Before the close of play, however, the Germans had been given another message – this one from Secretary of War, Anthony Eden. Although overshadowed by Churchill, who had taken the Defence Minister portfolio, Eden nevertheless made his own contributions. Now, broadcasting on the BBC, he said that the real war had hardly begun. It would begin “when we take the offensive and strike home at the enemy. That is the way wars are won, and that is what we mean to do”, he said. Countries at present under the Nazi heel will be “like ghosts arising from the dead”.14
DAY 37 – THURSDAY 15 AUGUST 1940
The Daily Mirror reported that some observers were convinced that the air fights of the previous three days were a prelude to the full “Battle of Britain”. Supposedly with just over a month to go to the invasion, Jodl circulated a “summary of the situation referring to invasion of UK”. He stressed that the landing operation “must not founder under any circumstances”. Failure, he wrote, can have political repercussions far outweighing the military setback.
He confronted the irreconcilable positions between the Navy and the Army, agreeing that the landing should extend from Brighton to Folkestone. He endorsed the plan for ten divisions to be landed within the first four days, reinforced by another three during the next four, with airborne troops reinforcing the troops landed in the west. “Should these conditions not be fulfilled,” he asserted, “I consider the landing to be an act of desperation which would have to be attempted in a desperate manner, but which we have at this stage no reason whatever to contemplate.” He added tersely, “England can be brought to her knees in other ways”.
One of the “other ways” Jodl had in mind was the economic destruction of southern England. He also pushed the idea of stepping up U-boat warfare from French ports. But there were the other elements which were being seen more and more frequently: taking Egypt, if necessary with Italian help, and taking Gibraltar, with Spanish and Italian agreement, thus creating a second front. Nevertheless, Jodl cautioned against undertaking military operations which were not necessary for the conquering of England. “We should fight for victory and not just conduct operations on military objectives”, he said, adding:
From now till early next year, England’s will to resist must be broken, if not by a landing then by every other means. This most important task will take precedence over everything else. We are now entering into the decisive battle against England. Therewith within our coalition the general principles of war will remain valid – to concentrate all strength in the decisive undertaking – that is air and U-boat warfare against England.15
Jodl was expecting a long campaign – six months or more. His emphasis was on the blockade and industrial disruption, with little reliance on an invasion.
Against this background, the Luftwaffe launched phase two of Eagle Attack, a deliberate attempt to saturate the British defences, synchronizing the attacks from the two French-based air fleets with General Hans-Jeurgen Stumpff’s Fifth Air Fleet. This had never been tried before. Now, Stumpff had orders to attack airfields near Newcastle and in Yorkshire. Based on the intensity of fighting in the south and the Luftwaffe’s estimate of the RAF’s strength, it was assumed that the north had been denuded of fighters. Little opposition was expected.
Opposing Stumpff was Air Vice-Marshal R. E. Saul, commanding No. 13 Group from his headquarters in Newcastle. He had elements of six Spitfire squadrons, four Hurricane squadrons, the remnants of No. 141 Defiant Sqn and a Blenheim fighter squadron. In the two sectors which covered the north of England – his domain covering southern Scotland and Northern Ireland – he had three squadrons of Spitfires, one of Hurricanes and one of Blenheims. He was also able to rely on fully operational radar, reaching out over the North Sea, offering far more notice of an attack than the southern system. By coincidence, it was already on full alert to cover the departure of a convoy leaving Hull that morning.
For insurance, Luftwaffe planners had set up a feint to draw off fighters, comprising two staffeln of He 115s seaplanes from the Norwegian coast. Unfortunately, a navigational error put the main force on almost the same track as the seaplanes. No sooner had the radar began to pick up the seaplanes, they turned back and were replaced by the bombers. The only effect of the feint was to extend the already lengthy period of warning.
Confronted by alert British forces, the bombers of the main force jettisoned most of their bombs in the sea. Of a total of about a hundred, eight bombers and seven Me 110s were destroyed and several more damaged, without British loss. Further south, a separate force of Ju 88s, heading for the bomber base at Driffield, evaded a blocking force by splitting into eight sections. It destroyed twelve Whitley bombers and killed seventeen personnel. The airfield was non-operational for the rest of the year. Nevertheless, six Ju 88s were shot down, representing about 10 per cent of the aircraft deployed. In all, the northern attackers lost sixteen bombers out of the 123, and seven fighters of the thirty-four available.
On the day as a whole, Fighter Command lost thirty-three aircraft (thirty of them in the air), with many more damaged. Bomber Command losses on the ground, plus others on operations, brought total losses to forty-nine. By contrast, the Germans actually lost seventy-one aircraft to all causes, giving the RAF a clear victory. Nevertheless, the Air Ministry claimed 144 – slightly more than twice the actual figure. This was yet another victory for the clerks and statisticians.
While the RAF – with the full support of the British Government and the approval of the Ministry of Information – chose to make this a numbers game, the numbers that mattered were not aircraft downed, but pilot losses, in particular single-seater fighter pilots. Eleven had been killed and three taken prisoner: two crash-landed in France and one plucked from the sea by German rescuers. Thus, from twenty-nine fighters shot down, fourteen – nearly half (48.3 per cent) – had been lost. Even if this was nowhere near the 83 per cent suffered on 8 August, it was still serious. Comparing like-for-like, the Germans had lost six Me 109s, with four pilots dead or missing – less than a third of the RAF loss. In three days of Eagle Attack, Fighter Command had lost twenty-four pilots, plus a few more injured and out of play – more than two squadrons. This was not sustainable.
But this was actually a battle of perception. On paper the RAF had scored a great victory and Harold Nicolson, in the embattled Ministry of Information, was ecstatic. “Everyone is in high spirits about our air triumphs”, he wrote. “In fact the superiority shown by our men is a miracle … Our triumph today was superb.”
The King captured the mood with a message to the Archie Sinclair. “Please convey my warmest congratulations to the Fighter squadrons who, in recent days, have been so heavily engaged in the defence of our country”, he wrote. “I, like all their compatriots have read with ever increasing admiration the story of their daily victories. I wish them continued success and the best of luck.” The mood was contagious. Home Intelligence the next day reported that “confidence and cheerfulness prevail”. It added: “Intensified raids are everywhere received with calmness, the results with jubilation”. There was the living evidence that perception engendered by statistical manipulation mattered more than reality, and of the powerful effect of exaggerated victories.
DAY 38 – FRIDAY 16 AUGUST 1940
The newspapers were quick to applaud the RAF’s “triumph”, printing uncritically the latest scores. Gone was the rancour between the press and the Ministry of Information. The air battle was at last taking centre stage.
With full details as yet unknown, as much attention was given to a night raid which had targeted Croydon aerodrome – the closest yet to London. Of the battle as a whole, “This was no preliminary”, said the Daily Express. “This was no skirmish. This was the real thing. Yesterday, Goering threw his air force against Britain. … They came in their hordes and they went home again humbled.” And now, the paper said, in a separate editorial piece, the people join in the battle. They become part of the front line of the defence of Britain. The people of Britai
n who stay on the ground, who have nothing to strike back with – whose only weapons are their discipline, their calmness, their presence of mind, they also serve.
However, the greatest of the battles of the previous day had taken place over the sea and in the sparsely populated East Riding. The victory had become a media event but it was the news of it, rather than the actuality, that had had a “stimulating effect on public opinion”. And, as Home Intelligence noted, it “more than counteracts the effects of disturbed nights in raided areas”. On 17 August, two days after the victory, it wrote: “the air battles are everywhere regarded as encouraging victories”. There was reference to confidence increasing “a feeling of growing exhilaration”. The attitude to the war was “stiffening”, with “less tendency to compare it with a sporting event”.
To Flight magazine, sporting events were exactly how the battles were being seen. “Day by day the British public waits anxiously for the half-time scores and the close-of-play scores, as if Hutton were batting against Australia; and very disappointed is that public if a century is not scored.” The first century, it went on, produced rather delighted surprise, but now we have come to reckon on one as a right. Oh a dull day, when a mere seventy-five or so raiders are shot down, the public attitude is that “Jerry is bowling for safety, and won’t give our bats a chance”. But Flight also had other points to make. In common with many others, it asked: “What is Göring trying to do?”
The raids on Dover, Portsmouth, and Southampton can be understood, and so can the attacks on our aerodromes. But what profit do the Germans expect from bombing and machine-gunning suburbs? They can have no hope of beating this country to its knees by sheer terrorism, and the price which they pay in aeroplanes and air crews is high.
Thus did the magazine conclude that more and heavier attacks should be expected, until it began to dawn on the German High Command that the game was not worth the candle. In the meantime our fighter pilots were “not weary in well-doing”.
Another viewpoint came from Devon Francis, the AP aviation editor. He had filed a widely syndicated report entitled “Furious air attacks may mean Hitler has dropped plans for land invasion”. “Germany will try to bring the British to their knees by air attacks alone”, Francis wrote. Having “borrowed liberally” from the Douhet doctrine, if the Germans could inflict enough damage on England by air, no invasion would be necessary. Francis noted that the primary purpose of warfare was not to take and hold ground but only to destroy an enemy’s will to resist. He recalled that during the 1914–18 war Germany itself scarcely felt the tread of an enemy soldier’s boot, yet the German will to resist had been broken.
Here were the two approaches being discussed – one where the focus was on physical and the other on moral dominance. But the very fact that different commentators were drawing different conclusions betrayed difficulties in interpreting the German intent. On the receiving end, it was impossible to tell what they were. Shirer, on the other hand, was better positioned to divine what was going on. Still in northern France as guest of the Germans, he had been continuing his tour, then writing in his diary:
In a couple of fields along the way this afternoon, we saw what looked under the camouflage like barges and pontoons loaded with artillery and tanks. But there was certainly not enough to begin an invasion of England with. However, two or three Germans in our party keep emphasising what we saw and hinting that there is much more that we didn’t see. Maybe. But I’m suspicious. I think the Germans want to launch a scare story about an imminent invasion of Britain.16
It is unlikely to be a coincidence that, at the same time, General Halder was also in the area, making a tour of inspection. Possibly, that was the reason why Shirer was there, although he made no reference to Halder’s presence. And the General was not impressed with what he saw. Travelling down the coast from Ostend, to Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne and finally Dieppe, he noted that many of the approaches to the harbours were badly blocked, with sunken vessels obstructing the harbour basins. There were no ramps to load the barges and cranes would be needed, but many of these had been destroyed by the fleeing British. There was no evidence of repair work being carried out.17
Furthermore, the controversy over the invasion planning, precipitated on 12 July, was continuing. Having touched the very highest ranks in the German military, and engaged the Führer himself it had been triggered by Jodl. It was now addressed by his superior, Field Marshal Keitel, on Hitler’s orders. Preparations for a landing in Lyme Bay “will be suspended in default of sufficient possibilities for protection”, he ordered, although he then opened up a “possibility” of a crossing in the direction of Brighton, without heavy equipment. The issue still had not been resolved.18
Blockade activities continued. The Irish-owned cattle carrier Lady Meath, from Dublin en route Birkenhead, paused briefly off Holyhead to embark a Royal Navy team from the inspection vessel HMS Manx Lad. Both ships were ripped apart by an acoustic mine. This was the second such incident and marked another step in the use of so-called “influence” mines. Another type, the magnetic mine, had been deployed in British waters since November 1939. By a happy accident, one had been dropped on the mud flats at Shoeburyness on the night of 23 November. It had been successfully defused by Lieutenant Commander Ouvery and his Royal Navy team, allowing countermeasures to be developed. Now, a new threat had to be dealt with.
Against this background, the air war was being played out. The Germans, undeterred by their losses the previous day and buoyed by their own propaganda, were preparing to deliver what they believed to be the killer blow. Early morning mists shrouding the Channel, however, ensured it got off to a slow start. Not until nearly 11 a.m. was the first sign of a raid noted. Very quickly afterwards, attacks developed against Norfolk, Kent and the London area. Once again, airfields were the main targets, with Manston and West Malling hit. The latter took loads from eighteen bombers and was knocked out for four days.
Less than half an hour after these raids had withdrawn, giving scarcely time for the fighters to return and refuel, large formations were reported crossing the south and south-east coasts. With an estimated 300 enemy aircraft inbound, a total of 86 fighters were scrambled. The main raid, flying up the Thames Estuary apparently headed for Hornchurch, was blocked by Spitfires and harried all the way back to the French coast. For a while, all three southern groups of Fighter Command were engaged. Nevertheless, weight of numbers drove other enemy aircraft through. Their scattered bombing caused considerable damage. Among the areas hit were several London suburbs. Gravesend and Tilbury were attacked. Raiders also dropped bombs on Harwell and Farnborough airfields. In these raids, fifteen civilians were killed and another fifty-one injured.
At times, RAF fighters had difficulty containing the raids. In one episode near Deal, five British fighters were shot down. Worse was to follow. At exactly one o’clock, another large Luftwaffe formation crossed the eastern end of the Isle of Wight. On a signal from the lead aircraft, it split into four, the largest group heading for RAF Tangmere. The station’s two Hurricane squadrons were scrambled, but they failed to prevent a “textbook assault” by a large group of Stukas. Massive fires broke out and, in the midst of the mayhem, PO “Billy” Fiske – the first US volunteer to fly for the RAF – tried to nurse his damaged Hurricane onto the strip. The target for several strafing runs, his aircraft caught fire and only by tremendous feats of gallantry was the badly burned man extricated from his cockpit. He died the next day.
Six Blenheims were destroyed on the ground and four damaged, plus one Spitfire was written off. Seven Hurricanes were badly damaged and later also written off. A newly delivered Beaufighter, yet to be equipped with top secret radar for night interception, was slightly damaged. Fourteen servicemen and six civilians were killed. Forty-one were severely injured. The Stukas paid for their insolence, losing seven of their number, with three damaged. Other Stukas, however, broke through to the Ventnor Chain Home (CH) radar and further damaged the equipment. Anot
her section attacked the naval station at Lee-on-Solent, destroying six naval aircraft and three hangars. Two Fleet Air Arm Blackburn Rocs were damaged.
Over the eastern outskirts of Southampton, three Hurricanes picked up these raiders. Led by Flight Lieutenant James Nicholson, the flight was bounced by a staffel of Me 109s leaving all three crippled. Nicholson remained with his burning aircraft long enough to shoot down an Me 110, only then baling out. Badly burned he took fire from Home Guard volunteers before landing, whence he was rushed to hospital. He later made a full recovery, but not before becoming Fighter Command’s first and only Victoria Cross winner.
There were three more raids to come. These included a strafing run by Me 109s over Manston and attacks on Heathrow, Heston and Feltham airfields by a total of seventy-five Heinkels. More importantly, in terms of effect, was an attack by two bombers on Brize Norton. Using the now classic ruse de guerre, two Ju 88s joined the circuit with their wheels down as if to land, only cleaning up as they reached the perimeter of the airfield. They made for the hangars, dropping thirty-two bombs which destroyed forty-six fully fuelled Oxford trainers and damaged six others. Eleven Hurricanes in another hangar were also damaged.
Visiting No. 11 Group’s operations room at Uxbridge was Churchill. He was able to watch the drama as it unfolded. On the receiving end of the attack, with only limited information, no one could possibly have fully evaluated or understood what was going on. But Churchill the showman was in charge. On leaving the operations room he told his military advisor, Major General Hastings Ismay, “Don’t speak to me. I have never been so moved”. After several minutes of silence, he said: “Never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few”. In four days time, that sentence was to be repeated in the House of Commons and relayed to the world.19
Many Not the Few: The Stolen History of the Battle of Britain Page 18
