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

by Richard North

  This was picked up by the Sunday Express and splashed on its front page, with the headline: “Is Hitler hesitating?” For the first time it is officially declared in Berlin that London’s destruction is capable of bringing about England’s defeat and military collapse, the paper wrote.

  Inside the book, Priestley was again in full flow, sounding off once more about “the old type Conservative” and “the short-sighted fumbling and muddling of his type of mind”. We who are not ripe old True Blues, wrote Priestley, “are accused, as usual, of being lost in misty illusions and pipe-dreams, but it was they who had thought that Hitler, Goering, Ribbentrop, Mussolini, Ciano and their Spanish puppets were not such bad fellows and might be won over if they were visited often enough”.

  The theme was: “Who are the indispensible people?” The answer was the industrial workers, the “genuine backbone” of the country, the class without which we could not possibly survive either in peace or war. If the industrial workers disappeared, “we should lose the war. Yes, in a week”, he wrote. And with the defeat of Nazism and Fascism must also go the defeat of “injustice and treachery to the human spirit” which prevented the working class seeking a better life.

  Meanwhile, buoyed by the tardy response to its raid on 7 September, believing its own propaganda about kill rates and vastly underestimating the UK’s aircraft production and repair capacity, the Luftwaffe mounted a daylight spectacular on London. The aircrews found themselves flying into strong headwinds, slowing the ground speed of the formations and giving RAF controllers ample time to send up squadrons to intercept. Even the “big wing” managed to put up something of a show.

  The star of the action was Ray “Arty” Holmes, who in his Hurricane rammed a Dornier over central London before baling out. The tail-less Hun, captured on grainy newsreel footage, smashed in the forecourt of Victoria Station and demolished a number of shops. As firemen tackled the blaze, this provided yet more entertainment for the crowd which had gathered to watch the spectacle.

  On the day, Fighter Command disposed of 55 German aircraft – less than the 60 of 18 August – and damaged many more, at a cost to itself of 27 aircraft. By the time the men from Ministries had finished though, this score had soared to a peak of 185, plus 41 “probables” and 72 damaged. Even that number was a fraction of the 304 aircraft lost by the Luftwaffe on 10 May 1940. In actuality, the number shot down represented less than 20 per cent of that single day’s loss.

  Despite that, according to the post-war legend that turned this event into the day of victory, now commemorated as Battle of Britain Day, Dowding gazed at the empty skies and declared the battle won. Fighter pilots roared off to the Dog and Duck and other pubs in their bright red MG sports cars for a celebratory pint or two. Hitler cancelled Sealion and the invasion ports emptied. Churchill declared: “This is not the end; it is not even the beginning of the end, but it may be the end of the beginning”. The music played and the credits rolled.9

  Churchill had actually spent much of the day at No. 11 Group HQ, watching the action as it unfolded. At one point, with all the aircraft in the sky, he had asked Park, “What other reserves have we”? Park, who “looked grave”, had answered, “We have none”, a point Churchill had subsequently laboured in a lengthy, post-war account of the action when he had labelled 15 September as the date of the demise of Sealion.10 In fact, though, Park’s squadrons were often wholly committed. The theatre reserve was in fact No. 12 Group, and his anxiety on this day may well have been exacerbated by wondering just where and when reinforcements from the Group would turn up.11

  Interestingly, from the start of the battle on 10 July, to the end of this day, the Luftwaffe had lost 1,155 aircraft. RAF losses totalled 1,134. By contrast, in the Polish campaign and the invasion of the Low Countries and France, the Luftwaffe lost nearly 2,000 aircraft.12

  And before the German bombers had crossed the coast on this day, British radio monitoring services picked up an identical signal broadcast on every German naval frequency – an unprecedented occurrence. It presumably contained details of Hitler’s order from the previous day, postponing the invasion for three days. The British could not know this but when the signal was followed by a marked decline in radio traffic, it was assumed that it was in some way associated with a postponement or even cancellation of the invasion.13

  For the people of London, though, nothing had changed. Came the night, came the bombers. Increasingly desperate East Enders decided to act. Led by Ted Bramley, Phil Piratin and other Communist Party workers, they challenged the prohibition on using the Underground. “Various implements such as crowbars happened to be available,” wrote Piratin, “and while the police stood on duty guarding the gates, they were very quickly swept aside by the crowds, the crowbars brought into action and the people went down”. Variously, Liverpool Street Underground Station, Warren Street, Goodge Street and Highgate have been named as those broken into.14

  And while the Luftwaffe streamed over London, the RAF was going the other way. A “maximum effort” had been mounted by Bomber Command and, despite having over 150 aircraft in hostile skies, there were no losses. However, a Hampden of No. 83 Sqn, while attacking Antwerp from low level took a direct hit from flak in its bomb bay, which set it on fire. As the aircraft started to disintegrate, first the gunner and then the navigator baled out. Eighteen-year-old Sgt John Hannah, the wireless operator, stayed to quell the flames. Badly burned in the process, he still managed to help the pilot fly the stricken aircraft back to base. He was awarded the Victoria Cross.15

  DAY 69 – MONDAY 16 SEPTEMBER 1940

  The BBC the previous day had made the most of the victory, the last main bulletin of the day parading 185 Nazis downed. This was too late for the Daily Mail, which offered, “Greatest day for RAF”, recording: “350 came – only 175 returned”. Early editions of the Evening Standard ran the figure of 185, calling it a “record”.

  The front page also carried the obligatory “puff” for the Anderson shelter, recording how a family had just completed the erection of one when a raid had started and they were forced to take refuge in it. Their house had been demolished, while the shelter “was left safely on the edge of a crater and all escaped injury”. Page three offered a picture of a brick-built surface shelter in a south London street, amid the ruins of houses, with the legend, “… the surface shelters stood fast”.

  The Daily Mirror leader, however, was concerned this day with bigger things. “We reach the climax of the war”, it proclaimed. The question for the week was: “Invasion or not?”

  As each hour passes now Hitler’s evil star is on the wane. Unless he destroys Britain his fate and the fate of his German rats is sealed. We are ready! Every man and woman knows what to do. The fighting Services and civil defenders are all in the front line. If Hitler attempts this monstrous vanity we shall smite him a hammer blow and may win such a resounding victory that the whole Nazi system, foul and rotten to the core, may begin to topple.

  Home Intelligence recorded “enthusiastic praise” for the junior service. It also noted that “most people anticipate an invasion in the next few days, and are confident that it will be a failure”. The Guardian, though, was picking up the Basler Nachrichten sources which had led the Sunday Express to question whether the invasion would take place. Its headline was: “Invasion not necessary”.

  In his train, parked just outside Beauvais, Göring had called a meeting of his local commanders. He “fulminated” about the previous day’s raid, complaining that “the fighters have let us down”. Revised tactics were agreed for day bombing raids, using smaller bombing groups and stronger fighter escorts, “nuisance” raids were to be made by single bombers or fighter bombers in all weathers, and the main weight of the air offensive should be transferred to the night bombers.16

  Göring was not the only one to “debrief” his commanders though. Park called a meeting of his controllers and rehearsed a number of complaints. Squadrons were failing to rendezvous before attacking t
he enemy, individual squadrons were being allocated to raids that were too big for them and the enemy fighters were being allowed to draw up the Group aircraft prematurely, with the German bombers approaching later while the British aircraft were on the ground refuelling.17

  Despite the triumph of the previous day, Churchill took it upon himself personally to raise at the War Cabinet the demonstration at the Savoy two days earlier. “Episodes of this kind,” he declared, “could easily lead to serious trouble.” John Anderson joined in. He added that there were “some signs of organised demonstrations”. Together, he and Churchill convinced the Cabinet that “strong action” should, if necessary, be taken to prevent further demonstrations. If allowed to grow, they “might easily lead to serious difficulties”, said Churchill.18 Piratin’s reputation went before him. In 1936, he had brought 100,000 Londoners on to the streets in the “Battle of Cable Street”, and stopped Mosley’s Fascists from marching through Whitechapel.19

  And, to illustrate how life want on, among other problems the Cabinet then had to deal with the monthly report from the Secretary for Mines on the coal situation, in which he noted “temporary shortages in the Southern counties” and that “certain high priority consumers” had recently been found “dangerously short of supplies”.20 As bombing damage and disruption intensified, this was a problem that was to get worse.

  In very poor weather during the day, air activity was minimal. Fighter Command lost three aircraft, none to enemy action, and the Luftwaffe lost nine, several to accidents.

  DAY 70 – TUESDAY 17 SEPTEMBER 1940

  For all their talk of “strong action”, there had been neither any record of War Cabinet concern about the state of London’s shelters, nor any declared intent to improve them. The Cabinet considered that the accommodation was sufficient. But the Daily Mirror and many other dailies reported that the Ministry of Home Security was looking at the use of the Underground, and a fresh effort was to be made in the House of Commons to persuade Sir John Anderson of the need for building deep shelters.

  Lord Horder, the King’s physician, had been appointed to head a committee to look at the health aspects of using the Tube stations for sleeping. The Guardian thought the shelter problem in general was “becoming urgent”. No means of alleviating it must be neglected. One idea was to requisition factory and office shelters where no night shifts were operating. Tens of thousands of spaces were lying unused during the nights, in shelters locked up after workers had gone home.

  The Daily Express seemed to be indicating that the Underground was only being considered for people who had “no alternative air-raid cover”. And, having so cavalierly dismissed this issue, the paper’s lead editorial focused on the need to keep up levels of production when the sirens went.

  If you want Spitfires and Hurricanes to continue to throw back the assault of Goering’s Luftwaffe, then you’ve got to work in the air raids … If you want the bombers over London to continue night after night, dropping death and devastation on our factories, on our hospitals, on our homes, then you may stop work.

  For Churchill, his monthly report to the Commons beckoned. He avoided the shelter issue and stressed the threat of invasion. The deployment of barges and ships in preparation “continues steadily”, he told MPs. We must expect that Hitler “will make an attempt at what he judges to be the best opportunity. All our preparations must therefore be maintained in a state of vigilance”. The Prime Minister then referred to the air fighting of 15 September, “the most brilliant and fruitful of any fought upon a large scale up to that date by the fighters of the Royal Air Force”.

  As to the figures for the number of aircraft shot down, he told the House: “to the best of my belief – and I have made searching inquiries and taken several cross checks – these figures are not in any way exaggerated”. Turning to the bombing, he declared:

  The German attacks upon the civil population have been concentrated mainly upon London, in the hopes of terrorising its citizens into submission or to throw them into confusion, and, of course, in the silly idea that they will put pressure upon the Government to make peace.21

  Thus did Churchill identify a German war aim. This could not be entirely random nastiness – schrecklichkeit. The violence had a purpose. It was not a “silly idea”. Churchill knew this. The use of aerial bombing was an idea he himself believed could be thrown back at German civilians whom he hoped would depose Hitler and force a new government to make peace – the concept of “regime change” that was to have an outing in Iraq in 1992, where the “shock and awe” was almost exactly a parallel of the Second World War thinking – and as effective.

  For the 1940 version, the Glasgow Herald felt that the recent attacks on London must have had two main objects. These were “the exhaustion of the RAF and the creation of a spirit of defeatism in the Metropolis such as could have made a lightning success possible for an invading force”. Neither of these objects had been achieved, it said. London “stands firm” and our Air Force was more formidable than ever.

  German Supreme HQ would have agreed. The OKW War Diary recorded: “The enemy air force is still by no means defeated; on the contrary it shows increasing activity. The weather situation as a whole does not permit us to expect a period of calm”. Hitler now had to make formal the decision taken long ago. It was pointless keeping the invasion fleet intact as it was not going to be used. He postponed Sealion “until further notice” (Wird bis auf weiteres verschoben).22

  Hitler’s decision was soon transmitted to operational formations, mostly via secure landlines. According to some accounts, a radio signal to Holland concerning air-loading equipment was intercepted by the British, decoded and passed to Churchill. It was supposedly discussed at the Chiefs of Staff Committee that evening and Churchill had asked the Chief of the Air Staff to explain it. Newall had told him that “this marked the end of Sealion”, at least for this year”. Wreathed in a “very broad smile”, Churchill lit a cigar and suggested to his chiefs that they took “a little fresh air”.23

  Bomber Command, meanwhile, was mounting its largest night raids to date against invasion barges in the Channel ports and shipping in the German ports. Ripping through the Channel at this time was what Alan Brooke called a “mild hurricane”. An agency correspondent in Dover telephoned an on-the-spot report: “There’s a nasty cross-sea running and the channel would be bad for regular steamers in peace time, let alone for any flat-bottomed troop barges”. Later, Churchill wrote that all now depended on the battle of the air, with the question to be resolved as to whether “the British people would stand up to the air bombardment, or whether they would crumple and force His Majesty’s Government to capitulate”. Confidently, he asserted, “About this, Reichsmarschall Göring had high hopes, and we had no fears”.24

  Harold Nicolson did not share this unbridled optimism, and he was not alone. “Everybody is worried about feeling in the East End,” he wrote. “There’s much bitterness. It is said that even the King and Queen were booed the other day when they visited the destroyed areas.” That had been on 9 September, over a week earlier, but Nicolson had been right to be concerned. Chamberlain, he recalled, had told him that if only the Germans had had the sense not to bomb west of London Bridge, there might have been a revolution in this country.25

  This was by no means an exaggeration. During June 1917, when Gotha bombers had raided London, a bomb had fallen on the Upper North Street school in Poplar, killing 18 infants. When on 7 July, in a second raid, 22 Gothas had returned, most of the bombs had fallen on the East End. Of the resulting 54 deaths and 190 injuries, many were caused by falling anti-aircraft shells – for which no compensation was offered. There had been significant unrest and some reports of rioting.26

  On this day, George Orwell wrote:

  There has of course been a big exodus from the East End, and every night what amount to mass migrations to places where there is sufficient shelter accommodation. The practice of taking a 2d ticket and spending the night in one of
the deep Tube stations, e.g. Piccadilly, is growing … Everyone I have talked to agrees that the empty furnished houses in the West End should be used for the homeless; but I suppose the rich swine still have enough pull to prevent this from happening … When you see how the wealthy are still behaving, in what is manifestly developing into a revolutionary war, you think of St. Petersburg in 1916.27

  The Guardian was articulating complaints “on every side” about the apparent failure of transport to adjust itself to the raids. It noted that ordinary Londoners had had to adjust, but the transport system had not. There had been “considerable hardship”. One girl from the office had been forced to walk ten miles to her home. A man had had to walk 5½ hours to get to his home in the East End because the buses had not been running. Londoners were asking why the Minister of Transport did not take a firm grasp of the situation and do whatever was needed.

  No such view prevailed in the House of Lords. Alongside Churchill’s statement in the Commons, the Viscount Caldecote delivered a statement to their Lordships. Speaking of the consequences of the bombing, he declared: “Sleep has been disturbed, windows smashed, business interrupted, public services disorganised. But what has evidently not been broken is the public spirit, and that is as high as, if not higher than, ever”.28

  Home Intelligence seemed to inhabit the same parallel universe. “Intensified raids have not affected morale; rather the reverse: confidence is increased, opinion is stiffer and there is a feeling of growing exhilaration,” it reported. “The spirit of the people in raided areas is excellent.” Certainly, different people reacted in different ways. This was a Tottenham postman: