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

by Richard North

  For example, union conferences continued. Speaking at the Mineworkers’ Federation Conference in Blackpool was Alexander Sloan MP. A time would come, he said, when ordinary people would have to say that the war should end. It would be brought to an end not when politicians or militarists decided, but when there was a rising of the common people to say that it should cease.5 This was the nightmare which haunted Churchill. Before his election, Sloane had been the miners’ union agent in Ayrshire. In 1921, he had been imprisoned in Barlinnie, Glasgow, for standing up to strike-breaking coal owners. A working-class “hero”, in many ways he represented the authentic voice of the Left. People like him were potentially dangerous – they could mobilize the people.

  That speech got little coverage, but not so Duff Cooper. He had become the story as the press picked up the arrival in New York of his 9-year-old son aboard the liner SS Washington, a beneficiary of the seavacuation scheme. No better example could have been found to illustrate the class divide in Britain. The following day, Daily Mirror journalist William Connor, writing under the pseudonym Cassandra, caustically welcomed the safe arrivals, then adding:

  I was disgusted and angered that millions of ordinary kids, without wealth, without fame, without rank, title, or influence, have been left here without a hope in hell of getting out of range of Hitler’s bombers. And since the Minister of Information is as keen as anyone to keep up the morale of this great country of ours, I’ll tell him that the spectacle of the children of powerful politicians and rich peers getting to safety, while the humble multitude of the ordinary people’s children are left, is deplorable. It is exactly the type of thing that should NOT happen.

  This was extremely damaging to a government seeking to represent the war as an egalitarian struggle against the forces of evil. It was doubly damaging for Duff Cooper, who was charged with maintaining public morale. And, for him personally, things were to get worse. But alongside Cooper’s “outing”, Signor Virginio Gayda was again causing a stir. Britain, he wrote, was about to be served with an ultimatum by Germany and Italy:

  Preparations will be completed in a very few days, and Britain will have to settle its last account. It will have to chose between submission to the renovating, restorative forces of Europe and an extremely violent war in which inexorable destruction, the fateful precipitous step towards the final overthrow will be measured not by years or weeks of which Mr Churchill spoke but by days and hours.

  Watching events from the heart of Berlin was US correspondent William L. Shirer. As an American neutral, but sympathetic to the British, his insights from the heart of the enemy capital were invaluable. Now, he had picked up from the German press that German troops of all arms “stand ready for the attack on Britain”. The date of the attack would be decided by the Führer alone. One hears, Shirer said, that the High Command is not keen about it, but that Hitler insists.6

  This was a classic example of the “fog of war”, with different stories and opinions circulating at the same time. The military correspondent of La Stampa wrote of German military authorities discussing the question of where to land troops. The Germans, this correspondent maintained, were convinced that Britain would be forced to surrender within four weeks. The attack would start at several points at once, beginning with the bombardment of London, coinciding with mass attacks on the RAF. The German High Command was contemplating landing 25 divisions comprising 500,000 men.

  The Associated Press (AP), on the other hand, thought that the German High Command had not finalized the plan to conquer Britain and the RAF was adding to their difficulties. Germany’s need for a quick war was as great if not greater than ever. Its leaders were anxious to make the grand assault on Britain. But the more realistic High Command had counselled caution, realizing the stupendous difficulties with which they had to contend. It also reported that there had been a “lull” in the battle. Back in London, that was certainly how Chamberlain saw it. Reflecting the observation of Guy Liddell a few days earlier, he wrote to his friend Samuel Hoare in Madrid telling him that the air raids so far were “not the real thing”. Little damage had been done to life or property.7

  Whatever else, though, something was clearly stirring at the highest level. But it was not to the German Navy C-in-C’s liking. It was four days since Räder had told Hitler of his reservations about an invasion. Now Supreme Headquarters was saying that the Führer wanted preparations for a launch, any time from 15 August onwards. The Grand Admiral’s worst fears seemed to be realized. Nevertheless, a diplomatic response was called for, and the Navy noted that: “operations and landings which had previously seemed impossible were now feasible, thanks to the superior leadership and to the exceptional moral and offensive power of the Armed Forces”.8

  Churchill this day was completing his exchange of memorandums on the likelihood of invasion, responding to Pound’s intervention of 12 July. He expressed his personal belief that the Admiralty would “be better than their word”, and would exact losses in transit from any invader, which would further reduce the scale of attack the Germans could mount. He also thought the British Army should be able to deal with a dispersed force of 200,000 men, but stressed that the greatest precautions must be taken in the south, given the “sovereign importance of London”. From this time, many of the naval assets which would otherwise be used to escort merchant convoys on the North-Western Approaches would be tied up on anti-invasion duties in the south and east.9

  As for the propaganda war, the Air Ministry “cricket score” was evident, especially on the Express front page. There had been 206 German “planes” lost in attacks on Britain since the start of the war and 130 “since the Battle for Britain began on June 18”. Elsewhere, Bomber and Coastal Commands were sinking “invasion” barges – an activity that was to become a media staple. But, as with the fighter “scores”, these reports had to be treated with caution. Poor weather had been hampering operations and, on that day, there had only been eleven Blenheims flying. Their war loads were minute – typically four 250lb bombs – and they had also been instructed to hit oil and petrol storage tanks on the Ghent–Selzaette Canal. The amount of damage they could have done was extremely limited.

  Possibly of greater long-term importance, a Hudson bomber had attacked two German minesweepers off the German island of Terschelling. This illustrated the vulnerability of minesweepers in open seas yet, if the Germans were to shepherd an invasion fleet safely to England, the Kreigsmarine needed a week or two to sweep the Channel. If the safety of minesweepers could not even be guaranteed in home waters, Channel operations were going to be extremely hazardous.

  In the air war, the pattern established in the last few days was continuing. To the Channel area, alerted by reconnaissance aircraft to intense shipping movement, the Luftwaffe sent fifteen Dorniers to brave the low cloud. The bombers reached a convoy but were thwarted by Fighter Command Hurricanes. A small force of bombers also crept inland to the Westland factory at Yeovil, plus other targets in the west of England and Wales. Overall, though, it was a very light day for the air war. Fighter Command flew 449 sorties, losing four Hurricanes and one pilot. The Germans lost four machines.

  Nevertheless, this early stage of the Battle of Britain was as much if not more a running sea battle, with far more sailors than airmen actively engaged. And casualties were very much higher. In the Merchant Navy alone, an estimated 1,730 seamen serving in British-registered vessels died through the official battle period, compared with 544 Fighter Command aircrew.10

  On this day, the 3,000-ton SS Heworth was damaged by German aircraft near the Aldeburgh Light Vessel. Ten miles south, the Polish steamer Zbaraz was so badly damaged by bombing that she foundered. And the steamer Bellerock was sunk by a mine in the Bristol Channel. Seventeen crew members were lost. The City of Limerick was bombed and sunk in the Bay of Biscay. Two crew members were killed. German bombers then sunk the Panamanian steamer Fossoula, 40 miles from Cape Finisterre. Four crew members went missing. The Portuguese steamer Alpha w
as sunk 100 miles south-west of Land’s End.

  Suffering from wholly inadequate air-sea rescue services, Fighter Command was also having problems with this hostile environment. Too often, when airmen were forced to bale out or ditch, the sea was proving lethal, a direct consequence of the lack of thought given to preserving one of Fighter Command’s most important assets. The RAF had assumed that, in the crowded waters of the British Isles, downed pilots would be spotted and picked up by commercial shipping, naval patrols or civilian lifeboats. The Germans, by contrast, relied on a specialized fleet of some thirty rescue seaplanes, mainly Heinkel 59s. Additionally, crewmen were issued with inflatable dinghies as well as their life jackets, and had fluorescent dye to stain the water and make them more visible. The British fighter pilots had neither dinghies nor dye. The Germans plucked over four hundred and some British aircrew from the seas in their rescue aircraft.11

  Conscious of the inadequacy of its arrangements, the Air Ministry asked the Admiralty to move motorboat patrols close inshore during air combat. The RAF also moved five of its own high speed launches (HSLs) into the No. 11 Group area. But the need was for aircraft, preferably amphibians or floatplanes that could co-operate with rescue launches and act as their eyes.

  Remarkably, some were being provided unofficially by Flight Lieutenant “Digger” Aitken, a New Zealand-born career officer.12 He had joined the RAF in 1937 and in January 1939 – in the days when the naval air was part of the RAF – had suffered an engine failure in the Hawker Osprey he was delivering to the carrier Ark Royal. Forced to ditch in the chilly waters of the Channel, it had been a while before he had been rescued. In June 1940 he had been an instructor on Walrus amphibious flying boats, stationed at Gosport. Concerned at the number of pilots ending up in the sea, and remembering his own experience, he “borrowed” his unit’s aircraft and began rescue operations off the Isle of Wight.

  Walruses from RNAS Ford joined in but, in late August, Aitken’s base at Gosport had been bombed. When Ford was also attacked, the Walrus fleet was dispersed. Some aircraft went to Yeovil and thence to Wales, others to Scotland and still others to Trinidad. Aitkin was transferred to No. 3 Hurricane Sqn, a squadron he was shortly to lead. Despite having, in a few months saved thirty-five British and German airmen, it was to be October 1941 before Walrus amphibians were used as RAF rescue aircraft. In the meantime, the British Government decided that He 59 rescue seaplanes were being used to report the movements of shipping convoys and, despite their Red Cross markings, ordered them to be shot down.

  DAY 7 – TUESDAY 16 JULY 1940

  Hitler issued a formal, written directive, ordering preparations for an invasion. This was Directive No. 16, the preamble of which boldly stated:

  Since England, in spite of her militarily hopeless position, shows no sign of coming to terms, I have decided to prepare a landing operation against England, and if necessary to carry it out.13

  The aim was to eliminate the English homeland as a base for the carrying on of the war against Germany, and preparations were to be completed by mid-August. The first essential condition for the plan was “that the English Air Force must morally and actually be so far overcome that it does not any longer show any considerable aggressive force against the German attack”. Completely unaware of this but with almost perfect asymmetry, across the Channel, Dewitt Mackenzie of the AP wrote: “the Nazis would be just as happy if they didn’t have on their hands the job of making good their threat to invade England and annihilate that island kingdom”. A month since the fall of France, he stated:

  the conquering Germans are still withholding the blow of their upraised fist. And now diplomatic quarters in Rome say Fascist Foreign Minister Ciano intends to go to Berlin tomorrow to consult with Hitler about a speech in which the Führer might offer England a chance to surrender. The alternative would be a smashing attack.

  The AP was also reporting that an “apparent trial balloon” peace offer was being floated in Rome, with an alternative threat of a full-blown assault on the British Isles. For the Swiss newspaper Le Petit Dauphinois, though, the invasion was already a done deal. An expeditionary force of 600,000 men and hundreds of ships was ready to attack Great Britain.

  But, while the newspaper was right about ships being plentiful, this was to be an opposed landing and the German High Command expected no ports to be available in southern England. Most, if not all, would be blockaded and mined, the facilities destroyed. Troops and equipment would have to be discharged directly onto the beaches – as they were in 1944 by the Allies. And the German Navy had no dedicated landing craft – none at all. Nor was there time to design and build them. The process had started but the first craft would not come off the blocks until early 1941, and then not in sufficient numbers to support a major landing.

  The Navy, therefore, had to requisition and convert hundreds of river barges (prahms). It set the requirement at 1,700 craft. Many would be Rhine barges. All would have limited seagoing capabilities. Some would be “dumb” – i.e., without engines, requiring tugs to tow them across the Channel and manoeuvre them onto the beaches. Others were self-propelled, but equipped mainly for river waters, with a maximum speed in choppier coastal waters of four knots or less – slower than the tidal races they were supposed to navigate. They would need assistance to negotiate the tidal streams and currents of the Channel.

  Even when converted, they were not assault craft in the style of Normandy, June 1944. They lacked the quickly activated drop-down ramps. Instead, their bows had been cut away and replaced with heavy timber slats. Each slat had to be lifted out and then heavy ramps had manually to be run out and positioned. Unloading equipment was a slow and labour-intensive business, hardly ideal on an invasion beach, beset by obstacles and under fire. Many period photographs show the barges moored with tethering ropes, to keep the vessels from broaching and their ramps firmly in place.14

  For the initial assault phase, however, the Germans planned to use a fleet of 1,161 motorboats. Some were sturmboots, high-powered motorboats specifically designed for river crossings under fire. Capacities varied between five and about twenty troops and they had been used with great effect during the Blitzkrieg. But there were not enough of them. Boats had to be requisitioned from the lakes and rivers of Europe. Many were recreational craft, built for inland waters and quite unseaworthy. They were, however, to be augmented by submersible tanks, lowered into the water from specially adapted barges, supplied with air through umbilical hoses. So-called Seibel ferries, catamarans constructed from linked pontoons, were to provide anti-aircraft gun platforms for local defence. Substantial numbers of parachute and glider troops were supposed to protecting the landing zones, provided by Göring’s Luftwaffe, of which they were part.15

  Ships were another matter. In 1944, the Allies had dedicated landing ships fitted with huge clamshell doors and internal ramps. They could discharge tanks and all manner of equipment straight onto the beaches. But the Nazis lacked any such provision. Without port facilities, their ships could only anchor offshore and laboriously unload their cargoes, using their own davits, into waiting barges. Or they could be beached, but again unloading was perilously slow. Using davits to transfer cargo and the many horses (50,000 were needed in the first wave), the Naval Staff estimated thirty-six hours would be needed to unload each ship.

  As to the shooting war on this day, the weather was poor. Fog straddled the north of France, the Straits of Dover and south-east England. There were thunderstorms in many other districts. Most of the Luftwaffe stayed at home, with only a few light attacks on shipping and some night activity. Fighter Command flew 313 sorties and lost no aircraft. Bomber Command lost two Blenheims. German losses totalled three. In seven days of desultory, small-scale fighting, the Luftwaffe had not sought to force the issue, losing fifty-three aircraft to the RAF’s fifty-two. A reason for the low intensity of the battle was offered by Dewitt Mackenzie of the AP. He reported that Hitler still thought he could make peace with Britain. He was not read
y to launch a major offensive.

  Duff Cooper, on the other hand, was picking a fight with the media, triggered when Labour MP Manny Shinwell let slip that opinion as well as news content might be censored. The Daily Mirror thought it “incredible” that Cooper should seek to remove the “safety valve of rational criticism”. But that was already the case for the public. “Defeatism” was a criminal offence and, in conjunction with the “Silent Column” campaign, draconian penalties were being applied. George Alderson had been the latest victim, fined £50 by Carlisle magistrates for offences which included his declaring that Hitler’s flag would be flying over Buckingham Palace within the fortnight. Home Intelligence reports were now picking up serious public unease. Many people thought grumbling was a British tradition.

  On a more positive note, Nicolson had a long discussion with Duff Cooper about the “war aims” leaflet he was producing. Cooper agreed that “nothing will prove an alternative to Hitler’s total programme except a pledge of federalism abroad and Socialism at home”. Cooper, however, feared that this was “too much of an apple of discord to throw into a Coalition Cabinet”. Nevertheless, he asked Nicolson to draft a memorandum for the Cabinet, putting the thing as tactfully as he could.16

  Jock Colville was “rather depressed”, having read a note from Dowding on vulnerability to night bombing. The RAF was “almost certain” to evolve an effective technique for intercepting bombers by night, but there was no night fighter capable of making use of this invention. Even if we had one, its effect would be “limited”. Sooner or later, Dowding had concluded, each side must begin a race for the destruction of the other’s aircraft industry. This would mean bombing the civilian population. Then, wrote Colville, “the real test will begin: have we or the Germans the sterner civilian morale?”