And so Tuesday, 13 August – Adlertag – finally dawned. Oberst Johannes Fink had been up early and had breakfasted well – as had all his pilots and crew. It was something he insisted upon before a morning mission, and now, at 7.30 a.m., his bomb-laden Do17s of KG 2 were climbing high up over northern France towards Cap Gris Nez ready to rendezvous with the fighter escort.
Yet there was no sign of the escort and ahead he saw a bank of cloud rolling over the Channel which most definitely had not been predicted by the met men. Already feeling puzzled, he quickly became irritated as a few Zerstörers passed in front of his nose in a series of short dives, rather than heading towards England. Then, his temper rising, he watched them dive away completely. Johannes could not make head or tail of it, but decided to press on anyway, with or without the fighter escort; at least the unexpected cloud would offer them some cover.
As they droned on, they fleetingly caught a glimpse of Margate before flying over yet more cloud. They were now approaching Eastchurch, their target, so Johannes ordered the formation to loosen out as they prepared to descend. As a former Luftwaffe Chief Accident Investigator, he was always mindful of safety precautions, and was concerned that none of the bombers should get too close to one another as they passed through the cloud. Suddenly, the sky cleared once more and down below, and just a few miles ahead, was Eastchurch. Yet just as Johannes’s men were preparing to drop their bombs, Spitfires from 74 Squadron dived down out of the gleaming early morning sun on to the rear Staffel of Dorniers, shooting down one and damaging most others.
While the rear of the bomber formation was being attacked by the British fighters, the rest of the formation forged on, pasting Eastchurch with bombs. Climbing and banking, Johannes then led his formation back out over the Thames estuary, but now came under attack again, this time from 111 Squadron’s Hurricanes. In a brief flurry of machine-gun chatter and darting tracer, four Dorniers were plunging to the ground and a further four limping back, smoking and riddled with bullet holes.
When Johannes finally touched down again at St Léger, near Cambrai, he was almost speechless with fury. Up until now, his Kampfgeschwader had suffered the least number of casualties in the western offensive, a statistic he was justly proud of, yet on one brief mission he had lost five aircraft and crew, with more badly damaged and wounded, and all because the fighter escort had not managed to join them. It was criminal negligence.
Hurrying to the crew room, he demanded to be put through to the ‘Holy Mountain’, Kesselring’s bunker HQ at Cap Blanc Nez, just to the south of Calais.
‘Where the hell were those fighters, then?’ he asked angrily, as he heard the field marshal come on the line.
Calmly, Kesselring tried to explain. The weather had changed overnight; the high pressure from the Azores had dispersed. News of this sudden development had been sent to Göring’s headquarters and on that basis the attacks had been postponed until 2 p.m. The decision had filtered back in time to stop the fighters but not the first bombers due to go into action, Johannes’s KG 2. The Zerstörers he had seen had been trying in vain to warn him. Crazy though it may seem, the only way of getting through to the bombers once airborne had been to fly manically in front of them – and even then it did not work. How the Luftwaffe would have benefited from some form of ground control that morning.
It was not a great start to Eagle Day, but in fact it was going even worse than anyone realized. Once again, faulty intelligence was to blame. Despite the losses, KG 2 claimed ten Spitfires destroyed on the ground at Eastchurch, when in fact the aircraft they hit were Blenheims of Coastal Command; Eastchurch was not, and never had been, a Fighter Command airfield. Twelve people had been killed and forty injured in the attack, but despite the damage and bomb craters the airfield was fully operational again ten hours later. At Göring’s headquarters, however, Oberst Beppo Schmid had already crossed it off his list as another airfield they no longer need concern themselves with. Schmid and his team had pored over aerial photographs in exacting detail yet, despite Martini’s listening service and the large number of aerial reconnaissance missions that had been flown, the picture of where and how Britain’s fighters were disposed remained sketchy, to say the least.
*
The unexpected cloud had not prevented Siegfried Bethke from leading his second Staffel over the Channel on a free hunt early that morning, joined by the Gruppe adjutant, Oberleutnant Paul Temme. ‘Hurricanes near Brighton,’ Siegfried noted later. ‘Oblt. Temme stayed there. Shot down?’ Paul had in fact been shot down, just as they were turning for home. Struck from behind, bullets had hit his engine and radiator cooling system. With his oil pressure rising, he had crash-landed, wheels up, in a cornfield within sight of the hangars at Shoreham airfield.
Still in one piece, Paul released his harness and clambered out, only to see a number of gunners from an ack-ack position guarding the airfield running towards him, rifles in hand. Feeling a sudden inexplicable need to urinate, he peed against the fuselage of his Messerschmitt, which seemed to have a calming effect on his pursuers. Instead of rough handling him, the gunners led him gently to the station commander at the airfield, who greeted him in perfect German, ‘Oh, ein sehr früher Gast’ (‘a very early guest’), and then asked Paul whether he was ready for some breakfast.
Although Paul had not, in fact, eaten anything that morning, he politely declined the offer feeling it would not be right to eat from the enemy’s table. However, when a steward arrived with ham, eggs, toast and tea, and the station commander insisted he tuck in, Paul had a change of heart. After all, he was feeling quite hungry. The CO at Shoreham was not really sure what he was supposed to do with captured German airmen, so their having finished breakfast, he sent for his car and had Paul taken to the Royal Artillery in nearby Brighton. Taken to the mess, he found the gunners there were busy eating breakfast and reading papers, and in no mood to be hurried. Intrigued by their unexpected guest, they invited him to join them. Settling down to his second plate of bacon and eggs, Paul admitted that he had no idea there was such protocol between services.
That was as may be, but the gunners didn’t much want him either so passed him back to the RAF, this time at Farnborough, nearly fifty miles away. There he was briefly interrogated by an army officer before being handed back to the RAF. ‘Take no notice of him,’ the RAF officer reassured him, ‘he isn’t a pilot. And now, what about some breakfast?’ At this rate, a surfeit of bacon and toast was beginning to seem more life-threatening than being shot down by Hurricanes.
*
The cloud did begin to clear as the day wore on. Shortly after midday, twenty-three long-range Zerstörers from Caen arrived over the Dorset coast. Although Dowding had ordered that his squadrons should not engage enemy fighters unless they had to, this plot was picked up as a bomber formation and so three squadrons were scrambled to meet it, just as the Germans hoped. The idea was that the Zerstörers would keep them busy for a while then, once the British fighters had headed back to their bases, the bombers would arrive as they were on the ground refuelling and rearming. It was a good plan in theory but depended on pinpoint execution. However, that kind of co-ordination was not really happening for the Luftwaffe that day, and unfortunately for the Me 110s sent as bait they reached England only to find the three Hurricane squadrons already high above and waiting.
Zerstörers had serious firepower, but lacking manoeuvrability could now only form a defensive circle, flying round and round, toe-to-tail, protecting each other’s backs. Even so, this could not save them from diving attacks at speed and by the time the battered Me 110s broke off and made for home, one had plummeted to the ground and six into the sea, and a further seven had been damaged to varying degrees of seriousness. Thus of the twenty-three that had set off, just nine made it back unscathed. That was not good at all.
In any case, the bombers did not arrive back until later that afternoon, by which time the fighters were fully ready and waiting again. However, whether there were enough fi
ghters to take on the numbers of German raiders was another matter. At Fighter Command Headquarters, more and more plots were being reported: twenty plus, fifty plus, thirty plus and another thirty plus, all heading towards Portsmouth and Portland. Similar-sized plots were developing across the Straits of Dover, too.
Amongst those now surging towards the southern English coast were two Gruppen of Stukas headed for Middle Wallop. Major Paul Hozzel had taken off from Dinard with his first Gruppe from Stuka 1, leading them out towards Guernsey, over which they had met their fighter escort. The day before, Paul had flown over to Guernsey to meet with Major Günther Freiherr von Maltzahn, the commander of II/JG 53, whose pilots were to escort them over England and were now stationed on the island. Despite Göring’s very specific orders to the contrary, the fighters were still expected to stick like glue to the Stukas, although Paul was fully aware of the fighters’ dislike of close escort. ‘In our talk von Maltzahn made no bones about this,’ he noted, ‘though he promised to do his best for us and not to leave us alone.’
It was not helping the Luftwaffe to find itself in the middle of a tactical rift at this moment, and it should have been emphatically resolved without delay, and in the fighters’ favour as Göring had instructed. But it was one thing making such a pronouncement from the far-off confines of Carinhall and quite another getting such a tactical order down the long chain of command to those actually operating on the front line, even if the originator was a six-star general.
Now, above the Channel, the weather was clear, but as the German aircraft neared England, a closed layer of cloud seemed to extend all the way across the country. Since the pilots could not guess the height at which the cloud layer began, Paul realized they had little choice but to press on and then dive blind through the cloud and hope they would emerge over the target. But, as he was well aware, the chances of that happening were slim indeed.
Listening to Paul Hozzel through his R/T was David Crook. The squadron was one of four that had been ordered into the air to meet the advancing raid, and now, just after four o’clock, the voice, which had been faint at first, was quite distinct. By chance the German raid was using an almost identical radio wavelength as 609 Squadron.
Suddenly, David saw them – dive-bombers, then Me 110s and finally, on top, the Me 109s, some sixty machines in all, he guessed – and heard a German voice say, ‘Achtung, Achtung, Spit und Hurri.’ He watched a Hurricane squadron tear into the Me 110s, then saw the fighters and Stukas pass beneath them. ‘We were up at almost 20,000 feet in the sun,’ noted David, ‘and I don’t think they ever saw us till the last moment.’
This was certainly true. Paul had assumed their attack would be a complete surprise and that they would hit Middle Wallop and the Spitfires and Hurricanes on the ground before they had been given a chance to take off. Now, however, the surprise was on him as 609’s Spitfires dived down upon them. With a 250 kg bomb visibly suspended from beneath the plane each of the Stuka crews was literally sitting on a powder keg. As Paul flew on, he heard the first explosions as a Stuka was blown to bits mid-air. ‘A sudden fire ball,’ he recorded, ‘and all was over.’
David’s section was flying slightly above the rest of the squadron, protecting their tails, when he saw five Me 109s pass beneath them. Immediately breaking away, David dived on the last German fighter, and gave him a hard burst at close range. The Messerschmitt burst into flames and spun downwards through the clouds, a long line of smoke trailing behind. Following him down, he could not pull out in time to avoid going below the cloud himself. Emerging into the clear, he found himself about five miles north of Weymouth. Seeing a great column of smoke rising from the ground, he flew over and saw his Me 109 in a field, a great tangled pile of wreckage. People from the nearby village were already hurrying towards it.
Meanwhile, Paul Hozzel was still trying to extricate himself from disaster. The fighters had taken on some of the Spitfires and Hurricanes but more Stukas were being knocked out. There was only one thing for it, and that was to dive down through the cloud, drop their bombs and then make for the deck and head back across the Channel. As best he could, Paul tried to get his Stukas to stick together. By the time they cleared the cloud, they were over Portland. After they dropped their bombs, he ordered them home. He and a number of others made it safely, but others were not so lucky, a number being plucked off as they struggled south across the sea.
Back at Warmwell, David Crook had been one of the first to land. The groundcrew were in a state of great excitement, having heard the battle raging overhead clearly enough but been unable to see a thing. As usual there was the counting-in as more pilots landed. Four, six, then ten were down. Then the last three arrived – that was the lot. Not one man missing. Having clambered down from their aircraft the pilots stood around talking excitedly, and it soon became clear that in just four minutes of frenzied fighting, the squadron had had its best day ever. Every pilot put in at least one claim. John Dundas shot down one confirmed and another probable, adding to his mounting score. As they all now realized, thirteen pilots had shot down thirteen enemy planes on the 13th day of the month. It felt as though the squadron had reached an important turning point, as though they had somehow come of age. ‘I shall never again,’ noted David, ‘distrust the number thirteen.’
Back at Dinard, the grim truth was revealed. Both Stuka Gruppen had lost about a third of their aircraft and crews, while nearly all had suffered some kind of damage. Incredibly, some Stukas had pressed on towards their target, although they hit the small satellite airfield at Andover rather than Middle Wallop and caused no serious damage. For Paul Hozzel, it had been a sobering and bitter experience. As he was well aware, the Stuka force would soon be gone if this rate of losses was continued.
To the east, the large afternoon raid had been aimed at Detling and Rochester. The former was another Coastal, rather than Fighter, Command airfield, and was badly mauled, but cloud meant Rochester was missed altogether. In the day’s fighting, the RAF had lost fifteen aircraft and just four pilots; the Luftwaffe thirty-nine planes and sixty-six aircrew. No attempt had been made to attack the RDF stations again, and every raid had been met by British fighters. Of the comparatively small amount of damage that had been caused, it was Coastal Command that had come off worst; Fighter Command’s ability to continue the fight had barely been dented.
Curiously, although Adlertag had been the official codename for the launch of the intensification of the air battle, few of the pilots were aware of it. Hans-Ekkehard Bob had no idea that 13 August had been anything special. Siegfried Bethke had thought the day before had marked the start of the battle. All in all, Adlertag had been a bit of a cock-up for the Luftwaffe. It was therefore no bad thing that, as far as most German airmen were concerned, Eagle Day had never happened.
38
The Biggest Air Battle
THE PREVIOUS SUNDAY, Harold Nicolson had been at home at Sissinghurst in Kent, and that lovely summer’s afternoon the cottage garden had looked especially beautiful, a blaze of colour. As a large heron flew steadily away from the lake, Vita, Harold’s wife, asked him, ‘How can we possibly win?’ It was not an unreasonable question, and one that Harold had been thinking himself but had dared not ask. Even if Britain did survive the German assault that was to be hurled at them, what then? For all Churchill’s talk of setting Europe ablaze, what could Britain really do? She still had many worries, after all. The week before the Italians had invaded British Somaliland in East Africa, and looked certain to attack from Libya into Egypt. In the Far East, the Japanese had been making martial noises and had recently arrested a number of British subjects on spurious spying charges. There were still concerns over Spain. As far as Harold was concerned, it seemed as though Britain would shortly be assailed from all sides. He began to picture how matters might play out. The Italians would push on into Kenya and the Sudan and then Egypt and the Suez Canal. The Japanese would attack in the Far East, taking Singapore, Malaya and then even drive into India. Soo
n, German heavy bombers would come over and the pressure to sue for peace from within Britain and the United States would be intense. Churchill would come to symbolize a sullen obstinacy that was imposing tremendous suffering on the whole world – a suffering that could be eased if only Britain’s leaders would face facts and accept Hitler and the new European order. ‘We shall become,’ wrote Harold, ‘the most hated race on earth.’
This was a very real scenario. Really, who knew what toll German bombing would take? No nation had ever been attacked from the air as Britain was surely about to be assaulted by the Luftwaffe. What if Douhet, Baldwin et al. had been right all along? Aerial warfare was still so new; its potential was still unknown, even in August 1940.
Sir Samuel Hoare’s missives from Madrid, where he was now Ambassador, were hardly encouraging. Living in a city of shadows and intrigues was not to his taste. One day Spanish radio announced he was negotiating with Hitler through the Windsors; the next British flags were torn from the Embassy cars. ‘The rumours baffle description,’ he told his old friend Neville Chamberlain. ‘The trouble is that in a country where there is no free press, false reports are given far more credence than they would be if people knew even a little of the truth, and in a city like Madrid where the climate is very trying and the heat terrific, everybody’s nerves are very jumpy.’ Fortunately for Britain, Hoare was surrounded by somewhat less nervy people than himself, not least the naval attaché, Captain Alan Hillgarth, a cool-headed spook, who was playing a perfect game of carrot and stick with the Spanish, offering just the right amount of aid whilst reminding them that the Royal Navy would blockade Spain in an instant should she declare war. Still broke from the Civil War, Franco could not afford this. In fact, the Generalissimo had presented a number of demands to Hitler for Spanish entry on the Axis side, not least Vichy France’s possessions in Africa. But with Britain’s attack on the French Fleet, Hitler had hoped Pétain might declare war on Britain and so did not want to risk jeopardizing that by handing over French territories to the Spanish. Still, when Hoare wrote that the situation was on a knife edge, and a pretty sharp one at that, he was not far wrong. Spain remained a serious concern.
The Battle of Britain Page 56
