One after another, the S-boats were doing their deadly work. S19, with S26 following, was pursuing Csarda, but it was S20 who now turned her attention to Hartlepool. Because of the increased speed, the ship was shaking and the bridge rattling loudly so that Captain Rogerson never heard the S-boats stealing towards them. But suddenly the Second Officer called out, ‘Here’s one for us!’ It struck at the stern of the ship, blowing off her propeller. Now with no more torpedoes to fire, S20 raked the lifeboats and Hartlepool with machine-gun fire before opening her engines and disappearing into the night.
‘The assault of 1st S-boat Flotilla was a complete success,’ noted Kapitän Bütow proudly. Bobby Fimmen in S26 had claimed Elmbank, and Götz von Mirbach in S20, British Corporal and Hartlepool, a total of nearly 13,500 tonnes. No wonder they were feeling pleased with themselves.
Von Mirbach could have been forgiven for thinking he had sunk both vessels; after all, they had been hit and men were seen abandoning their ships. However, both had survived. Captain Rogerson had been loath to abandon ship, despite being repeatedly told to do so by the naval escorts that had arrived by first light. His judgement had been proved right, however. Both Hartlepool and British Corporal were towed back to Weymouth later that morning, where they were beached. They had somehow survived, but that was hardly the point; not only were they severely damaged, their cargoes would not be reaching Nova Scotia.
Winston Churchill was not the most patient of men at the best of times, but particularly not when there were urgent war matters to attend to. To ensure that key matters were dealt with as a matter of extreme urgency, he would mark ‘Action This Day’ on the top of certain memos. He wrote these three words on to a note he sent on 5 July to the Vice-Chief and Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff, in which he wanted to know, on a simple piece of paper, what they were planning to do about Channel convoys now that the Germans were along the French coast. ‘The attacks on the convoy yesterday,’ he wrote, ‘both from the air and by E-boats,* were very serious.’
Sixteen ships from OA178 had been sunk or damaged and would never reach their destination. Three of those had been caused by just four S-boats; the rest had been hit by many more Stuka Ju 87s and Me 110 Zerstörers, whose hit ratio had not been anything like so high. For all the wailing of sirens, crashing of bombs and rattle of machine-gun fire, Oskar Dinort and the Stuka pilots were still finding it very difficult to actually hit and sink moving ships, even ones crawling along at under ten knots.
However, from the British perspective, it was clear that large oceangoing convoys could no longer travel through the Channel. A 30 per cent loss rate was too high, especially when the convoy had not yet even reached the hunting grounds of the U-boats. The answer to Churchill’s question was that, from now on, ocean-going convoys to and from the Port of London would have to go the longer, more arduous, route up the east coast and over the top of Scotland.
That was a sensible but time-consuming solution for ocean-going shipping, but there was no way round the problem of getting coastal cargoes to and from London and to the south of England. Britain depended on coal: it was the lifeblood of the power stations which provided the electricity so that aircraft and almost every other war requirement could be made. The south coast alone needed as an absolute necessity some 40,000 tons of coal a week. Without coal, Britain would collapse. Yet the inland transport network – the under-developed road system and the railway network – simply could not cope with the demands that would be needed were the coastal convoys to stop. Despite the considerable threat from S-boats and U-boats, from the Luftwaffe and from mines, the colliers and trampers would have to keep going.
These crews would be performing a vital and heroic duty for Britain in the weeks to come.
* The British called all Axis motor torpedo boats ‘E-boats’.
30
Crooked Leg
BY THE END OF the French campaign, the whole of III/JG 52 had scored just ten victories. Supporting Army Group A as part of Luftflotte 3’s Jagdfliegerführer 3, the pilots had seen little action, so it was perhaps something of a surprise that they had already been posted to Jever, near Wilhelmshaven, on Germany’s North Sea coast. However, the pilots soon began to see why. Soon after arriving at Jever, they had handed over their Me 109 E1s and E3s and instead been given new E4 models. Leutnant Günther Rall, for one, was impressed. The E4 had improved armour plating around the pilot’s head, and better armament with a German-built Oerlikon MG-FF 20 mm cannon in each wing which used an improved shell called a ‘mine-shell’ capable of carrying a much larger explosive charge – a very useful weapon when trying to knock aircraft out of the sky. The E4 also had an improved field of view and more storage space, which, as Günther soon discovered, could house one-man rubber dinghies. The penny really began to drop when they were also given new personal kit. The impractical brown flying combination gave way to a new lightweight flying jacket and loose, comfortable trousers with pockets large enough to hold various new life-savers: pocket knife, tins of concentrated Choco-cola, fishing lines and hooks and small bags of coloured dye. There were new yellow life-jackets too, flare pistols and a leather bandolier and cartridges that were worn around the leg. It did not take a genius to work out that soon they would be flying over water. ‘The next opponents we are supposed to bring to their knees,’ noted Günther, ‘with the benefit of our new air-sea rescue equipment are to be the British.’
For the next few days, they carried out a number of coastal patrols and navigational exercises, all part of their preparation for their next move to the Pas de Calais. Günther found it disorientating at first. Flying over the sea it was easy to lose all sense of the aircraft’s flying altitude and of visual distance. He was grateful that he had already mastered the art of flying by dead reckoning and had some night flying under his belt. Even so, he found himself listening a little more closely to the note of his engine, and more frequently scanning his instrument panel. It was a pity, he thought, that Göring had not flown in his Schwarm. ‘By now,’ he noted, ‘he might be having second thoughts about his pompous statement that England is no longer an island.’
The third Gruppe of Jagdgeschwader 52 was not the only unit to be moved back to Germany. A large number were doing so. Dolfo Galland, now commander of the 3rd Staffel of JG 26, accompanied his new first Gruppe to Mönchengladbach in North Rhein–Westfalia, which, conveniently for him, was near his family. JG 52’s first Gruppe had also been posted back to Germany, to Zerbst, some eighty miles south-west of Berlin. Günther Rall might have been sanguine about their move to the North Sea, but for Ulrich Steinhilper and the men of the 2nd Staffel the posting in early June had been a huge disappointment. They all felt they had hardly been given a chance to prove themselves.
For Ulrich, however, there was one benefit to the move. Like Stan Fraser, Ulrich was a keen amateur cine photographer, and on arrival at Zerbst had shown a roughly edited cut of his footage to the entire Gruppe. It had gone down well and so the I Gruppe commander, Hauptmann Wolfgang Ewald, suggested they start a movie war diary and get a new camera and some film for the purpose. In these times of heavy rationing, this was no easy task, but Ulrich called a dealer in Stuttgart and, with the help of his girlfriend Gretl’s family, managed to get hold of a good one.
It was thus only fair that he should be the one to go and collect it. Taking the Staffel’s Me 108 four-seater Taifun, he was also charged with stopping at the town of Trier, on the banks of the Moselle near the Luxembourg border. There, in the monastery that had become a field hospital, was one of their wounded colleagues, Feldwebel Karl Munz. Ulrich was going to take him to hospital in Stuttgart instead, near to Munz’s wife.
The experience of visiting the field hospital left a lasting impression on Ulrich. There were wounded and dying men everywhere. When they saw his uniform, one man cried out, ‘To hell with you, Herr Leutnant! To hell with the whole bloody lot of you! Now we’re wounded and not much use, we’re on the scrap heap. Nobody cares!’ Even Ulrich coul
d see there were nothing like enough doctors and staff for the number of patients. He eventually found Munz near the roof of the old monastery. Munz was distraught and begged Ulrich to get him out of there. ‘Please get me out, any way you can,’ he pleaded. ‘People are dying all the time.’
It was no easy task getting Munz away, not least because he was clearly not really fit to fly. The doctors objected, but by repeatedly lying through his teeth, Ulrich persuaded them to lend him an ambulance to take Munz to the airfield and with the help of a nurse managed to get the wounded man on to the Taifun. It was thus with some relief that Ulrich opened the throttle of the Messerschmitt and felt them gathering speed. ‘A little of the glory that I youthfully saw in the campaign,’ he wrote, ‘was left amongst those stinking rows of blood-sodden mattresses.’
In Germany, Goebbels had made sure not a syllable about possible peace talks had made the German press, and at the same time warned them not to speculate as to when the full-scale attack on Britain might begin. However, Britain’s attack on the French Fleet was to be used as a prime example of how low she had sunk. Britain had been France’s ally; but some ally Britain had been to France. He also instructed the press to clearly support the continuation of Germany’s ongoing struggle with Britain.
Convalescing in Leipzig, where he was recovering from the wound to his wrist, Siegfried Knappe had also noticed the mood of the people was very positive. Life seemed much the same as it had before the war, he thought. The people seemed relaxed and proud of Germany’s achievements. Siegfried, however, sensed an attack on Britain would be no walkover. ‘Although we had just thrown the British Army out of Europe,’ he noted, ‘we knew we would not be able to invade England without heavy losses.’ With his soldier’s knowledge, Siegfried was understandably cautious, but most Germans believed Britain was finished. Certainly, Berlin was agog with expectation. Else Wendel, like most Germans, was convinced that they would soon invade Britain. It would obviously be a walkover and then the war really would be over. ‘We didn’t hate the English so much now,’ she noted, ‘but just felt rather sorry for what was coming to them.’ Germany, she believed, had clearly proved herself to be the greatest country in the world; as for England, she would no doubt one day be quite a valuable ally when she had swallowed her pride and acknowledged defeat. Goebbels would have been proud; his message was getting through.
‘If and when Germany intends to invade Great Britain,’ William Shirer broadcast to his CBS listeners in America, ‘is still the chief topic of conversation here.’ He had just returned from a week’s rest in Geneva, with his family, where he had discovered much talk of the ‘new Europe’. Switzerland, although neutral, was clearly pro-Germany. France had also announced an end to parliamentary democracy. She, too, was becoming a totalitarian state, albeit a puppet one. ‘The Nazis,’ noted William, ‘are laughing.’
Then, on 6 July, Hitler returned to Berlin. Goebbels had issued more than a million swastikas to the crowds that lined the streets. On the radio, blaring out in factories, homes and the streets, was a running commentary from the moment Amerika pulled into the station until Hitler’s arrival at the Reich Chancellery. The streets had been lined with crowds and flags and church bells had been rung as all of Berlin, it seemed, rejoiced in the return of their glorious Führer.
‘What did I tell you?’ said Else Wendel’s boss, Herr Wolter, at the Department of Art. ‘Don’t you admit now that our Führer is the greatest man in the world?’
‘Yes,’ Else replied. ‘I do and without reservations.’
Herr Wolter wondered whether Else could speak English. She could – she was almost fluent. ‘Very well,’ her boss told her, ‘then I will take you with me when we go to England.’ He already had plans to take the factory exhibitions to Britain.
‘Feverishly,’ noted Else, ‘we waited for the invasion.’
It was not only Berliners who were waiting with bated breath; so too was General Kesselring, commander of Luftflotte 2. He and his fellow commanders at the front could not conceive how Hitler could hope to reach an agreement with Britain when day after day went by without anything of any significance happening. Some of the pilots were wondering the same. ‘When nothing happened,’ noted Hans-Ekkehard Bob, ‘one wondered about our leadership.’ Hans and III/JG 54 were now based at Bergen-aan-Zee in Holland from where they were providing cover for their own coastal convoys. Siegfried Bethke and JG 2 had remained in France at Beaumont-le-Roger in Normandy. Supposedly still in the front line, he and the other pilots were becoming increasingly frustrated. They had heard on the radio that Britain was already being constantly attacked by bombers, but, if so, they certainly hadn’t noticed. Rather, they were spending their time at cockpit readiness waiting to take off should British bombers arrive. Instead of taking the attack to England, JG 2 had been ordered on to the defensive. For the pilots it meant one day on, one day off. ‘That is why one day,’ he noted, ‘I get up at 4.15 a.m., and sit from five until 2230, then go to bed at 2300. The next day I get up at 9 a.m. and have almost nothing to do.’ The next day, he wrote: ‘General situation: no-one knows anything!’
Göring had, in fact, on the last day of June, issued his ‘General Directive for the Operation of the Luftwaffe against England’. Three Luftflotten were to be used, 2 and 3, as in the western campaign, but also 5 Luftflotte in Norway. The attack would begin just as soon as the new disposition of forces had been completed. The problem was that to attack Britain the Luftwaffe needed as many fighters, with their low range, as close to the coast as possible, which meant creating a large number of new airfields. Since a cleared field was sufficient for taking off and landing, this in itself was not much of a problem. Nor was finding billets, which could be requisitioned from the French at the click of an adjutant’s fingers. More problematic was setting up the groundcrews, complete with spares, tools and other requirements, and establishing smooth lines of supply. Of equal importance to Göring was establishing anti-aircraft defences and sufficient defences for each of these new airfields. The campaign by the RAF’s Bomber Command had not caused serious damage yet, but it had never once paused. In the first week of July, Bomber Command had flown thirteen separate missions to Germany, Holland and Belgium, including a number of attacks on coastal airfields; considerably more British bombers were over German territory than German bombers were over British. These were proving a considerable nuisance that was beginning to get on the nerves of the German command. Göring certainly expected British bombers to step up their campaign the moment the Luftwaffe started theirs. Hitler’s indecisiveness was one reason for the continued pause in operations, but another important one was his determination to make sure his Luftwaffe was fully ready. ‘The intensified attacks against the enemy air force can be ordered very soon,’ he said on 21 July. ‘Until then, careful preparations, maintenance and improvements of personnel and material readiness for battle should continue.’ Göring and his Luftwaffe might have been outwardly confident, but they clearly shared Hitler’s twitchiness too. Bomber Command had already played a crucial role in the battle to come.
Nonetheless, Göring had spelled out his aims in his directive. All three air fleets were to be given dates and targets simultaneously so that the ‘well-developed defence forces of the enemy can be split and be faced with the maximum forms of attack’. First, he wanted to draw out smaller enemy formations and, with reconnaissance, firmly establish the strength and grouping of Fighter Command. This done, primary targets would then be the enemy air force, its ground organizations and its industry, but they would also concentrate on harbours and installations, merchant and naval shipping, and so sever Britain’s lifelines.
‘As long as the enemy air force is not defeated,’ he concluded, ‘the prime requirement for the air war is to attack the enemy air force at every possible opportunity by day or by night, in the air or on the ground, without consideration of other tasks.’
Luftwaffe squadrons, despite the losses suffered in the western campaign, now had plent
y of experience to share around. Broadly, their tactics had been proved, and most pilots and crew believed they had aircraft that were better than those of their opponents. Confidence was high, as well it might have been. Ever since Spain, it had been one-way traffic with the Luftwaffe. Although the word ‘panzer’ now held connotations of military invincibility, it was the German air force, above all, that was still perceived around the world to be its most terrifying weapon. Certainly, the Luftwaffe had more than played its part in the great victories to date.
General Milch spent a great deal of his time hurrying from one Geschwader to another, talking to the pilots and commanders. So, too, did Kesselring; they understood the importance of listening to the views of the men in the firing line. There were few concerns. The Spitfire had been recognized as a formidable opponent, but the failure at Dunkirk had been largely explained away by the weather. It had been bad luck, that was all. In terms of equipment, and tactically and operationally, most pilots believed they were well served. ‘The campaign had gone so well in our favour,’ noted Ulrich Steinhilper, ‘that there had been no need for complex tactical analyses and instructions.’
Yet the reason pilots such as Siegfried Bethke were sometimes spending all day at cockpit readiness – that is, sitting in their 109s waiting to be sent into action at a moment’s notice – was because the Luftwaffe had not set up their sophisticated DeTe – radar – technology to support their front-line pilots. Nor were pilots supported by any air-to-ground radio telegraphy or Direction Finding system. Luftwaffe pilots and aircrew could communicate with their own units in the air, but a fighter pilot could not talk to a bomber pilot, for example. Pilots and crews were briefed on the ground and then expected to go and get on with the mission.
This was a cause of great frustration to Ulrich Steinhilper, who, since the beginning of 1939, had been his Gruppe’s communications officer, or Nachrichtenoffizier. This had been when I/JG 433 (as JG 52 had then been known) was being formed. Three ‘Spaniards’, including Dolfo Galland, had been the Staffel commanders, and the junior officers, such as Ulrich, were being given other positions within the Gruppe. Ulrich was appointed Staffel Adjutant under Galland, but the last position to be filled was that of communications officer. No-one wanted to do it, so it fell to Ulrich, as the youngest, along with his adjutant duties.
The Battle of Britain Page 45
