The Battle of Britain

by James Holland

  Göring had suspected this all along. It was one of the reasons he had been reluctant to launch these massed attacks on London. Based at his mobile headquarters aboard Asia, the Reichsmarschall had asked Jeschonnek, one of the foremost advocates of terror bombing, ‘Do you think that Germany would cave in if Berlin was wiped out?’

  ‘Of course not!’ replied the Chief of Staff. He then realized what he had said and quickly added, ‘British morale is more brittle than our own.’

  ‘That’s where you are wrong,’ said Göring.

  Before 32 Squadron had left Biggin Hill, a downed German fighter pilot had been picked up by the police and put in the guard room at the airfield. The pilots found out and brought him down to the dispersal hut. He spoke good English and they gave him a drink and then took him over to the mess for some more. Eventually he asked for a pen and piece of paper. The pilots asked why. ‘Tomorrow, when the Luftwaffe blackens the sky and you lose the war,’ he replied, ‘I want to write all your names down to make sure you are all well looked after.’

  ‘We laughed and laughed,’ says Pete Brothers. ‘He couldn’t understand it. “Why are you laughing?” he asked us, and we said, “Oh, you poor fellow! You are going to lose!” The arrogance of it – charmingly put over all the same.’

  German attitudes were changing, however. Group Captain Felkin and his team were still in charge of interrogating all POWs and found that a useful way of gleaning information was to put several men together and bug their cell. Results showed that some still believed the invasion would happen any moment and that Britain would be defeated. A fair number had also accepted the German intelligence reports about the strength of Fighter Command. ‘I estimate that at the most they have only 150 front-line fighters left,’ said one Oberleutnant, who then explained, ‘Production is rather poor.’ But others were not so convinced. ‘The English certainly have many more aircraft than is assumed by us,’ said one bomber pilot. ‘I’d like to know where the English get all their fighters from,’ said another.

  Also increasingly common was a growing concern that they might have missed the bus. ‘If we have to wait until spring,’ said one prisoner, ‘the whole blessed affair must be started over again.’ ‘Well, if the landing does not materialize and we have to wait here till next year,’ muttered a Feldwebel, ‘it will be damnable.’ ‘I simply cannot see how we are to win this war,’ said one pilot on 11 September. ‘At any rate, we must finish the war somehow soon,’ said another. ‘If we are not in a position to force England to make peace, it might develop into a kind of thirty years’ war. That is what I am afraid of.’

  Even more apparent were the growing concerns about shortages of pilots and aircraft. One pilot reckoned losses over England were three times higher than they had been during the western campaign. ‘The Germans have too few pilots,’ said another. ‘We have nothing but new crews,’ said a bomber Gruppenkommandeur, who then complained that his Gruppe had not been given one new aircraft since the beginning of the war. ‘Not a single one! What a state of affairs!’

  Certainly those still flying over to Britain were feeling the aircraft shortage terribly. On 5 September, Siegfried Bethke’s 2nd Staffel had just three planes. ‘That is my whole squadron,’ he noted. The entire Gruppe had just eighteen aircraft, while the second and third Gruppen had only twelve. They were supposed to have thirty-six. Siegfried had heard that one Zerstörer Geschwader had only a dozen aircraft left, rather than the supposed establishment of eighty-one. ‘There is currently a crisis with planes,’ he recorded starkly. Out to sea, they watched convoys continue to pass through the Channel in front of their noses.

  Ulrich Steinhilper was struggling to keep his flagging spirits up. His friend Hinnerk Waller had been shot down and then a few days later a lone Me 109 landed and came to a halt right in the middle of the airfield. Ulrich hurried over along with some of the groundcrew only to find the lifeless body of an Oberleutnant in the cockpit. Taking him out, they discovered he had been badly wounded in the abdomen, and had bled to death, dying the moment he touched down. ‘It was a shattering reminder,’ noted Ulrich, ‘of what waited for all of us, every day we flew.’ Neither he nor anyone else in the Gruppe had had any leave since arriving at Coquelles six weeks before. Siegfried Bethke had not had any since May. ‘We’ve been away since January,’ complained one German sergeant pilot, ‘and have had no leave at all and yet we have these flights every day.’ As a rule of thumb, most squadrons in 11 Group were there for three weeks before being rotated. Dowding and Park were also worrying about their squadrons falling below sixteen pilots, that is, to less than 75 per cent of their strength. Many German fighter Staffeln, however, were operating at levels of under 50 per cent.

  Nor was there any let-up from Bomber Command, who continued to carry out harassing raids on German airfields just as lone Ju 88s or Dorniers were doing to British bases. Blenheims had attacked JG 2 at Mordyck the same night as the bombing began on London. ‘At St Omer,’ complained another bomber pilot, ‘these fellows came over our aerodrome every night. I’ll never forget those bombs! None of us was wounded, but they hit a lot of aircraft. Every night they were there. Every morning the ground had to be levelled again.’

  Clearly, if anyone needed to worry about morale, it was Reichsmarschall Göring.

  The new plan devised by Park was proving inspired, because it meant many freshly trained pilots were now being given a chance of survival, while front-line squadrons were kept at reasonable strength. One of the beneficiaries was Sergeant Jimmy Corbin. He and three others from his OTU had been posted to 66 Squadron at Kenley, near Biggin Hill. They all now had around 160 flying hours, which was a reasonable amount, but Jimmy only had twenty-nine hours on Spitfires and no proper combat training at all. Although Jimmy and the other sprogs were keen to join the rest of the squadron in the air, they were fortunate that Squadron Leader Rupert Leigh was clearly a humane man and had refused to let any of them fly operationally. Then, the day after Dowding’s meeting on 7 September, Jimmy and one other had been temporarily posted to 610 Squadron, now Category C under the new system, and based in Acklington in Northumberland. The other pilots commiserated, and both Jimmy and his friend Nick felt very depressed about it, but it was the best thing that could have happened to them. A few days after their arrival at Acklington, Jimmy finally flew operationally, scrambled to intercept a German raider from Luftflotte 5. The aircraft, when they eventually found it, turned out to be a Heinkel 115 seaplane down on the water. Jimmy and the other pilots circled above it, preventing it from taking off until a naval launch arrived and took the crew prisoner. ‘I touched down on the aerodrome,’ noted Jimmy, ‘and felt a rush of euphoria. It was good to be back. It was good to be alive.’ It was the ideal first operational sortie. Jimmy had been given a taste of the nerves and adrenalin rush that come with combat flying whilst not ever being in great danger himself.

  It was thanks to the new Park Plan that Pete Brothers now found himself being sent back down to 11 Group, with the purple and white ribbon of the DFC sewn on to his tunic. He had been lifted from 32 Squadron and posted to 257 at Martlesham, to replace one of the flight commanders who had been killed. Bob Stanford Tuck had also joined from 92 Squadron as the new CO. It was hard on Pete, but at least he had enjoyed a fortnight away from the fray – it was more than any of his German counterparts had been given. It was also sad to say goodbye to the squadron. ‘It seems incredible to me to say goodbye to Peter B,’ the CO wrote in the squadron diary. ‘He’s been with us for years and years. He’s shared our laughs and shared our tears and now he’s gone – new friends to meet. So long, old pal, we’ll miss you Pete.’

  Time was now fast running out for Germany, as Hitler was well aware. If he was going to strike, he had to strike soon. The navy was now almost ready. For all the earlier pessimism of the Kriegsmarine, its plans had been going well. Weather had hampered some minesweeping operations, but on 6 September Raeder had reported that flank mine barrages had now been successfully laid
, the Schnellboote playing their part in these operations. All the transportation shipping was now assembled, although as landing craft the hastily gathered barges were hardly ideal. Only half the barges even had engines, and these were not powerful enough to get them across on their own. Tug boats were the solution, and some 350 had been found for the purpose. Each one would tow two barges, one without an engine, and one with. Just before they reached the English coast, those with engines would be cut loose and then expected to make the last stretch under their own steam. The whole shipping operation was clearly fraught with potential problems, but Raeder, rather surprisingly, now seemed more optimistic about the entire plan. ‘If air supremacy is increasingly established,’ Raeder told Hitler, ‘it will be possible to be ready by the new date.’ Having been one of the biggest sceptics, Raeder now believed that with the air supremacy proviso, SEALION could succeed. Von Brauchitsch and Halder were of much the same mind, and confident that should they get a foothold in England, their forces would prevail. All now depended on the Luftwaffe.

  The tension was mounting with every day and every hour. Hitler knew he had to make a crucial decision. To go ahead and then fail would be catastrophic, but to abandon the invasion would also be disastrous. It would mean the war going on through the winter, on into the following year, Britain getting stronger, America increasing its military output to levels Germany could not hope to match, whilst in the east Russia built up her strength too. War on two fronts. Hitler would have to attack in the east after all, another operation fraught with danger.

  But the Luftwaffe had yet to clear the skies. On 10 September, Hitler still held back, deciding to postpone his decision until the 14th. In between, however, poor weather once again prevented the kind of full-scale daylight operations the Luftwaffe needed. Nonetheless, on the 13th, Hitler was still optimistic. Reports on British morale being fed back by the German military attaché in Washington suggested English morale was crumbling under the weight of the air attacks. At OKW operations, it was rumoured that Hitler believed a revolution in Britain was about to erupt. Luftwaffe reports also suggested that fighter superiority had by now almost been achieved. The directive for SEALION had also been drawn up and handed to Jodl. Everything was ready to go; Hitler only needed to give the word.

  On the 13th, he seemed to be placing his hopes on defeating Britain through continued air assault and internal revolution to bring about victory, but the next – decision – day, he seemed more inclined to go ahead once more. ‘A successful landing followed by an occupation,’ he said, ‘would end the war in a short time.’ This, of course, was exactly what everyone in the Reich wanted. The temptation, therefore, to go ahead with one last final gamble must have been huge. But still, even a gambler like Hitler recognized that one prerequisite above all remained: air superiority, and however encouraging the signs, they still did not quite have it. ‘Four to five days of good weather are required to achieve decisive results,’ Hitler told a conference of his commanders on 14 September. ‘There is a great chance of defeating the British; already the effect up to now has been enormous.’ Just one last push was needed – a maximum effort and some sunshine. Operation SEALION was not to be abandoned yet.

  Despite a misty, hazy start, Sunday, 15 September, promised to develop into a fine day, ideal conditions for the Luftwaffe to begin to deliver its coup de grâce on the RAF. The problem for Kesselring was that his maximum effort was not as impressive as it had been a month earlier. Leading the way for the first big raid of the day were only around forty Dorniers drawn from KG 76 and KG 3. Leading the formation was III/KG 76, which had only nineteen aircraft left in the Gruppe; the first Gruppe had even fewer – just eight. Kesselring also now had fewer fighters to call on since most of Jafü 3 had returned to Normandy, part of the increasingly confused tactical thinking of the High Command. A number of replacement aircraft over the past week had eased the aircraft shortage a bit, but even so Jafü 2 was well below its establishment of around 600 aircraft; certainly, Kesselring could not call on much more than around 400 Me 109s and a hundred Zerstörers.

  At Biggin Hill, most of 92 Squadron were once again recovering from a heavy night of boozing. In the dispersal hut, some were trying to sleep, others fidgeting nervously. On the wall were enemy identification charts and a warning poster with ‘Remember the Hun in the Sun’ written on it. One of the pilots began pacing about, muttering about how much he hated the waiting.

  By mid-morning, the haze was beginning to thin; a fine day was emerging, which meant the Hun would inevitably be over before long. Then, at five past eleven, after six and a half long hours of being at readiness, the phone rang and everyone jumped, waiting for the orders. It was a scramble. Angels 25, rendezvousing with 72 Squadron over base then patrolling Canterbury. Everyone rushed for the door and ran to their Spitfires. Reaching his, Tony grabbed his parachute, clambered into the cockpit, strapped himself in, attached his leads and then started his engine. Suddenly the airfield was alive with the roar of twelve Merlins. Following behind Brian Kingcome, he took off, climbing over the strange valley that hung off the north-east edge of the airfield. As they climbed slowly in a left-hand circuit, he saw London away to his right, the Thames winding and silvery, the city, though, shrouded in mist, largely a result of the previous week’s bombing. The sun was now breaking through, its rays glinting off the barrage balloons that seemed to sprout oddly from the ground. He started having fanciful ideas about how their twenty-four Spitfires were all that was barring the ruthless enemy from London, then realized the effects of the previous night’s drinking were still with him. It was not a good idea to fly and daydream at the same time.

  At Bentley Priory and Uxbridge, the commanders and controllers were in position; there were no strategy meetings this Sunday morning. Good warning of the developing raid had been picked up by the RDF chain, giving Park plenty of time to scramble eleven squadrons from his Group, all but one in pairs, while 609 Squadron had also been sent from Middle Wallop to patrol over Windsor, and a wing of five squadrons led by Douglas Bader from 12 Group was instructed to patrol over Hornchurch. By 11.30, all were in the air, heading to their attack positions – since enemy raids were now invariably headed for London, it was possible to stagger the interceptions from the moment the enemy crossed the Channel all the way to London.

  Park had sensed something was up; the invasion talk and the promise of good weather had made it inevitable. He had even forgotten his wife’s birthday that morning, although she had assured him that a good bag of German aircraft would be present enough. Over breakfast at Chequers, the Prime Minister had also had a feeling the weather would be good for the enemy, so with his wife, Clemmie, and bodyguard in tow drove to 11 Group Headquarters. There, he assured Park, he had no wish to disturb any station but Uxbridge, and had called by on the off chance that something was up. Park led him to the underground Operations Room, a bunker a couple of hundred yards from the main Headquarters in Hillingdon House. Painted green with a lead roof, it was an unprepossessing and shallow block, offering a tiny target from the air. Steps led down to the entrance, a latticed iron gate, which then opened the way to a longer set of steps going down some thirty feet, the air conditioning system whirring loudly overhead. As the steps turned sharp left and descended another thirty feet, Park tried tactfully to explain that the underground air conditioning could not really cope with cigar smoke.

  They continued down a long corridor, lined with thick, rubber-coated wiring, then Park took the Prime Minister up a short staircase into the viewing room. There, through a screen of curved glass designed to reduce the glare and reflection and to cut out the sound from those below, Churchill looked down on the Operations Room with its map table, tote board, clocks, WAAF plotters and Ops staff. The viewing gallery was quiet save for the now soft, background whistle of the bunker’s ventilation system

  As it happened, he had arrived just in time. Churchill and his wife – he with an unlit cigar clenched between his teeth – stood watching the
plots being shuffled across the plotting table, and, along the tote board, the lights being lit up as squadrons took to the air, and then turning from the four colours of their sections to all red as they engaged.

  ‘Hello, Gannic Leader! Gannic Leader!’ Tony Bartley now heard in his headset. ‘Carfax calling! Two hundred plus coming in over Red Queen. Vector 120, angels 22.’

  ‘Hello, Carfax, Gannic Leader,’ Tony heard Brian Kingcombe reply. ‘Message received. Over.’

  ‘Hello, Gannic. Gannic Leader. Carfax calling. Watch out for snappers above. Many snappers above. Hear me?’

  ‘Loud and clear, Carfax. Over and out.’

  They were now high over Kent, the finger of south-east England spread out before them, and there to intercept the approaching raid well before it reached London. Moments later, as he glanced over his starboard wing, Tony spotted puffs of ack-ack and then huge Vs of bombers. Above, he could just see the ‘snappers’ – visible by the contrails. Jesus, Tony thought. He wondered where they would begin. Luftflotte 2 might have been severely under-strength but being just one of twenty-four Spitfires against nearly 200 aircraft was a sobering proposition. In no time the formation had grown, and then they seemed to be hurtling towards each other.

  ‘Tally ho, right, here they come, chaps,’ someone said and then Brian led them in, half rolling and tearing into the approaching enemy. Tony was conscious of Brian opening fire and then a Dornier filled his sights and he pressed down the gun button himself, the De Wilde bullets clearly striking the machine. Hastily dropping its bombs, the Dornier had begun to burn. Sweeping round, Tony drew his bead on a second, and as his guns blazed saw bits of engine cowling flying off the German bomber. Caught in the Dornier’s slipstream as he passed, his Spitfire was bucked to one side. Already he was out of ammunition, his fifteen seconds up, but a second later his ailerons jolted and two Me 109s flashed by. Shouting a warning, he then dived away out of the swirling mass and bolted for home, managing to safely land despite his crippled aileron.