftieth birthday on 10 May as German tanks had rolled towards France. Now Chief of Operation Staff of the OKW, he was the German military’s most senior war planner. With the approval of the Supreme Commander and his immediate boss, Field Marshal Keitel, Jodl had on this day finalized a document entitled First Thoughts on a Landing in England.51

  This was the first serious attempt to consider the practical implications of the invasion. Jodl had no illusions. There were the three important difficulties: Britain’s command of the sea; the mobility of her Army, which could move rapidly to the landing areas; and the impossibility of achieving strategic surprise. As Churchill had earlier surmised, shipping concentrations in the ports of northern France could not be concealed.

  The first problem Jodl believed could be circumvented by a landing on the south coast where the crossing was short, and by substituting command of the air for the naval supremacy which the Germans did not possess. To cope with the lack of strategic surprise and the anticipated mobility of British forces, he proposed that the landing should “take place in the form
of a river crossing in force on a broad front”. In other words, he anticipated multiple, simultaneous landings, over such a wide front that the enemy could not concentrate its forces against any one spearhead, without another breaking through.

  The role of artillery would fall to the Luftwaffe; the first wave of landing troops had to be very strong; in place of bridging operations, a sea lane completely secure from naval attacks would be established in the Dover Straits. He suggested that the fighting troops of seven divisions should land between Dover and Bournemouth, under the command of General Gerd von Rundstedt, then Commander of Army Group A. And the operation had a name: Lion. It was shortly afterwards changed to Sealion (Seelöwe), a strangely unthreatening name for an operation which had the potential to change the world.

  3.

  War of the people

  This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors.

  Winston Churchill, BBC broadcast, 14 July 19401

  In 1940, the British people were reluctant warriors. Memories of the previous war, the General Strike in 1926 and the ongoing class struggle were in the consciousness of many. Churchill himself was not universally popular, and the labour unions were flexing their muscles, refusing to back a war simply to create profits for capitalists. They wanted recognition that this was a war of the people – a political agenda which then conferred rights in determining the shape of the peace. Churchill appeared willing to talk, and Hitler still appeared to be looking for peace.

  DAY 4 – SATURDAY 13 JULY 1940

  As the pilots of Fighter Command took to the skies, the country’s most popular tabloid, the Daily Mirror, on its front page was lauding the heroism of the RAF. But the plaudits were for Bomber Command. The media had not yet caught up with the narrative. This became something of an interesting phenomenon. From an outsider’s perspective, there appeared to be a significant element of competition between the Commands, and there was certainly no public perception of a coherent battle developing.

  However, the Germans were getting more organized. Under General Albert Kesselring, commanding the Second Air Fleet, Kommodore Johannes Fink had been appointed Kanalkampführer to take charge of attacking shipping in the Channel area. He set up his headquarters in an old bus near the statue of Louis Blériot on top of the cliffs at Cap Blanc Nez. Under his direction, there were two sharp engagements off Dover. But once again, the action was not confined to the south-east. There were also attacks on two convoys off Harwich, carried out by aircraft of the Fifth Air Fleet, commanded by General Hans-Jürgen Stumpff. They were operating out of Dutch, Danish and Norwegian airfields. Then, during the night, there was airborne minelaying in the Thames Estuary. Once again, the Luftwaffe was most definitely fulfilling Directive No. 9 objectives. This could not be characterized as a battle devoted to breaking down the strength of the RAF, which was said to be the German aim in the official Battle of Britain narrative.

  Furthermore, only part of the British effort involved fighters. On this day, Blenheim bombers were sent to strike against barges moored in canals near Bruges. The action cost three aircraft. When Coastal Command losses were added to the five from Fighter Command, the RAF was ten down against six lost to the Luftwaffe. In the more important metric of fighter pilots, the British lost four, two over the Channel, bringing the cumulative total to fourteen since 10 July. The Luftwaffe had lost two Me 109 pilots in the same period. Fighter Command was losing the battle.

  DAY 5 – SUNDAY 14 JULY 1940

  Despite the censorship, commentary on the fighting was still permitted. Thus, Major (Maj) Oliver Stewart, air correspondent of the Observer noted a change in German strategy. “Air blockade has been the enemy’s objective during the past week”, he wrote. There had been increased aerial effort but it had been diverted from land targets to shipping. The main forces “would seem to have been concentrated against our convoys”. The official view was not dissimilar, but Stewart reinforced it and made it public. This was a German campaign against shipping, not the RAF – and obviously so.

  The attacks on the day were also against Channel shipping, the same that the BBC’s Charles Gardner had come to watch. By night, there was the dispersal of effort. Heinkel bombers attacked oil tanks at Avonmouth, to the south of Bristol. RAF Bomber Command was also out. Six Blenheims attacked oil and petrol storage tanks on the Ghent–Selzaette Canal. One was lost and another badly damaged by four Me 109s. On the day, Fighter Command lost one aircraft and one pilot. Bomber Command brought the total RAF losses to three, against the Luftwaffe’s three. Since 10 July, fifteen single-seat RAF fighter pilots had been lost.

  In London, Colville recorded speculation that der tag (the invasion of Britain) might be imminent. Churchill was saying that an invasion was “highly probable”, repeating to himself: “Hitler must invade or fail. If he fails he is bound to go East and fail he will”. Churchill, with his grasp of history, may have been thinking of Napoleon. But it was rather surprising that – after his confident performance in the War Cabinet only days previously, when he had held that an imminent invasion was unlikely – he should have changed his mind. It turns out that the source of this short-lived “scare” was a party of three Dutch naval officers who had recently escaped from Holland in a small boat. They had arrived saying that the Germans were talking about 11 July being der tag.2

  Another factor undoubtedly weighing on Churchill’s mind was the speech he was about to broadcast. This was one of his lesser-known efforts, labelled: “War of the unknown warriors”. In front of the microphone that evening, he noted that it had been “a great week” for the RAF and Fighter Command. He was not to know that, in the five days of fighting just finished, losses were exactly at parity, at forty-six each.

  “We await undismayed the impending assault”, Churchill told his listeners. “Perhaps it will come tonight. Perhaps it will come next week. Perhaps it will never come. “We must show ourselves equally capable of meeting a sudden violent shock or – what is perhaps a harder test – a prolonged vigil. But be the ordeal sharp or long, or both, we shall seek no terms, we shall tolerate no parley; we may show mercy – we shall ask for none”.3

  The Prime Minister made it clear what would happen should the invader come to Britain. There would be “no placid lying down of the people in submission”. We would “defend every village, every town, and every city. The vast mass of London itself, fought street by street, could easily devour an entire hostile army. We would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved”. Then, in a marked change of mood, making a statement that he would subsequently contradict, he concluded:

  This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambition; it is a war of peoples and of causes. There are vast numbers, not only in this Island but in every land, who will render faithful service in this war, but whose names will never be known, whose deeds will never be recorded. This is a War of the Unknown Warriors; but let all strive without failing in faith or in duty, and the dark curse of Hitler will be lifted from our age.

  At this moment, the conflict had become a “war of peoples”. On 20 August, it would become the war of the “few”.

  Another broadcaster that day was Yorkshire writer and playwright, J. B. Priestley, hired by the BBC to deliver a series of talks under the generic title: Postscript. In philosophical terms, he was Churchill’s opposite. Hailing from Bradford in West Yorkshire, from an “ultra-respectable” middle-class background, he was grammar school educated and now a successful writer and social commentator. Although he lived in the south, he never lost his Yorkshire accent. Sometimes described as a Fabian socialist, his philosophy was actually his own. His trademark was the People’s War concept, putting him at odds with the jingois
tic, flag-waving patriotism that was so much Churchill’s stock-in-trade.

  His slot had been after the nine o’clock news, the talk ostensibly about Margate and the war’s effect on the all but deserted holiday town. But Priestley’s technique was to use homespun stories as platforms for his message. The war was not merely a means of defeating fascism, he said. It was an opportunity to radically reform British society. Thus, only an hour or so after Churchill had addressed the nation, Priestley was telling largely the same audience:

  The Margate I saw was saddened and hateful; but its new silence and desolation should be thought of as a bridge leading to a better Margate and a better England in a nobler world. We’re not fighting to restore the past; it was the past which brought us to this heavy hour; but we are fighting to rid ourselves and the world of the evil encumbrance of these Nazis so that we can plan and create a noble future for all our species.4

  Priestley’s message was anathema to Churchill and especially to the Tory right wing, which was continually irked by his broadcasts. While fully supportive of Churchill the war leader, Priestley differed profoundly about how people should be motivated to fight and how the peace should be managed. Over a series of broadcasts, he was gradually to set out his thesis that the common man was entitled to a say in creating the peace. But, in lauding the “many” on this one day, Churchill and Priestley were at one. It was not to last.

  DAY 6 – MONDAY 15 JULY 1940

  Another common distortion in the Battle of Britain narrative is the suggestion that the air fighting was centre-stage, the nation transfixed by the action as it unfolded. But, at this stage, that was very far from the case. For most people, the air battle was “noises off”, small-scale, localized and rarely seen. Even domestic politics continued as before.