The Second World War (26 page)

After Dunkirk and the French capitulation, the British were in a state of shock similar to a wounded soldier who feels no pain. They knew that the situation was desperate, if not catastrophic, with almost all the army’s weapons and vehicles abandoned on the other side of the Channel. And yet, helped by Churchill’s words, they almost welcomed the stark clarity of their fate. A self-comforting belief developed that, although the British always did badly at the beginning of a war, they would ‘win the last
battle’, even if nobody had the remotest idea how. Many, including the King, professed a relief that the French were no longer their allies. Air Chief Marshal
Dowding
later claimed that, on hearing of the French surrender, he had gone down on his knees and thanked God that no more fighters needed to be risked across the Channel.

The British expected the Germans to follow up their conquest of France with a rapid invasion. General Sir Alan Brooke, now responsible for the defence of the south coast, was most concerned about the lack of weapons, armoured vehicles and trained units. The chiefs of staff were still deeply worried by the threat to aircraft factories, on which the RAF would depend for replacements for the aircraft lost in France. But the time the Luftwaffe took to get ready for its onslaught on Britain provided a vital period of preparation.

The British may have had only 700 fighters at the time, but the Germans failed to appreciate that their enemy was capable of producing 470 a month, double the rate of their own armaments industry. The Luftwaffe was also confident that its pilots and aircraft were manifestly superior. The RAF had lost 136 pilots, killed or captured in France. Even when reinforced by other nationalities, they were still short. Flight training schools were pushing through as many as they could, but freshly qualified pilots were almost always the first to be shot down.

The Poles formed the largest foreign contingent, with over 8,000 air force personnel. They were the only ones with combat experience, but their integration into the RAF was slow. Negotiations with General Sikorski, who wanted an independent Polish air force, had been complicated. But, once the first groups of pilots were brought into the RAF Volunteer Reserve, they rapidly proved their skill. British pilots often referred to the ‘crazy Poles’ because of their bravery and disdain for authority. Their new comrades soon showed their exasperation with the bureaucracy of the RAF, and yet they acknowledged that it was far better run than the French air force.

Discipline was often a problem, partly because the Polish pilots were still angry with their own commanders for the state of their air force at the time of the German invasion the previous September. They had faced the prospect of fighting the Luftwaffe with fierce joy, convinced that although their P-11 machines were slow and badly armed they would win by skill and courage. Instead, they had been overwhelmed by the numerical and technical superiority of the German air fleets. That bitter experience, to say nothing of the dreadful treatment of their country by Hitler and Stalin, had created a burning desire for revenge now that they had modern fighters. Senior RAF officers could not have been more wrong when they arrogantly assumed that the Poles had been ‘demoralized’ by their
defeat, and wanted to train them for bomber squadrons.

The difference in British attitudes, manners and food had been a shock to the Poles. Few got over the memory of the fish-paste sandwiches offered them on arrival in England, and they were made even more homesick by the horrors of British cuisine, from over-cooked mutton and cabbage to the ubiquitous custard (which also appalled the Free French). But the warmth of their reception by most Britons, greeting them with cries of ‘Long live Poland!’, astonished them. Polish pilots, seen as dashing and heroic, found themselves mobbed and propositioned to an extraordinary degree by young British women achieving a degree of freedom for the first time. Language proved less of a problem on the dance-floor than in the air.

The Polish pilots’ reputation for reckless bravery was misleading. In fact their casualty rates were lower than those of RAF pilots, partly because of their experience, but also because they were better at constantly searching the sky for ambushes by German fighters. They were certainly individualistic and showed contempt for the RAF’s outdated tactics of flying in tight formations of V-shaped ‘vics’ of three. It took time, and many unnecessary casualties, before the RAF began to copy the German system learned in the Spanish Civil War of flying in double pairs, known as ‘finger four’.

By 10 July, there were forty Polish pilots in RAF Fighter Command squadrons, and the number mounted steadily as more and more of their men from France became qualified. By the time the Battle of Britain reached its climax, over 10 per cent of the fighter pilots in the south-east were Polish. On 13 July, the first Polish squadron was formed. Within a month, the British government relented, and agreed to Sikorski’s request for a Polish air force, with its own fighter and bomber squadrons, but under RAF command.

On 31 July, Hitler summoned his generals to the Berghof above Berchtesgaden. He was still perplexed by Britain’s refusal to come to terms. Since there was little prospect of the United States entering the war for the foreseeable future, he sensed that Churchill was counting on the Soviet Union. This played a major part in his decision to go ahead with his greatest project of all, the destruction of ‘Jewish Bolshevism’ in the east. Only the defeat of Soviet power by a massive invasion would force Britain to concede, he reasoned. Thus Churchill’s determination in late May to fight on alone had far wider consequences than just deciding the fate of the British Isles.

‘
With Russia smashed
,’ Hitler told his commanders-in-chief, ‘Britain’s last hope would be shattered. Germany will then be master of Europe and the Balkans.’ This time, unlike the nervousness shown before the invasion of France, his generals showed remarkable resolution when faced with the
prospect of attacking the Soviet Union. Without even a direct order from Hitler, Halder had ordered staff officers to examine outline plans.

In the euphoria of victory over France and the total reversal of the humiliation of Versailles, the Wehrmacht commanders-in-chief hailed the Führer as ‘
the first soldier of the Reich
’, who would secure Germany’s future for all time. Two weeks later Hitler, privately cynical about the ease with which he could bribe his leading commanders with honours, medals and money, made a presentation of twelve field marshals’ batons to the conquerors of France. But before turning against the Soviet Union, which Hitler had said would be ‘
child’s play
’ after the defeat of France, he still felt obliged to deal with Britain to avoid war on two fronts. The OKW directive had instructed the Luftwaffe to concentrate on the destruction of the RAF, ‘
its ground-support organization
, and the British armaments industry’, as well ports and warships. Göring predicted that it would take less than a month. His pilots’ morale was high due to the victory over France and their numerical superiority. The Luftwaffe in France had 656 Messerschmitt 109 fighters, 168 Me 110 twin-engined fighters, 769 Dornier, Heinkel and Junkers 88 bombers, and 316 Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers. Dowding had only 504 Hurricanes and Spitfires for the defence of the British Isles.

Before the main onslaught took place in early August, the two Fliegerkorps in northern France concentrated on reconnaissance of RAF airfields. They mounted probing raids to provoke the British fighters into the sky and wear them down before the battle started, and attacked the coastal radar stations. The radar stations, combined with the Observer Corps and good communications from command centres, meant that the RAF did not have to waste flying time on air patrols over the Channel. At least in theory, squadrons could be scrambled with enough time to achieve altitude, yet late enough to save fuel and keep them in the air for the maximum amount of time. Fortunately for the British, the radar towers proved hard to hit, and even when damaged they were soon back in service.

Dowding had held back the Spitfire squadrons during the fighting over France, except during the evacuation from Dunkirk. He now husbanded his forces, guessing what the German tactics signified. Dowding may have appeared aloof and sad after the death of his wife in 1920, but he was quietly passionate about his ‘
dear fighter boys
’ and inspired great loyalty in return. He had a good idea of what they were about to face. He also made sure that he had the right man commanding 11 Group, which defended London and the south-east of England. Air Marshal Keith Park was a New Zealander who had shot down twenty German aeroplanes in the previous war. Like Dowding, he was prepared to listen to his pilots and allow them to ignore the hide-bound tactics of pre-war doctrine and develop their own.

In that momentous summer, Fighter Command took on the character of an international air force. Out of the 2,917 aircrew who served during the Battle of Britain, just 2,334 were British. The rest included 145 Poles, 126 New Zealanders, 98 Canadians, 88 Czechs, 33 Australians, 29 Belgians, 25 South Africans, 13 Frenchmen, 11 Americans, 10 Irishmen and several other nationalities.

The first major clash took place before the official start of the German air offensive. On 24 July, Adolf Galland led a force of forty Me 109s and eighteen Dornier 17 bombers to attack a convoy in the Thames estuary. Spitfires from three squadrons rose to attack them. And although they shot down only two German aircraft, instead of the sixteen claimed, Galland was shaken by the determination of the outnumbered British pilots. He berated his own pilots after they returned for their reluctance to attack the Spitfires, and began to suspect that the battle ahead would not be as easy as the Reichsmarschall had supposed.

With typical Nazi bombast, the German offensive was codenamed Adlerangriff (Eagle Attack), and Adlertag (Eagle Day) was set, after several postponements, for 13 August. After some confusion over weather forecasts, formations of German bombers and fighters took off. The largest group was to attack the naval base of Portsmouth, while others raided RAF airfields. Despite all their reconnaissance, Luftwaffe intelligence was faulty. They mostly attacked satellite fields or bases which did not belong to Fighter Command. As the sky cleared in the afternoon, radar posts on the south coast picked out a force of some 300 aircraft heading towards Southampton. Eighty fighters were scrambled, an unimaginable number in previous weeks. 609 Squadron managed to get in among a group of Stukas and shot down six of them.

In total, the RAF fighters had shot down forty-seven aircraft, losing thirteen themselves and three pilots killed. But the German loss of aircrew was far greater, with eighty-nine killed or taken prisoner. The Channel now worked in the RAF’s favour. During the Battle for France, the pilots of damaged aircraft returning home had dreaded having to ditch, or crash-land, in the sea. Now the Germans faced this greater danger, as well as the certainty of being taken prisoner if they had to bale out over England.

Göring, smarting from the disappointing result of
Adlertag
, launched an even bigger onslaught on 15 August, with 1,790 fighters and bombers attacking from Norway and Denmark as well as from northern France. The formations from the Fifth Luftflotte in Scandinavia lost nearly 20 per cent of their number, and they were not sent back into the battle because they had suffered such heavy losses. The Luftwaffe referred to that day as ‘Black Thursday’, but the RAF could hardly afford to be jubilant. Its own losses had not been light, and through sheer numerical superiority the Luftwaffe
would continue to smash through. The constant attacks on airfields also killed and wounded fitters, riggers, orderlies and even the drivers and plotters of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. On 18 August, 43 Squadron achieved a satisfactory revenge when its fighters swooped on to a force of Stukas dive-bombing a radar station. They accounted for eighteen of these vulnerable predators before their escorting Me 109s joined the fray.

Fresh pilot officers arriving as reinforcements eagerly questioned those who had been in action. They were thrown into the routine. Woken before dawn with a cup of tea by their batman, they were driven out to dispersal where they had breakfast, and then they waited around as the sun came up. Unfortunately for Fighter Command, the weather during most of that August and September was perfect for the Luftwaffe, with clear blue skies.

The waiting was the worst part. That was when pilots suffered from dry mouths and the metallic taste of fear. Then they would hear the dreaded sound of the field telephone’s cranking ring, and the cry of ‘Squadron scramble!’ They would run out to their aircraft, their parachutes thumping against their back. The ground crew would help them clamber into the cockpit, where they ran through the safety checks. When their Merlin engines had roared into life, chocks were hauled away and the pilots taxied their fighters into position for take-off; they had too much to think about to be scared, at least for the moment.

Once airborne, with the engines straining as they gained altitude, the newcomers had to remember to keep looking all around. They soon realized that the more experienced pilots did not wear silk scarves just for affectation. With a constantly swivelling head, necks were rubbed raw by regulation collars and ties. It had been drummed into them to keep their ‘eyes skinned at all times’. Assuming they survived their first action, and a number did not, they returned to base to wait once more, eating corned-beef sandwiches washed down with mugs of tea while their planes were refuelled and rearmed. Most fell asleep immediately from exhaustion on the ground or in deckchairs.

When back in the air again, the sector controllers would direct them towards a formation of ‘bandits’. A cry of ‘Tally ho!’ over the radio signified that a formation of black dots had been spotted by another member of the squadron. The pilot would switch on the reflector sight, and the tension mounted. The vital discipline was to keep fear under control, otherwise it would lead rapidly to your death.