The Fairey Battle: A Reassessment of its RAF Career

by Greg Baughen

  Then there was the Lysander. This was the Air Ministry’s preferred option for the army support role, although not as a replacement for the Battles in No. 1 Group. For the Air Staff, the main advantage of the Lysander was that it was not a Bomber Command plane, and using Lysanders would put responsibility for army air support where the Air Staff felt it should be—with the army-cooperation squadrons. The Lysander had advantages as a close support bomber; it was smaller and more manoeuvrable than the Battle, it was already capable of shallow dive-bombing, and it had been designed with the low-level ground attack role in mind. The Air Ministry went to considerable lengths to ensure the Lysander would be even more suitable. All Lysanders had self-sealing tanks by the end of June, and instructions were issued to arm the plane with two forward-firing 20-mm cannon for ground strafing.9 Westland were also told to develop hydraulic air brakes so it could dive more steeply. Even so, it would still not be a better dive-bomber than the Battle. Despite the new air brakes, the plane would only be able to dive as steeply as the Battle without air brakes, and these new air brakes were not even tested until September.10 The main problem with the Lysander was that there were not enough of them. The single army-cooperation squadron attached to each army corps would have its hands full carrying out its normal tactical reconnaissance duties. Expecting them to be the primary source of close air support for the Army was not reasonable.

  The Fairey Battle was the only single-engined bomber immediately available in substantial numbers. Despite the losses in France, there were still over 300 in stores and more could have been built. It was still in production as a trainer and, given the scale of the crisis facing Britain, it would have been reasonable to switch production back to the bomber version. Modern monoplanes for training purposes were in short supply, but the immediate problem for Britain was surviving long enough for long-term training plans to have any significance.

  Compared to the planes available, or even planes likely to be available in the future, the Fairey Battle was not particularly inferior, if at all. Besides, the country could scarcely afford to be too choosy. Even without armour and self-sealing tanks, it would not have been the most desperate measure Britain was prepared to take in the summer of 1940. With these and other improvements, the Battle was far from being a desperate last resort—it was certainly a lot less desperate than using Tiger Moth trainers. It was the only bomber available in any numbers that had the manoeuvrability to fly low enough to provide close support for ground forces.

  The Army seemed to be perfectly justified in believing the Fairey Battle was the best plane available for the Army support role. Just weeks before, the War Office had been demanding more Fairey Battle squadrons.11 With each passing day of the German offensive, the Stuka seemed to be proving that the War Office was right to prefer single-engined bombers for close air support. Unfortunately, the campaign also seemed to prove that the Fairey Battle was not the right bomber for the Army. It was clearly not as effective as the Stuka and the War Office found itself having to make a rather humiliating climb down. The horrendous losses suffered in the first five days of the French campaign had taken the War Office by surprise. The generals had been wrong-footed. Their argument that even very slow planes would be able to evade enemy fighters at low level, and take enemy anti-aircraft defences by surprise, had apparently been proven embarrassingly wide of the mark. They were not aware of all the unnecessary handicaps the Battle squadrons had been forced to operate under. Nor had the subsequent reduction in loss rate been obvious or dramatic enough to banish the shock of those early catastrophic losses. The War Office found itself on the back foot.

  The Air Ministry was quick to take advantage. The losses had been rather convenient and apparently incontrovertible proof that the Battle was as obsolete as they had always claimed. Early in June, the Air Ministry responded to the War Office request for more Battle squadrons with a certain smug ‘we told you so’ attitude, explaining that it was quite impossible to form any more Battle squadrons because of the enormous losses that existing squadrons had suffered.12 This was somewhat misleading on two counts. Firstly, the Air Ministry was already in the process of forming more Battle squadrons. Rather condescendingly, it had been decided that Polish pilots that had fled to Britain would find it easier to fly single-engined rather than twin-engined bombers. The first two Polish Battle squadrons were already forming and there were plans to form more. Secondly, there was no shortage of Battles, as there were hundreds in stores. Nevertheless, the Air Ministry had made its point, and the War Office did not feel it could challenge the decision or the reasoning behind it. Indeed, the very suggestion that the Fairey Battle could be used for close support seemed like an embarrassing misjudgement that was best forgotten. The type suddenly disappeared from the list of War Office interim solutions. They would continue to push hard for a single-engined tactical bomber, but not the Fairey Battle. Ironically, with Douglas still suggesting the Battle could be used for close support, there was now arguably more enthusiasm in the Air Ministry for using the Fairey bomber in this way than there was in the War Office. If the Battle squadrons were going to be used tactically, the impetus would have to come from within the Air Ministry.

  Of the eight operational Battle squadrons that returned from France, the two squadrons withdrawn from the front line (Nos. 105 and 218) were re-equipped with Blenheims and transferred to No 2 Group. No. 98, the reserve squadron, had lost most of its personnel when RMS Lancastria was sunk on 17 June, but nevertheless the unit was reformed on Battles, bringing the total to seven. However, there was not much sign that these remaining squadrons were seen as any sort of asset. There was not even much desire to keep the force together. Nos. 88 and 226 Squadrons were transferred to No. 61 Group, which was being set up in Northern Ireland as a precaution against a German invasion of Ireland, while No. 98 Squadron was earmarked for transfer to Iceland for coastal reconnaissance duties. This would leave just four Battle squadrons in No. 1 Group.

  Playfair was no longer the commander of the force. Before he departed for his new post in the Far East, he left an assessment of operations in France, which scarcely encouraged the idea the Battle might be useful. ‘It can hardly be said that any striking new lessons emerge from the day bombing operations of the AASF’, he unpromisingly observed.13 He clearly resented the way his squadrons had been used. They had been forced to make up for the mistakes of French Army commanders and ‘do the work which infantry and artillery have failed to do’.14 Operations had confirmed that if the enemy possessed strong anti-aircraft and fighter defences, ‘accurate attack against precise and well defended targets is always likely to be costly in casualties’.15 This might well be true, but it was scarcely an observation that only applied to tactical bombing. It was true for any kind of bombing, tactical or strategic.

  Playfair conceded that escorts had helped deal with the fighter threat, but he seemed anxious to underline the problems of relying on fighters. The low endurance of single-seater fighters would always make covering deeper penetration missions impossible, he insisted. This was not a valid argument against short-range close air support; indeed, it seemed to be an argument against long-range strategic bombing. He also emphasised that large numbers of fighters would be needed, which Playfair seemed to be using as an argument for not having army air support, rather than a reason for building more fighters.

  Playfair described how vulnerable the early low-level attacks had proven and how ineffective these attacks tended to be, with bombs ricocheting past their targets. Shallow dive-bombing from higher altitudes had been more successful, he conceded. There was no mention of the need for self-sealing tanks or the value of more armour—he just assumed bomber operations in the face of fierce anti-aircraft defences were not possible. The report was full of the problems the Battle squadrons had faced, but Playfair was not trying very hard to suggest solutions.

  As had always been the case, the fate of the Battle, and indeed the prospects of any daylight bombing, depended on the Air S
taff attitude to fighters. There was very little sign of this changing. They might now concede tactical bombers needed escorts, but there was no desire to make sure there were enough fighters to meet this new demand. Bomber production still had to have priority over fighter production. Even as the Battle of Britain was coming to dominate the conflict, the Air Staff were bitterly complaining about the high proportion of fighters Beaverbrook was planning to build. A frustrated Slessor complained that the RAF was soon going to be awash with them.16 A few, however, had seen the light. Air Commodore Saundby was reminding anyone who cared to listen that air superiority in the First World War had come about by possessing the largest possible fighter force and this was what Britain should be aiming for, but not many were listening.17 The consensus within the Air Ministry remained that only bombers could win wars, not fighters. The Fairey Battle was as much a victim of this fundamental flaw in Air Staff thinking as any issues there might be with the way the bomber was equipped.

  As far as Playfair was concerned, the only way to use the Battle was by night. He made much of how enthusiastically his aircrews had taken to nocturnal operations once it became clear how dangerous daylight missions were. This is perhaps not surprising, given the planes that they were flying were proving to be so vulnerable. Playfair admitted that, during the early nocturnal missions, the high altitudes the crews chose to bomb from meant that little was achieved. It was only once the bomber crews began operating at lower altitudes that results improved, and this was the way Playfair felt tactical bombing should go. There was some truth in this. There is no doubt that tactical night bombing can be very useful, and later in the war round-the-clock air support would become a key feature of RAF tactical operations. During the French campaign, German bombers had also operated by night, even though they had air superiority and bombing by day was not a problem. However, it was not sensible or reasonable to expect the British Army to rely entirely on nocturnal air support.

  In his post-campaign dispatch, Barratt broadly agreed with these views. He did not make himself popular in Air Ministry circles with his insistence that not enough fighters had been sent to France and his rather obvious assertion that fighters had to be deployed where they were needed. That did not just mean deploying them in France where the Luftwaffe was, rather than in Britain where the Luftwaffe was not; it also meant operating fighters near the bombers the Luftwaffe was trying to shoot down. However, like Playfair, he did not believe bombers were best used close to the front line. He remained convinced that the Battles would have achieved far more attacking targets in the rear. French weakness, he insisted, had forced him to misuse his bombers.18

  Neither Barratt nor Playfair could be considered advocates of close air support. However, even they appear to have been viewed as a little too close to the tactical end of the air doctrine spectrum for Air Staff liking. Their expertise and experience were not needed in Britain in the summer of 1940: Playfair was given command of the RAF in India and Barratt was given no role at all.

  Playfair’s place at No. 1 Group was taken by Air Commodore J. J. Breen. Previously he had been the Senior Air Staff Officer at the Whitley-equipped No. 4 Group, the only specialist night bomber force in the RAF, so it was natural for Breen to develop Playfair’s preference for nocturnal bombing. Following Playfair’s analysis, there was little attempt to examine more closely the tactics used in France or investigate how they might be improved. The Air Force training department was anxious that their experience in France should not be lost, but their requests to No. 1 Group for information seem to have been ignored.19 The Air Ministry and Bomber Command seemed to want to put the entire French experience behind them. They believed there was nothing to be learned from a type of warfare that Britain was no longer engaged in—a conclusion that seemed to ignore the possibility that Britain might soon be fighting the German Army on home soil. Breen was happy to follow the Air Ministry lead. Under his command there was no analysis of Battle operations in France, and No. 1 Group was not even considering how best to use the Battle by day. Instead, the squadrons set about improving their night flying skills.

  Yet the plan was still to use the Battles against an invasion. On 5 July, No. 1 Group declared itself operational in an emergency. The ‘emergency’ referred to a possible invasion and, for much of the summer, the bombers would continue to be on standby to deal with this ‘emergency’. It was rather typical of the Air Ministry attitude to tactical air support that it was only something required in an emergency. It was not something that was supposed to enable ground forces to operate more effectively; it was just there to help out if the Army was in trouble. There would be no attempt to make the sort of support the Battle could provide a normal feature of army operations. In the intensive training that Army units were involved in up and down the country, there was no air support element. Army commanders at all levels were practising and refining their ability to deploy infantry, call in artillery support, and manoeuvre tanks, but close air support was not an element of any of these exercises.

  No. 1 Group headquarters was set up at Hucknall in the Midlands with the Battle squadrons occupying airfields at Binbrook and Newton. On 5 July, the four Battle squadrons mustered forty-five Battles and fifty-five crews, but reinforcements seemed to be on the way, in the shape of the Polish squadrons that were forming. Originally the Poles were supposed to fly Wellingtons, but it was then decided, rather patronisingly, that they lacked the ‘British team spirit’ required from a Wellington crew, so they formed Battle squadrons instead. The idea was to send them off to France to keep the War Office happy, but France collapsed before they could arrive. Two squadrons (Nos. 300 and 301) were forming and two more (Nos. 304 and 305) were due to follow; with over 300 in stores, there was no immediate shortage of Battles for these squadrons. Even the Air Ministry agreed that there were ample to maintain eight squadrons throughout the summer.20 A hundred-strong force of properly equipped Battles might be useful in an invasion.

  Battle operations July–October 1940.

  On 8 July, No. 1 Group was told exactly what it was supposed to do in the event of an invasion. Although France had been occupied, and the English Channel provided the shortest sea crossing for an invading German Army, it was still assumed the invasion would come along the North Sea coast. (It was not until early September that it was realised the Germans planned to invade along the south, not the east coast.) It was decided that the three most likely landing sites were the Kent coast north of Folkestone, the coast between Flamborough Head and Sunderland, and the Shetlands. No. 1 Group was reasonably well placed to deal with landings between Flamborough Head and Sunderland. The instructions for the Battle squadrons were quite specific. They were to operate by day at low-level and they would be required to strafe the invasion fleet and bomb it with 250-lb and 40-lb bombs. The Group was assured fighter cover would be available.21

  Despite the intention to use the Battles at low level, nothing was done to increase protection. The plans to equip all RAF bombers with self-sealing tanks was now even further behind schedule and there was a particular shortage of the Semape covering that the Battles needed.22 Despite the low-level missions it was expected to fly, the Battle was still last on the list for conversion, nor was any additional armour fitted. Instructions to strafe the German vessels seemed almost pointless if all the Battle had was a single-forward firing machine gun. While Lysanders were modified for dive-bombing and ground-strafing, nothing was done to improve the Battle’s capabilities. The only modification trialled with a specific tactical use was the fitting of a siren so that the Battle could make as much noise as a Stuka. These were considered very successful and the Air Ministry wanted all medium bombers to have them as soon as possible.23 It was a pity there was not the same urgency about fitting self-sealing tanks, armour, or cannon. In an invasion, these would have been more useful than a siren.

  There was no effort to ensure the Battle squadrons could coordinate their efforts with operations on the ground. The only joint army and a
ir force exercises involved Battles in mock dive-bombing attacks on British troops, to give them some idea of what it was like. The War Office were pleased just to get this level of cooperation from the Air Force. The Air Ministry had previously proven extremely reluctant to give British troops experience of air operations that they believed the Luftwaffe was unlikely to indulge in. However, the hammering that British troops had suffered in Norway and France had forced the Air Ministry to back down and agree to War Office requests. No. 1 Group got the job because it was the only Group equipped with bombers that were capable of steep dive-bombing. The instructions the Group received emphasised that these were not in any way tactical exercises for the Battle crews; the aim was simply to familiarise troops with dive-bomber attacks. The idea was to demonstrate to British troops what it was like to be on the receiving end of close air support, not to practise giving British troops similar support.

  Breen was not very enthusiastic about the task. Strangely, No. 1 Group’s operations record book claimed the Battle was unsuitable for the task because it had not been designed for dive-bombing. Breen insisted his squadrons had far more important training to do, but in the summer of 1940 there could hardly have been a more important training task than preparing bomber crews to hit the sort of battlefield targets an invading army might present. The Army request was forcing the Battle squadrons to practise a skill they should have been practising anyway. However, Breen was right in suggesting that it was not particularly realistic practice for the troops. The Battle was not capable of replicating the Stuka’s steep diving angle, and half a dozen diving Battles was nothing like the swarms of Stukas that soldiers could expect to face. Indeed, Breen felt the Battles might be doing more harm than good, as troops who thought they knew what to expect might be even more surprised by the reality of Stuka attack.24 Clearly Breen was well aware of what that reality was, and how frightening it might be.