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

by Richard North

  The agony of Convoy SC.7 continued. SS Empire Brigand and her load of trucks disappeared beneath the waves. Six died. Even the Commodore’s SS Assyrian was sunk. SS Fiscus, loaded with five-ton ingots of steel, sunk like a stone. Only one survived from her crew of thirty-nine. Twenty ships had now been sunk, some 79,592 tons, worth millions even at 1940 prices. The German U-boat “star” was Otto Kretschmer. In U-99 that night, he took seven ships. And still the killing had not finished. U-boats with torpedoes remaining joined U-47, commanded by ace captain Gunther Prien, to attack HX.79, another Liverpool-bound convoy. This one was completely unescorted. Twelve more ships were sunk, with no lost U-boats, the worst 48-hour period in the entire war.

  U-boats were not the only predator. Condors, operating from Norway and later from France, were able to fly far into the North Atlantic, well out of the reach of shore-based fighters. They found convoys for waiting submarines, collected weather data and bombed ships, accounting for over 365,000 tons between June 1940 and February 1941.

  As to the fate of SC.7 and HX.79, it was too early for news to break. H. Taylor Henry, writing for AP, his copy to reach millions of Americans, reported on the war in London. “High explosive bombs dropped by raiders in the heaviest early-evening assault since the battle of Britain began killed many Londoners last night and caused ‘severe’ damage in the British capital”, he wrote. “One bomb landing outside a hotel,” he added, “killed an unannounced number of people in the bar; two others were killed in a cafe, and a direct hit which demolished a London club killed an undetermined number of casualties.”

  The report captured the flavour of events. The bloody war just got bloodier. This was corroborated by the Home Security activity report, which told of the bombing commencing at dusk, with the first four hours abnormally heavy, then continuing on a large but more usual scale. The main attacks had been against the London area, but Liverpool, Manchester and Coventry districts received considerable attention. Bombs were unloaded blindly and, as on the previous night, there were long lulls. A pub was blown into the roadway, and people were buried under the wreckage. A cafe and a shop were demolished by the same bomb. Close by, incendiaries fell on a hospital.

  The main news in the dailies, however, was an account culled from US newspapers of how aircraft from Bomber Command under their former leader Charles Portal, had in mid-September pounded the assembled German invasion fleet so hard – killing 40–50,000 troops – that it had forced the cancellation of Der Tag – the projected invasion day. The account was almost entirely fictional but, according to the Express, “officially confirmed”. The Air Ministry was crediting Bomber Command, rather than Dowding’s fighters, with victory.

  In the Evening Standard, though, the banner headline was given over to: “Shelter speed-up: State will pay”. Morrison had undertaken that the government would take over the funding of shelter construction, and pay local authorities to build them – a measure to speed up the provision. Additionally, the first of what were to be a million bunks had been delivered to shelters, and doctors were to be stationed in the larger shelters. Canteens and even “waitresses” were to follow. By December, refreshments were available in 80 Tube stations, sheltering 100,000 people. Consumption of tea and cocoa amounted to 12,500 gallons a night, while the food eaten weighed five tons.52

  DAY 103 – SUNDAY 20 OCTOBER 1940

  The bombing was becoming routine, witness a story bearing the headline, “Many bombs in fierce night raid on London”. The report was consigned to the bottom of the front page of the Sunday Express, with the lead story recording Mussolini’s move to the “Jugo-Slav border”, a move which presaged that long-expected start of a Balkans war. There could have been little better evidence that Hitler had lost the battle to smash British morale.

  Across the Atlantic, and for some months, politics in the US had been gripped by the presidential election campaign, with Roosevelt standing for an unprecedented third term. It was now just over two weeks to the election. It would decide Britain’s fate. If Roosevelt won, America might enter the war. His opponent, Wendell Wilkie was running on an isolationist ticket, which could auger ill for the UK, except that Roosevelt looked to have a two-to-one lead in the electoral college. This too was the beginnings of a defeat for Hitler.

  In a tribute to the men of a hidden war, C. G. Grey in the Sunday Express wrote of the pilots and navigators of the Fleet Air Arm (FAA), flying land-based Swordfish biplanes on extended minelaying missions to the Baltic. Night after night, they had been conducting sorties to Baltic waters, taking twelve hours in open-cockpit aircraft, laden with overload tanks of petrol, each carrying a mine which if it exploded in a crash would leave nothing to pick up. These couples, wrote Grey, deserve to be recorded in history, because they have made so much history themselves.53

  Back in the war, the Luftwaffe was continuing to pursue its daylight tactics of sending over high-level fighter bombers. They and their escorts amounted to 300 aircraft, in 5 separate waves, keeping RAF pilots busy and tired. Fighter Command flew 745 sorties and lost 4 aircraft, the Luftwaffe combat losses amounting to 8, including a reconnaissance Dornier. As always, the RAF exaggerated its score, claiming 14 aircraft downed.

  That evening Priestley made his last Postscript for some time … “perhaps the last I shall ever do”, he told the millions glued to their wireless sets, listening to every word. Insisting that the decision to stop had been his, and that his relations with the BBC were “excellent”, he also rejected the idea that he had been taking advantage of his position to bring party politics into his talks. He was not, he said, a member of any political party.

  As a parting shot on the airwaves, he emphasized that “we should mean what we say; be really democratic …”. Alluding to the post-war period, there was a danger, he said, that “apathy will return to some sections of the community and selfishness and stupidity to some other sections”. Our greatest potential ally, he added, is “the growing hope in decent folk everywhere that civilisation can be saved”. Democracy was not an experiment that had been tried and had failed but “a great creative force that must now be released again”.54

  Overnight, bombers revisited London. Coventry was heavily bombed and considerable damage was done. Rescue parties were heavily tested as several people were trapped in wrecked buildings. German minelayers were active off East Anglia, and from the Humber to the Tees.

  DAY 104 – MONDAY 21 OCTOBER 1940

  Bomber Command had also been active. It had detailed 192 aircraft for missions, of which 135 reported successful attacks on targets ranging from the Channel ports, German marshalling yards, armament factories in Czechoslovakia and factories in Italy. Nine aircraft were lost. The exercise gave the Mirror its headline for the morning: “RAF’s 100-a-minute bombing”.

  Despite the newspaper’s attempt to project “good news”, with over 70 people killed in London the previous night, and over 300 seriously injured, public dissatisfaction with the failure to deal with the night bombers was growing.

  The War Cabinet morosely noted that promises on forthcoming antidotes had not been realized, concluding that “Londoners were at the moment a little pessimistic”. Some were a little more than that. Work had been going on at the Stepney shelter, making structural improvements. But when an air-raid warning had sounded, the shelter had not been opened quickly. Fighting had broken out and a breakaway group had attempted to rush the ARP Control Office in Stepney. The police had drawn their truncheons, and a number of men had been arrested, leading to strident complaints from the Daily Worker.55

  Nothing of this was reported, but the Daily Express noted that German fighter-bombers the previous day had flown over the country in the sub-stratosphere, “sometimes at a height of nearly six miles”. This was part of Göring’s latest plan to escape the deadly attentions of the Spitfires and Hurricanes. But, for the Nazis, this was “only an improvisation after repeated failure to press home their attacks by any other daytime tactics”.56 Bizarrely, the newspaper clai
med that US-built Brewster Buffalo fighters were being fielded to counter this new tactic. The type had in fact been appraised by the RAF and classed as “unfit for duty in western Europe”, not least because of poor high-altitude performance.57

  In England during the day, deteriorating weather conditions had ruled out intensive air operations. The RAF lost three aircraft to accidents and none to combat. This, once again, was regarded as a “quiet” period. Come the night, though, Coventry again suffered heavy raids, with considerable damage done to the Armstrong–Siddeley works. There were also raids over London, Birmingham and Liverpool.

  Perhaps the most significant news was a report in the Yorkshire Post on “New drive for shelters”. Measures announced over the weekend, it said:

  suggest a determined attempt by the Government to come to grips with the shelter problem. To speed up the provision of shelters, the whole cost of building and equipment in future was to be paid by the Government as long as local authorities could show reasonable economy in their schemes. Herbert Morrison had been hard at work – and more was to follow.

  Behind the scenes, the Chiefs of Staff were reviewing the invasion threat. Despite the growing evidence from intelligence and diplomatic sources that the Germans had abandoned the idea of attacking Britain this year, they judged that it remained an operational possibility. They expressed their concerns, therefore, that the widespread feeling that the danger was passed was premature.

  DAY 105 – TUESDAY 22 OCTOBER 1940

  Overnight, twenty Wellingtons attacked the Bismark at Hamburg. The War Cabinet was told that the target area had been heavily bombed, “though heavy ground haze made identification difficult” went the official report.58 However, hits would have been difficult to achieve. Hitler’s latest battleship had left its berth on 15 September to conduct sea trials in the Baltic with her base in Gotenhafen (now Gdynia). On this day, she conducted high-speed trials, reaching 30.1 knots, confirming her as one of the fastest battleships in the world, faster than any battleship in the Royal Navy.59

  Back home and too close to the convoy disasters of SC.7 and HX.79 to be a coincidence, the Daily Mirror, told of a “Big U-boat blitz on our ships”. The paper noted that Hitler had started an intensified U-boat war in the hope of starving Britain into subjection by blockade, now that his air attack and invasion plans had been rebuffed.

  Capitalizing on Churchill’s reluctance to release escorts from anti-invasion duties, more U-boats had been ordered into the Atlantic than at any time since the outbreak of war. The shipping losses over the previous weekend had been “the worst ever experienced”. The Admiralty were taking all steps possible to deal with the new situation, War Cabinet members had been told. Worryingly, Churchill had to admit that shipping losses of the last two or three days had been “without precedent”. Some 100,000 tons of shipping had been sunk, in spite of the fact that one of the convoys attacked had been strongly protected.60

  DAY 106 – WEDNESDAY 23 OCTOBER 1940

  “Weather here good”, wrote Göbbels in Berlin, bad over England: “Few incursions into the Reich, but neither do we drop much in England”.61 Low cloud and drizzle, with concomitant poor visibility, were preventing any significant German air operations, either by day or night. The Luftwaffe sent out reconnaissance flights and single bomb-carrying fighters. One Hurricane was lost to an Me 109 and the Luftwaffe lost three bombers, two from the night contingent. Only one of the three was a direct combat loss – the other two crashed on home territory.

  Bizarrely, the OKW War Diary noted that the effects of the German attack on London and the British industry had not been very strong during September. During October, the effects were said to have been stronger. “The British people is said to be fatalistic,” it noted. “The people, however, do not appear demoralised”.62 Separately, in relation to the dispersion of forces intended for operation Sealion, it recorded that “long periods of time will, in future, be required to get this operation going”. It then added: “The measures to deceive the enemy are to be continued but the main effort of this deception should be directed to Norway”.63

  The diary also carried a report on Luftwaffe operations. “The morale of the flying units is excellent,” it said. “These units are strained but not over-strained”. In general, only fighter-bomber aircraft equipped with 250kg bombs were to be committed in daylight operations against London and alternate targets. These were to fly at extremely high altitudes and, it was thought, the damage caused in London was “very considerable”.64

  In Britain, the media focus was not on the domestic front. Big events were being staged in France, only 24 hours after Churchill had made a radio appeal to the French to rise up and set Europe aflame. Predictably, Göbbels was less than impressed. “Impudent, insulting, and oozing with hypocrisy”, he had called it, “A repulsive, oily obscenity”. He released the speech to the [German] press for them “to give it a really rough and ready answer”. Otherwise, he wrote, the English will carry on living an illusion. We shall battle on remorselessly to destroy their last hopes. As for London: “Fantastic reports … there it is hell on earth”, he wrote.65

  The event was that Hitler arrived “secretly” in Paris for a long conference with Pierre Laval. Reports emerging from Berlin indicated that Hitler was offering final peace terms to France in exchange for the surrender of the remnants of the French fleet. With the help of the French, Hitler and Mussolini were said to be planning a “decisive blow” against the British Fleet in the Mediterranean. According to the Express, “Jubilant Nazi officials in Berlin boast that the three navies could either destroy the British Fleet or drive it off our great Empire lifeline”.

  DAY 107 – THURSDAY 24 OCTOBER 1940

  A few individual raiders and reconnaissance flights were the extent of German daylight air operations. From a British perspective, this was seen to be a ritual to keep the British defence system on alert, with no strategic significance. The main effort now was through the night. Flight magazine thereby decided that the Battle of Britain was over. It had degenerated into unimportant but spiteful slaughter and destruction – the purpose of which it did not specify.

  The Germans saw things differently. General von Bötticher, the German Military Attaché to Washington, reported that the situation in England was becoming more precarious. The objective to make life more difficult was being achieved, he said. Production had decreased and the traffic situation was difficult. There was a danger that epidemics might break out. Reports from the embassies in Lisbon and Sofia agreed. There had been an “impressive change” in the tone of the British press.66

  In Britain, internal politics rather than the Germans were keeping Dowding busy. He had let the enmity between Keith Park at No. 11 Group and Leigh Mallory at No. 12 Group go too far. The knives were out, and Dowding’s own position was under grave threat. But, while the internal politics focused on the “big wing” controversy, the national politicians were mainly dismayed at the lack of protection Fighter Command could offer against the night bombers. To prove the point, London was on the receiving end of fifty raiders that night, Birmingham was targeted and Basingstoke was also hit. The Luftwaffe owned the night sky.

  News was emerging of a meeting the previous day between Hitler and Franco on the border of Spain. The days in the immediate aftermath of the fall of France were now looking pure and simple, with just the straightforward issue of survival against the enemy across the Channel to contend with. But now, the war was widening, and getting more complicated. For once though, Hitler was on the back foot. Reacting to rumours that Spain’s dictator, Franco, had decided to stay out of the war, Hitler was trying to head off a decision. In a two-hour, head-to-head discussion, though, he failed. Famously, he later confided with Mussolini that he would “rather have three or four teeth pulled” than go through another meeting with Franco. Gibraltar was safe – a huge relief to the UK.

  From the Spanish border, Hitler travelled to Montoire in France to meet Pétain. News had since come thro
ugh that Pétain had rejected any deal with Hitler over the transfer of the French Navy. However, the fleet was said to be massing in Toulon. The only explanation for this “mysterious move”, was said to be that the French Navy Minister, Admiral Darlan, who was a strong supporter of deputy premier Laval, gave the orders on his own initiative. While the world waited with bated breath for news of developments, the War Cabinet was treated to a sombre appraisal on the current fighting. In particular, it learned that mines were having a significant effect on the shipping in coastal waters and on the Royal Navy in particular.

  In the preceding week, they had accounted for numerous ships. Minesweeper Dundalk was badly damaged on 16 October off Harwich and foundered early the next day while under tow. HMT Kingston Cairngorm was sunk off Portland on the 18th. HM Destroyer Veneti went down in the Thames Approaches on the 19th. There were ninety-six survivors from the latter ship, but five officers, including the captain, were missing. HMT Velia was also sunk in the same locality. The minesweeping trawlers Wave Flower and Joseph Button were sunk off Aldeburgh, apparently by mines, on the 21st and 22nd respectively. HMT Hickory sunk off Portland on the 22nd.

  The picture for merchant shipping was no better. During the period, 36 ships (150,091 tons) had been reported sunk. In addition, three British ships (21,059 tons) previously reported as damaged were now known to have been sunk. Damage by aircraft, mine or submarine to twenty-one British ships (79,791 tons) had been reported and two more (10,232 tons) were known to have been damaged in the previous period.

  As to civilian casualties, the approximate figures for the week ending 6 a.m. on 23 October were 1,690 killed and 3,000 injured. These figures included the estimated 1,470 killed and 1,785 injured in London, 56 killed and 261 injured in Coventry. There had been 30 killed and 203 injured in Birmingham.67 But there was one thing few were concerned about – the invasion. Lord Halifax wrote to Hoare in Madrid that “ it really does seem as if the invasion of England has been postponed for the present”.68 Yet still Churchill was preventing more escorts from being released.