With Wings Like Eagles (30 page)

On both sides of the Channel, therefore, September 7 led to dissatisfaction and to reassessment of the situation. Dowding moved some of his more exhausted squadrons out of the first line of battle and replaced them with fresh ones; more significantly, he took the deeply unpopular but sensible step of dividing his fighter squadrons into three categories: A being those in No. 11 Group directly in the path of German air attacks, B those that could be used at short notice to replace them, and C those that were not yet ready for combat, except against small numbers of bombers or isolated bombers. In practice, this meant dividing the fighter squadrons into sheep and goats. The B squadrons felt slighted, and the C squadrons had their best pilots transferred to the hard-pressed A and B squadrons. Of course no pilot wanted to be relegated to a C squadron, so the categorization did nothing to increase Dowding’s popularity with many of his pilots. The pilots not only found him a remote and “stuffy” figure but also blamed him for the many intricate plans—and the more irritating changes of plan—that made no sense to young men risking their lives or impatient to get into combat.

This scheme to stabilize the strength of the more experienced operational squadrons at the expense of the rest led to numerous complaints from pilots that they were being “buggered about,” and tended to diminish squadron loyalty, which, like regimental loyalty in the army, was a real source of strength and morale—once a pilot found his place in a squadron, it was his home; the other pilots were his friends and comrades; and the ground crews were familiar faces. Being arbitrarily posted to another squadron was a serious matter for pilots clinging to an organizational unit small enough to give them a sense of identity and belonging; and remaining a pilot in a squadron that was downgraded to C was felt as a humiliation. This scheme did not endear the brass hats at Bentley Priory to their pilots. Dowding’s decision of the same day to give up “standing patrols” over convoys also made sense, in that it conserved fighters and pilots, but it was of course resented by the Admiralty, and added fuel to a burning question in the minds of Dowding’s critics: Just what could Fighter Command protect, if it couldn’t protect major cities from being bombed by day or night, or aircraft factories, or, now, it seemed, vital convoys?

From the 8th through the 9th, the attacks on London continued, aided by “fair weather.” The toll of civilian casualties also continued, vastly outstripping the number of pilots killed or missing. On September 8, day and night raids on London cost the lives of 412 civilians; on the 9th, despite strong attacks by No. 11 Group against the German formations, 370 civilian Londoners were killed and nearly 1,500 severely wounded. Cloudy weather, with some rain, diminished the German attacks and the civilian casualties on the 10th, but the 11th dawned fine and clear and was again a day of full-scale attacks, another of those days that stretched everybody’s nerves to the breaking point on both sides of the Channel.

In Germany, the obvious fact that Fighter Command remained un-beaten and that the British were not yet cowed by the bombing of their cities caused Hitler to postpone giving the warning order for Operation Sea Lion again. The German navy needed at least two days of good weather and smooth seas to lay the long, intricately planned barriers of mines that would constitute its principal defense against British warships entering the Channel from the North Sea. Nobody was certain that the mines would deter the Royal Navy, but without them the invasion could be destroyed at sea by British cruisers and destroyers. On both sides there were those who remembered that Turkish minefields had prevented Admiral de Robeck from reaching Constantinople in 1915.

Reports of aerial mining of the sea off the French Channel ports, and of the movement of barges and German naval vessels observed by Photographic Reconnaissance Unit Spitfires, once again caused many people to conclude that the invasion was imminent—that the heavy bombing of London and, once again, of Park’s crucial airfields could plausibly be interpreted as the opening moves of the invasion. Dowding did not appear to share this opinion—he stoutly, though unsuccessfully, resisted an order to transfer some of his precious Bofors antiaircraft guns to the army because the invasion was imminent. He argued that it was not imminent, even though the order came directly from the War Cabinet—but it must be borne in mind that his responsibility was for the air defense of
all
of Great Britain. If the invasion took place, he would have to use the squadrons of No. 10 Group to attack the enemy in the Channel and on the beaches, and to protect British warships as they engaged the invasion fleet; he could not ignore the possibility that
Luftflotte
5 in Denmark and Norway would attack again once the invasion was launched, in which case he would need No. 13 Group to defend the north of England, Scotland, and the all-important naval base of the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow. Unlikely as the invasion might seem to him, he could not afford to concentrate all his strength on the defense of London.

The 11th was a day of intense air activity by nearly 500 German bombers, including large-scale raids on London, Portsmouth, and Southampton, followed by night raids by more than 200 bombers on London and Liverpool. The German fliers ran into more opposition than they had been told to expect—although Göring assumed that Fighter Command now had fewer than 200 fighters left, in fact Dowding had 214 serviceable Spitfires and 387 serviceable Hurricanes available at nine o’clock on the morning of the 11th, almost three times the latest estimate of Beppo Schmidt. This would not be much of a consolation to Dowding, however: by the end of the day his fighters had shot down twenty-five German aircraft, but his own losses came to twenty-nine fighters destroyed and seventeen pilots killed—Fighter Command’s losses in aircraft were higher than those of the Germans, a very bad sign indeed. Even more threatening was the fact that the Germans had finally succeeded in partially jamming British radar, using specially made transmitters placed on the French coast. They were not as yet able to jam the radar completely, but they created enough electronic interference to make it difficult for the radar operators to interpret what appeared on the screens.

Perhaps the most notable building that was bombed on the 11th, surely not by accident, was Buckingham Palace. Six bombs struck the palace, two of them exploding less than twenty yards from where the king was talking with his private secretary, Alec Hardinge, in his “small sitting room.” The royal family took the attack calmly, regarding it as a propaganda victory and a morale builder. The queen remarked, with evident relief, “Now we can look the people of the East End in the face,” and she and the king were photographed examining the rubble and chatting amiably with the emergency workers. The king observed that the “aircraft was seen coming straight down the Mall below the clouds…. There is no doubt it was a direct attack on Buckingham Palace.” However, it seems that this was not a matter of policy or deliberate frightfulness on the part of the German government or the
Luftwaffe
, but rather a result of high-spirited bomber crews’ betting on which among them would be the first to score a hit on Buckingham Palace.

The City and the London docks were more seriously damaged, and fifty-three people were killed. Dover was not only bombed but also shelled, by German long-range coastal artillery; Kenley and Biggin Hill got another pasting; and the London–Brighton railway main line was closed for a time by unexploded or delayed-action bombs. Though he himself was as skeptical about the invasion as Dowding, Winston Churchill thought that apprehension about its imminence was sufficiently widespread that he should speak to the British people about it on the night of the 11th. This broadcast is not usually counted among his greatest war speeches, and though it was brief by his standards, it was masterly. He did not try to conceal or minimize the danger—indeed, he was very frank, telling almost as much as he knew, and drawing his listeners into his confidence. He pointed out firmly, “The effort of the Germans to secure daylight mastery of the air over England is of course the crux of the whole war,” one of the rare points on which he and Hitler were in full agreement. Then he went on to say that preparations for “invasion on a great scale,” were nevertheless “going forward steadily,” and to predict that it would be, for the enemy, “a very hazardous undertaking,” as was certainly true. He made it clear that if the invasion was to take place, it must be very soon, since the weather would break at any time—something of which Hitler was also acutely conscious. Then, in words that still ring with optimism, he drew on two stories of English victories over powerful continental enemies, stories with which everybody in Britain, irrespective of education or class, was familiar: “We must regard the next week or so as a very important period in our history. It ranks with the days when the Spanish Armada was approaching the Channel, and Drake was finishing his game of bowls; or when Nelson stood between us and Napoleon’s Grand Army at Boulogne.”
¹¹
He had placed the Battle of Britain firmly in the minds of his listeners among the greatest heroic victories of the past—the Armada and Trafalgar—striking exactly the patriotic note that was most likely to appeal to them, and increasing their resolution for whatever the next few days would bring.

From September 12 to September 14, the German attacks slackened off a bit, in part because of “unsettled weather,” in part because the Germans were rethinking their own bombing tactics. They were using more frequent attacks by smaller units, rather than a single big raid, and sending over masses of fighters to keep the radar operators guessing (and to keep Fighter Command busy). Increasingly, German bomber units returning from London flew a course that took them through their own “stream of bombers” flying toward London, since air traffic flying in opposite directions on a parallel course tended to confuse the British radar operators. On the 12th, in one of the most dramatic episodes of the Blitz, a very heavy delayed-action bomb fell close to Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, and the bomb disposal unit had to dig down nearly thirty feet to disarm and remove it before it could destroy one of London’s most famous and cherished historical landmarks. On the 13th central London was hit badly again, with bombs falling on Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, and Buckingham Palace. On the 14th, London was bombed in a day of confused and widespread fighting, which ended in the loss of fourteen aircraft on each side, and from which the Germans drew the impression that Fighter Command was at last beginning to weaken.

Although in Britain the invasion was now expected at any moment, in Berlin there was still hesitation. Hitler gathered his service chiefs for a conference, and once again postponed Operation Sea Lion. The intention was to give the
Luftwaffe
a chance to complete the destruction of the British fighter force, on which the navy continued to insist, as well as an uninterrupted four to five days of good weather and calm seas (only a few days ago the German navy had asked for just two days of good weather). The bombing raids on London during the night of September 14–15 were noticeably less strong than they had been over the past few days, causing many people in the RAF to wonder if the Germans might be preparing something special for September 15.

This, as it happened, was a good guess—September 15 would turn out to be the decisive day of the Battle of Britain, and indeed very possibly the decisive day of the war.

A prediction (for once accurate, despite some early-morning mist) of almost perfect weather for September 15, coupled with a general feeling in the
Luftwaffe
high command that the RAF was weakening, made it certain that the Germans would undertake a major effort. It was not attended by all the fanfare of Eagle Day, especially since that had been so disappointing, but both air fleets were under strict orders to produce a maximum effort for the day. Two separate attacks were planned: one in the late morning, consisting of more than 250 aircraft; the next in the early afternoon, consisting of nearly 300 aircraft (to be followed by a night attack). Each would take place in two separate waves, but perhaps out of overconfidence, no fancy tactics were planned—there were no sweeps of German fighter aircraft, and no attempts to deceive the RAF about the direction of the attacks. This was to be a trial of brute force and numbers, with London as the principal target. The
Luftwaffe
formed up over France in full view of British radar operators, who had, for once, ample time to take a careful count and warn Fighter Command of what was in store. This time even Douglas Bader’s Duxford big wing would have time to form up and hit the Germans before they bombed. Well before noon, Air Vice-Marshal Park had twenty-one squadrons of fighters in the air to attack the German formations as they crossed the Kent coastline, from Biggin Hill, Northolt, Kenley, Hendon, Hornchurch, Middle Wallop, and Duxford. For once, the quarrel between Park and Leigh-Mallory did not affect operations; nor were there any arguments about the “big wing.” Ground controllers had ample time to form big wings, even in No. 11 Group, and by the time the massive force of German aircraft was over Kent, it was attacked from every quarter.

It should not be thought that at the outset either side regarded Sunday, September 15, as a “historic” day. Certainly, Göring had hopes of striking a knockout blow that would fatally cripple Fighter Command and demoralize Londoners, but by now many of his aircrews—not to speak of their commanders—were disillusioned and exhausted. On the British side, it merely looked like another brutal day of battle, and the British had experienced such days before. The invasion scare had spread to the newspapers, where there was much speculation on the subject, to which the Ministry of Information responded sternly by announcing that if an invasion were to take place, the public would be informed of the fact on the BBC. (“Only in England!”) Pilots, as they woke before dawn on the 15th, were warned there was “a flap on.” This warning made many of them assume that the invasion was taking place, whereas all that was happening was the intrusion of German reconnaissance aircraft into British airspace—almost always the precursor of a major effort on the part of the
Luftwaffe
. (One of the German early-morning reconnaissance aircraft was shot down by an RAF pilot who had taken off in his pajamas, before even drinking his morning cup of tea.)