Battle of Britain
The Battle of Britain
(German: Luftschlacht um England, lit. 'air battle for England')
was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force
(RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defended the United Kingdom
against large-scale attacks by Nazi Germany's air force, the Luftwaffe. It was
the first major military campaign fought entirely by air forces. It takes its
name from the speech given by Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the House of
Commons on 18 June, 1940: "What General Weygand called the 'Battle of
France' is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin."
The Germans had rapidly
overwhelmed France and the Low Countries in the Battle of France, leaving
Britain to face the threat of invasion by sea. The German high command
recognized the difficulties of a seaborne attack while the Royal Navy
controlled the English Channel and the North Sea. The primary objective of the
German forces was to compel Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement.
The British officially
recognize the battle's duration as being from 10 July until 31 October 1940,
which overlaps the period of large-scale night attacks known as the Blitz, that
lasted from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941. German historians do not follow
this subdivision and regard the battle as a single campaign lasting from July
1940 to May 1941, including the Blitz.
In July 1940, the air and
sea blockade began, with the Luftwaffe mainly targeting coastal-shipping convoys,
as well as ports and shipping centers such as Portsmouth. On 16 July, Hitler
ordered the preparation of Operation Sea Lion as a potential amphibious and airborne
assault on Britain, to follow once the Luftwaffe had air superiority over the
Channel. On 1 August, the Luftwaffe was directed to achieve air superiority
over the RAF, with the aim of incapacitating RAF Fighter Command; 12 days
later, it shifted the attacks to RAF airfields and infrastructure. As the
battle progressed, the Luftwaffe also targeted factories involved in aircraft
production and strategic infrastructure. Eventually, it employed terror bombing
on areas of political significance and on civilians.
In September, RAF Bomber Command night raids disrupted the German preparation
of converted barges, and the Luftwaffe's failure to overwhelm the RAF forced
Hitler to postpone and eventually cancel Operation Sea Lion. The Luftwaffe
proved unable to sustain daylight raids, but their continued night-bombing
operations on Britain became known as the Blitz.
Germany's failure to
destroy Britain's air defenses and force it out of the conflict was the first
major German defeat in the Second World War.
Background
Strategic bombing during
World War I introduced air attacks intended to panic civilian targets and led
in 1918 to the merger of the British army and navy air services into the Royal
Air Force (RAF). Its first Chief of the Air Staff, Hugh Trenchard, was among
the military strategists in the 1920s, like Giulio Douhet, who saw air warfare
as a new way to overcome the bloody stalemate of trench warfare. Interception
was expected to be nearly impossible, with fighter planes no faster than
bombers. Their slogan was that the bomber will always get through, and that the
only defense was a deterrent bomber force capable of matching retaliation.
Predictions were made that a bomber offensive would quickly cause thousands of
deaths and civilian hysteria leading to capitulation. However, widespread
pacifism following the horrors of the First World War contributed to a
reluctance to provide resources.
Developing Air Strategies
Germany was forbidden a
military air force by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, and therefore air crew
were trained by means of civilian and sport flying. Following a 1923
memorandum, the Deutsche Luft Hansa airline developed designs for aircraft such
as the Junkers Ju 52, which could carry passengers and freight, but also be
readily adapted into a bomber. In 1926, the secret Lipetsk fighter-pilot school
began training Germans in the Soviet Union. Erhard Milch organized rapid
expansion, and following the 1933 Nazi seizure of power, his subordinate Robert
Knauss formulated a deterrence theory incorporating Douhet's ideas and
Tirpitz's "risk theory". This proposed a fleet of heavy bombers to deter
a preventive attack by France and Poland before Germany could fully rearm. A
1933–34 war game indicated a need for fighters and anti-aircraft protection as
well as bombers. On 1 March 1935, the Luftwaffe was formally announced, with
Walther Wever as Chief of Staff. The 1935 Luftwaffe doctrine for "Conduct
of Air War" (Luftkriegführung) set air power within the overall military
strategy, with critical tasks of attaining (local and temporary) air
superiority and providing battlefield support for army and naval forces.
Strategic bombing of industries and transport could be decisive longer-term
options, dependent on opportunity or preparations by the army and navy. It
could be used to overcome a stalemate, or used when only destruction of the
enemy's economy would be conclusive. The list excluded bombing civilians to
destroy homes or undermine morale, as that was considered a waste of strategic
effort, but the doctrine allowed revenge attacks if German civilians were
bombed. A revised edition was issued in 1940, and the continuing central
principle of Luftwaffe doctrine was that destruction of enemy armed forces was
of primary importance.
The RAF responded to
Luftwaffe developments with its 1934 Expansion Plan A rearmament scheme, and in
1936 it was restructured into Bomber Command, Coastal Command, Training Command
and Fighter Command. The last was under Hugh Dowding, who opposed the doctrine
that bombers were unstoppable: the invention of radar at that time could allow
early detection, and prototype monoplane fighters were significantly faster.
Priorities were disputed, but in December 1937, the Minister in charge of
Defence Coordination, Sir Thomas Inskip, sided with Dowding that "The role
of our air force is not an early knock-out blow" but rather was "to
prevent the Germans from knocking us out" and fighter squadrons were just
as necessary as bomber squadrons.
The Spanish Civil War
(1936–1939) gave the Luftwaffe Condor Legion the opportunity to test air
fighting tactics with their new aeroplanes. Wolfram von Richthofen became an exponent
of air power providing ground support to other services. The difficulty of
accurately hitting targets prompted Ernst Udet to require that all new bombers
had to be dive bombers, and led to the development of the Knickebein system for
night time navigation. Priority was given to producing large numbers of smaller
aeroplanes, and plans for a long-range, four-engined strategic bomber were
cancelled.
First Stages of the Second World War
The early stages of the
Second World War saw successful German invasions on the continent, aided
decisively by the air power of the Luftwaffe, which was able to establish
tactical air superiority with great effectiveness. The speed with which German
forces defeated most of the defending armies in Norway in early 1940 created a
significant political crisis in Britain. In early May 1940, the Norway Debate
questioned the fitness for office of the British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain. On 10 May, the same day Winston Churchill became British Prime Minister,
the Germans initiated the Battle of France with an aggressive invasion of
French territory. RAF Fighter Command was desperately short of trained pilots
and aircraft. Churchill sent fighter squadrons, the Air Component of the
British Expeditionary Force, to support operations in France, where the RAF
suffered heavy losses. This was despite the objections of its commander Hugh
Dowding that the diversion of his forces would leave home defenses under strength.
After the evacuation of
British and French soldiers from Dunkirk and the French surrender on 22 June
1940, Hitler mainly focused his energies on the possibility of invading the Soviet
Union. He believed that the British, defeated on the continent and without
European allies, would quickly come to terms. The Germans were so convinced of
an imminent armistice that they began constructing street decorations for the
homecoming parades of victorious troops. Although the British Foreign
Secretary, Lord Halifax, and certain elements of the British public favored a
negotiated peace with an ascendant Germany, Churchill and a majority of his
Cabinet refused to consider an armistice. Instead, Churchill used his skilful
rhetoric to harden public opinion against capitulation and prepare the British
for a long war.
The Battle of Britain has
the unusual distinction that it gained its name before being fought. The name
is derived from the This was their finest hour speech delivered by Winston
Churchill in the House of Commons on 18 June, more than three weeks prior to
the generally accepted date for the start of the battle:
...
What General Weygand called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the
battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of
Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life and the long
continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the
enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break
us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be
free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But
if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all
that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age
made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of a perverted
science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves
that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men
will still say, "This was their finest hour". — Winston Churchill
German Aims and Directives
From the outset of his rise
to power, Adolf Hitler expressed admiration for Britain, and throughout the
Battle period he sought neutrality or a peace treaty with Britain. In a secret
conference on 23 May 1939, Hitler set out his rather contradictory strategy
that an attack on Poland was essential and "will only be successful if the
Western Powers keep out of it. If this is impossible, then it will be better to
attack in the West and to settle Poland at the same time" with a surprise
attack. "If Holland and Belgium are successfully occupied and held, and if
France is also defeated, the fundamental conditions for a successful war
against England will have been secured. England can then be blockaded from
Western France at close quarters by the Air Force, while the Navy with its
submarines extend the range of the blockade."
When war commenced, Hitler
and the OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht or "High Command of the Armed
Forces") issued a series of directives ordering, planning and stating
strategic objectives. "Directive No. 1 for the Conduct of the War",
dated 31 August 1939, instructed the invasion of Poland on 1 September as
planned. Potentially, Luftwaffe "operations against England" were to:
dislocate
English imports, the armaments industry, and the transport of troops to France.
Any favourable opportunity of an effective attack on concentrated units of the
English Navy, particularly on battleships or aircraft carriers, will be
exploited. The decision regarding attacks on London is reserved to me. Attacks
on the English homeland are to be prepared, bearing in mind that inconclusive
results with insufficient forces are to be avoided in all circumstances. —"Directive
No. 1 for the Conduct of the War". Berlin. 31 August 1939.
Both France and the UK
declared war on Germany; on 9 October, Hitler's "Directive No. 6"
planned the offensive to defeat these allies and "win as much territory as
possible in the Netherlands, Belgium, and northern France to serve as a base
for the successful prosecution of the air and sea war against England". On
29 November, OKW "Directive No. 9 – Instructions For Warfare Against The
Economy Of The Enemy" stated that once this coastline had been secured,
the Luftwaffe together with the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) was to blockade UK
ports with sea mines. They were to attack shipping and warships and make air
attacks on shore installations and industrial production. This directive
remained in force in the first phase of the Battle of Britain. It was
reinforced on 24 May during the Battle of France by "Directive No.
13", which authorized the Luftwaffe "to attack the English homeland
in the fullest manner, as soon as sufficient forces are available. This attack
will be opened by an annihilating reprisal for English attacks on the Ruhr
Basin."
By the end of June 1940,
Germany had defeated Britain's allies on the continent, and on 30 June the OKW
Chief of Staff, Alfred Jodl, issued his review of options to increase pressure
on Britain to agree to a negotiated peace. The first priority was to eliminate
the RAF and gain air supremacy. Intensified air attacks against shipping and
the economy could affect food supplies and civilian morale in the long term.
Reprisal attacks of terror bombing had the potential to cause quicker
capitulation, but the effect on morale was uncertain. On the same day, the
Luftwaffe Commander-in-Chief, Hermann Göring issued his operational directive:
to destroy the RAF, thus protecting German industry, and also to block overseas
supplies to Britain. The German Supreme Command argued over the practicality of
these options.
In "Directive No. 16 –
On preparations for a landing operation against England" on 16 July,
Hitler required readiness by mid-August for the possibility of an invasion he
called Operation Sea Lion, unless the British agreed to negotiations. The
Luftwaffe reported that it would be ready to launch its major attack early in
August. The Kriegsmarine Commander-in-Chief, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder,
continued to highlight the impracticality of these plans and said sea invasion
could not take place before early 1941. Hitler now argued that Britain was
holding out in hope of assistance from Russia, and the Soviet Union was to be invaded
by mid 1941. Göring met his air fleet commanders, and on 24 July issued
"Tasks and Goals" of firstly gaining air supremacy, secondly
protecting invasion forces and attacking the Royal Navy's ships. Thirdly, they
were to blockade imports, bombing harbors and stores of supplies.
Hitler's "Directive
No. 17 – For the conduct of air and sea warfare against England" issued on
1 August attempted to keep all the options open. The Luftwaffe's Adlertag
campaign was to start around 5 August, subject to weather, with the aim of gaining
air superiority over southern England as a necessary precondition of invasion,
to give credibility to the threat and give Hitler the option of ordering the
invasion. The intention was to incapacitate the RAF so much that the UK would
feel open to air attack, and would begin peace negotiations. It was also to
isolate the UK and damage war production, beginning an effective blockade.
Following severe Luftwaffe losses, Hitler agreed at a 14 September OKW conference
that the air campaign was to intensify regardless of invasion plans. On 16
September, Göring gave the order for this change in strategy, to the first
independent strategic bombing campaign.
Negotiated Peace or Neutrality
Hitler's 1925 book Mein
Kampf mostly set out his hatreds: he only admired ordinary German World War I
soldiers and Britain, which he saw as an ally against communism. In 1935
Hermann Göring welcomed news that Britain, as a potential ally, was rearming.
In 1936 he promised assistance to defend the British Empire, asking only a free
hand in Eastern Europe, and repeated this to Lord Halifax in 1937. That year,
von Ribbentrop met Churchill with a similar proposal; when rebuffed, he told
Churchill that interference with German domination would mean war. To Hitler's
great annoyance, all his diplomacy failed to stop Britain from declaring war
when he invaded Poland. During the fall of France, he repeatedly discussed
peace efforts with his generals.
When Churchill came to
power, there was still wide support for Halifax, who as Foreign Secretary openly
argued for peace negotiations in the tradition of British diplomacy, to secure
British independence without war. On 20 May, Halifax secretly requested a
Swedish businessman to make contact with Göring to open negotiations. Shortly
afterwards, in the May 1940 War Cabinet Crisis, Halifax argued for negotiations
involving the Italians, but this was rejected by Churchill with majority
support. An approach made through the Swedish ambassador on 22 June was
reported to Hitler, making peace negotiations seem feasible. Throughout July,
as the battle started, the Germans made wider attempts to find a diplomatic
solution. On 2 July, the day the armed forces were asked to start preliminary
planning for an invasion, Hitler got von Ribbentrop to draft a speech offering
peace negotiations. On 19 July Hitler made this speech to the German Parliament
in Berlin, appealing "to reason and common sense", and said he could
"see no reason why this war should go on". His somber conclusion was
received in silence, but he did not suggest negotiations and this was perceived
as being effectively an ultimatum by the British government, which rejected the
offer. Halifax kept trying to arrange peace until he was sent to Washington in
December as ambassador, and in January 1941 Hitler expressed continued interest
in negotiating peace with Britain.
Blockade and Siege
A May 1939 planning
exercise by Luftflotte 3 found that the Luftwaffe lacked the means to do much
damage to Britain's war economy beyond laying naval mines. Joseph Schmid, in
charge of Luftwaffe intelligence, presented a report on 22 November 1939,
stating that, "Of all Germany's possible enemies, Britain is the most
dangerous." This "Proposal for the Conduct of Air Warfare"
argued for a counter to the British blockade and said "Key is to paralyze
the British trade". Instead of the Wehrmacht attacking the French, the
Luftwaffe with naval assistance was to block imports to Britain and attack
seaports. "Should the enemy resort to terror measures – for example, to
attack our towns in western Germany" they could retaliate by bombing
industrial centers and London. Parts of this appeared on 29 November in
"Directive No. 9" as future actions once the coast had been
conquered. On 24 May 1940 "Directive No. 13" authorized attacks on
the blockade targets, as well as retaliation for RAF bombing of industrial
targets in the Ruhr.
After the defeat of France,
the OKW felt they had won the war, and some more pressure would persuade
Britain to give in. On 30 June, the OKW Chief of Staff Alfred Jodl issued his
paper setting out options: the first was to increase attacks on shipping,
economic targets and the RAF: air attacks and food shortages were expected to
break morale and lead to capitulation. Destruction of the RAF was the first
priority, and invasion would be a last resort. Göring's operational directive
issued the same day ordered the destruction of the RAF to clear the way for
attacks cutting off seaborne supplies to Britain. It made no mention of invasion.
Invasion Plans
In November 1939, the OKW
reviewed the potential for an air- and seaborne invasion of Britain: the
Kriegsmarine was faced with the threat the Royal Navy's larger Home Fleet posed
to a crossing of the English Channel, and together with the German Army viewed
control of airspace as a necessary precondition. The German navy thought air
superiority alone was insufficient; the German naval staff had already produced
a study (in 1939) on the possibility of an invasion of Britain and concluded
that it also required naval superiority. The Luftwaffe said invasion could only
be "the final act in an already victorious war."
Hitler first discussed the
idea of an invasion at a 21 May 1940 meeting with Grand Admiral Erich Raeder,
who stressed the difficulties and his own preference for a blockade. OKW Chief
of Staff Jodl's 30 June report described invasion as a last resort once the
British economy had been damaged and the Luftwaffe had full air superiority. On
2 July, OKW requested preliminary plans.
In Britain, Churchill
described "the great invasion scare" as "serving a very useful
purpose" by "keeping every man and woman tuned to a high pitch of
readiness". Historian Len Deighton stated that on 10 July Churchill
advised the War Cabinet that invasion could be ignored, as it "would be a
most hazardous and suicidal operation".
On 11 July, Hitler agreed
with Raeder that invasion would be a last resort, and the Luftwaffe advised
that gaining air superiority would take 14 to 28 days. Hitler met his army
chiefs, von Brauchitsch and Halder, at the Berchtesgaden Obersalzberg on 13
July where they presented detailed plans on the assumption that the navy would
provide safe transport. Von Brauchitsch and Halder were surprised that Hitler
took no interest in the invasion plans, unlike his usual attitude toward
military operations, but on 16 July he issued Directive No. 16, ordering
preparations for Operation Sea Lion.
The navy insisted on a
narrow beachhead and an extended period for landing troops; the army rejected
these plans: the Luftwaffe could begin an air attack in August. Hitler held a
meeting of his army and navy chiefs on 31 July. The navy said 22 September was
the earliest possible date and proposed postponement until the following year,
but Hitler preferred September. He then told von Brauchitsch and Halder that he
would decide on the landing operation eight to fourteen days after the air
attack began. On 1 August, he issued Directive No. 17 for intensified air and
sea warfare, to begin with Adlertag on or after 5 August, subject to weather,
keeping options open for negotiated peace or blockade and siege.
Independent Air Attack
Under the continuing
influence of the 1935 "Conduct of the Air War" doctrine, the main focus
of the Luftwaffe command (including Göring) was in concentrating attacks to destroy
enemy armed forces on the battlefield, and "blitzkrieg" close air
support of the army succeeded brilliantly. They reserved strategic bombing for
a stalemate situation or revenge attacks, but doubted if this could be decisive
on its own and regarded bombing civilians to destroy homes or undermine morale
as a waste of strategic effort.
The defeat of France in
June 1940 introduced the prospect for the first time of independent air action
against Britain. A July Fliegercorps I paper asserted that Germany was by definition
an air power: "Its chief weapon against England is the Air Force, then the
Navy, followed by the landing forces and the Army." In 1940, the Luftwaffe
would undertake a "strategic offensive ... on its own and independent of
the other services", according to an April 1944 German account of their
military mission. Göring was convinced that strategic bombing could win
objectives that were beyond the army and navy, and gain political advantages in
the Third Reich for the Luftwaffe and himself. He expected air warfare to
decisively force Britain to negotiate, as all in the OKW hoped, and the
Luftwaffe took little interest in planning to support an invasion.
Opposing Forces
The Luftwaffe faced a more
capable opponent than any it had previously met: a sizeable, highly
coordinated, well-supplied, modern air force.
Fighters
The Luftwaffe's
Messerschmitt Bf 109E and Bf 110C fought against the RAF's workhorse Hurricane
Mk I and the less numerous Spitfire Mk I; Hurricanes outnumbered Spitfires in
RAF Fighter Command by about 2:1 when war broke out. The Bf 109E had a better
climb rate and was up to 40 mph faster in level flight than the Rotol (constant
speed propeller) equipped Hurricane Mk I, depending on altitude. The speed and
climb disparity with the original non-Rotol Hurricane was even greater. By
mid-1940, all RAF Spitfire and Hurricane fighter squadrons converted to 100
octane aviation fuel, which allowed their Merlin engines to generate
significantly more power and an approximately 30 mph increase in speed at low
altitudes through the use of an Emergency Boost Override. In September 1940,
the more powerful Mk IIa series 1 Hurricanes started entering service in small
numbers. This version was capable of a maximum speed of 342 mph (550 km/h),
some 20 mph more than the original (non-Rotol) Mk I, though it was still 15 to
20 mph slower than a Bf 109 (depending on altitude).
The performance of the
Spitfire over Dunkirk came as a surprise to the Jagdwaffe, although the German
pilots retained a strong belief that the 109 was the superior fighter. The
British fighters were equipped with eight Browning .303 (7.7mm) machine guns
firing bullets, while most Bf 109Es had two 20mm cannons firing explosive
shells, supplemented by two 7.92mm machine guns.
The 20mm cannons were much more effective than the .303; during the Battle it
was not unknown for damaged German bombers to limp home with up to two hundred
.303 hits. At some altitudes, the Bf 109 could out climb the British fighter.
It could also engage in vertical-plane negative-g maneuvers without the engine
cutting out because its DB 601 engine used fuel injection; this allowed the 109
to dive away from attackers more readily than the carburetor-equipped Merlin.
On the other hand, the Bf 109E had the disadvantage of a much larger turning
circle than its two foes. In general, though, as Alfred Price noted in The
Spitfire Story:
...
the differences between the Spitfire and the Me 109 in performance and handling
were only marginal, and in a combat they were almost always surmounted by
tactical considerations of which side had seen the other first, which had the
advantage of sun, altitude, numbers, pilot ability, tactical situation,
tactical co-ordination, amount of fuel remaining, etc.
The Bf 109E was also used
as a Jabo (jagdbomber, fighter-bomber) – the E-4/B and E-7 models could carry a
250 kg bomb underneath the fuselage, the later model arriving during the
battle. The Bf 109, unlike the Stuka, could fight on equal terms with RAF
fighters after releasing its ordnance.
At the start of the battle,
the twin-engined Messerschmitt Bf 110C long-range Zerstörer
("Destroyer") was also expected to engage in air-to-air combat while
escorting the Luftwaffe bomber fleet. Although the 110 was faster than the
Hurricane and almost as fast as the Spitfire, its lack of maneuverability and
acceleration meant that it was a failure as a long-range escort fighter. On 13
and 15 August, thirteen and thirty aircraft were lost, the equivalent of an
entire Gruppe, and the type's worst losses during the campaign. This trend continued
with a further eight and fifteen lost on 16 and 17 August.
The most successful role of
the Bf 110 during the battle was as a Schnellbomber (fast bomber). The Bf 110
usually used a shallow dive to bomb the target and escape at high speed. One
unit, Erprobungsgruppe 210 – initially formed as the service test unit
(Erprobungskommando) for the emerging successor to the 110, the Me 210 – proved
that the Bf 110 could still be used to good effect in attacking small or
"pinpoint" targets.
The RAF's Boulton Paul
Defiant had some initial success over Dunkirk because of its resemblance to the
Hurricane; Luftwaffe fighters attacking from the rear were surprised by its
unusual gun turret, which could fire to the rear. During the Battle of Britain,
it proved hopelessly outclassed. The Defiant, designed to attack bombers
without fighter escort, lacked any form of forward-firing armament, and the
heavy turret and second crewman meant it could not outrun or outmaneuver either
the Bf 109 or Bf 110. By the end of August, after disastrous losses, the
aircraft was withdrawn from daylight service.
Bombers
The Luftwaffe's primary
bombers were the Heinkel He 111, Dornier Do 17, and Junkers Ju 88 for level
bombing at medium to high altitudes, and the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka for
dive-bombing. The He 111 was used in greater numbers than the others during the
conflict, and was better known, partly due to its distinctive wing shape. Each
level bomber also had a few reconnaissance versions accompanying them that were
used during the battle.
Although it had been
successful in previous Luftwaffe engagements, the Stuka suffered heavy losses
in the Battle of Britain, particularly on 18 August, due to its slow speed and
vulnerability to fighter interception after dive-bombing a target. As the
losses went up Stuka units, with limited payload and range in addition to their
vulnerability, were largely removed from operations over England and diverted
to concentrate on shipping, until eventually re-deployed to the Eastern Front
in 1941. For some raids they were called back, such as on 13 September to
attack Tangmere airfield.
The remaining three bomber
types differed in their capabilities; the Dornier Do 17 was both the slowest
and had the smallest bomb load; the Ju 88 was the fastest once its mainly external
bomb load was dropped; and the He 111 carried the largest, internal, bomb load.
All three bomber types suffered heavy losses from the home-based British
fighters, but the Ju 88 had significantly lower loss rates due to its greater
speed and its ability to dive out of trouble (it was originally designed as a
dive bomber). The German bombers required constant protection by the
Luftwaffe's insufficiently numerous fighter force. Bf 109Es were ordered to
support more than 300–400 bombers on any given day. Later in the conflict, when
night bombing became more frequent, all three were used. Due to its smaller
bomb load, the lighter Do 17 was used less than the He 111 and Ju 88 for this
purpose.
On the British side, three
bomber types were mostly used on night operations against targets such as
factories, invasion ports and railway centers; the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley,
the Handley-Page Hampden and the Vickers Wellington were classified as heavy
bombers by the RAF, although the Hampden was a medium bomber comparable to the
He 111. The twin-engined Bristol Blenheim and the obsolescent single-engined
Fairey Battle were both light bombers; the Blenheim was the most numerous of
the aircraft equipping RAF Bomber Command, and was used in attacks against
shipping, ports, airfields and factories on the continent by day and by night.
The Fairey Battle squadrons, which had suffered heavy losses in daylight
attacks during the Battle of France, were brought up to strength with reserve
aircraft and continued to operate at night in attacks against the invasion
ports, until the Battle was withdrawn from UK front-line service in October
1940.
Pilots
Before the war, the RAF's
processes for selecting potential candidates were opened to men of all social
classes through the creation in 1936 of the RAF Volunteer Reserve, which
"... was designed to appeal, to ... young men ... without any class
distinctions ..." The older squadrons of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force did
retain some of their upper-class exclusiveness, but their numbers were soon
swamped by the newcomers of the RAFVR; by 1 September 1939, 6,646 pilots had
been trained through the RAFVR.
By mid-1940, there were
about 9,000 pilots in the RAF to man about 5,000 aircraft, most of which were
bombers. Fighter Command was never short of pilots, but the problem of finding
sufficient numbers of fully trained fighter pilots became acute by mid-August
1940. With aircraft production running at 300 planes each week, only 200 pilots
were trained in the same period. In addition, more pilots were allocated to
squadrons than there were aircraft, as this allowed squadrons to maintain
operational strength despite casualties and still provide for pilot leave.
Another factor was that only about 30% of the 9,000 pilots were assigned to
operational squadrons; 20% of the pilots were involved in conducting pilot
training, and a further 20% were undergoing further instruction, like those
offered in Canada and in Southern Rhodesia to the Commonwealth trainees,
although already qualified. The rest were assigned to staff positions, since
RAF policy dictated that only pilots could make many staff and operational
command decisions, even in engineering matters. At the height of the fighting,
and despite Churchill's insistence, only 30 pilots were released to the front
line from administrative duties.
For these reasons, and the
permanent loss of 435 pilots during the Battle of France alone along with many
more wounded, and others lost in Norway, the RAF had fewer experienced pilots
at the start of the Battle of Britain than the Luftwaffe. It was the lack of
trained pilots in the fighting squadrons, rather than the lack of aircraft,
that became the greatest concern for Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding, commander
of Fighter Command. Drawing from regular RAF forces, the Auxiliary Air Force
and the Volunteer Reserve, the British were able to muster some 1,103 fighter
pilots on 1 July. Replacement pilots, with little flight training and often no
gunnery training, suffered high casualty rates, exacerbating the problem.
The Luftwaffe, on the other
hand, were able to muster a large number (1,450) of experienced fighter pilots.
Drawing from a cadre of Spanish Civil War veterans, these pilots already had
comprehensive courses in aerial gunnery and instructions in tactics suited for
fighter-versus-fighter combat. Training manuals discouraged heroism, stressing
the importance of attacking only when the odds were in the pilot's favor.
Despite the high levels of experience, German fighter formations did not
provide a sufficient reserve of pilots to allow for losses and leave, and the
Luftwaffe was unable to produce enough pilots to prevent a decline in
operational strength as the battle progressed.
International Participation
Allies
About 20% of pilots who
took part in the battle were from non-British countries. The Royal Air Force
roll of honor for the Battle of Britain recognizes 595 non-British pilots (out
of 2,936) as flying at least one authorized operational sortie with an eligible
unit of the RAF or Fleet Air Arm between 10 July and 31 October 1940. These
included 145 Poles, 127 New Zealanders, 112 Canadians, 88 Czechoslovaks, 10
Irish, 32 Australians, 28 Belgians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 9 Americans,
3 Southern Rhodesians and individuals from Jamaica, Barbados and Newfoundland.
"Altogether in the fighter battles, the bombing raids, and the various
patrols flown between 10 July and 31 October 1940 by the Royal Air Force, 1495
aircrew were killed, of whom 449 were fighter pilots, 718 aircrew from Bomber
Command, and 280 from Coastal Command. Among those killed were 47 airmen from
Canada, 24 from Australia, 17 from South Africa, 30 from Poland,
20 from Czechoslovakia and six from Belgium. Forty-seven New Zealanders lost
their lives, including 15 fighter pilots, 24 bomber and eight coastal aircrew.
The names of these Allied and Commonwealth airmen are inscribed in a memorial
book that rests in the Battle of Britain Chapel in Westminster Abbey. In the
chapel is a stained glass window which contains the badges of the fighter
squadrons which operated during the battle and the flags of the nations to
which the pilots and aircrew belonged. These pilots, some of whom had to flee
their home countries because of German invasions, fought with distinction.
The No. 303 Polish Fighter
Squadron was the highest-scoring fighter squadron of the Battle of Britain,
even though it joined the fray two months after the battle had begun. "Had
it not been for the magnificent material contributed by the Polish squadrons
and their unsurpassed gallantry," wrote Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding,
head of RAF Fighter Command, "I hesitate to say that the outcome of the
Battle would have been the same."
Axis
At the urging of Italian
dictator Benito Mussolini, an element of the Italian Royal Air Force (Regia
Aeronautica) called the Italian Air Corps (Corpo Aereo Italiano or CAI) took
part in the later stages of the Battle of Britain. It first saw action on 24
October 1940 when a force of Fiat BR.20 medium bombers attacked the port at
Harwich. The CAI achieved limited success during this and subsequent raids. The
unit was redeployed in January 1941, having claimed to have shot down at least
nine British aircraft. This was inaccurate and their actual successes were much
lower.
Luftwaffe Strategy
The indecision of OKL over
what to do was reflected in shifts in Luftwaffe strategy. The doctrine of
concentrated close air support of the army at the battlefront succeeded against
Poland, Denmark and Norway, the Low Countries and France but incurred
significant losses. The Luftwaffe had to build or repair bases in the conquered
territories, and rebuild their strength. In June 1940 they began regular armed
reconnaissance flights and sporadic Störangriffe, nuisance raids of one or a
few bombers by day and night. These gave crews practice in navigation and
avoiding air defenses and set off air raid alarms which disturbed civilian
morale. Similar nuisance raids continued throughout the battle, into late 1940.
Scattered naval mine-laying sorties began at the outset and increased gradually
over the battle period.
Göring's operational
directive of 30 June ordered the destruction of the RAF, including the aircraft
industry, to end RAF bombing raids on Germany and facilitating attacks on ports
and storage in the Luftwaffe blockade of Britain. Attacks on Channel shipping
in the Kanalkampf began on 4 July, and were formalized on 11 July in an order
by Hans Jeschonnek which added the arms industry as a target. On 16 July,
Directive No. 16 ordered preparations for Operation Sea Lion and on the next
day the Luftwaffe was ordered to stand by in full readiness. Göring met his air
fleet commanders and on 24 July issued orders for gaining air supremacy,
protecting the army and navy if the invasion went ahead and attacking Royal
Navy ships and continuing the blockade. Once the RAF had been defeated,
Luftwaffe bombers were to move forward beyond London without the need for
fighter escort, destroying military and economic targets.
At a meeting on 1 August
the command reviewed plans produced by each Fliegerkorps with differing
proposals for targets including whether to bomb airfields but failed to decide
a priority. Intelligence reports gave Göring the impression that the RAF was
almost defeated, so that raids would attract British fighters for the Luftwaffe
to shoot down. On 6 August he finalized plans for Adlertag (Eagle Day) with
Kesselring, Sperrle and Stumpff; the destruction of RAF Fighter Command in the
south of England was to take four days, with lightly escorted small bomber
raids leaving the main fighter force free to attack RAF fighters. Bombing of
military and economic targets was then to systematically extend up to the
Midlands until daylight attacks could proceed unhindered over the whole of
Britain.
Bombing of London was to be
held back while these night time "destroyer" attacks proceeded over
other urban areas, then, in the culmination of the campaign, a major attack on
the capital was intended to cause a crisis, with refugees fleeing London just
as Operation Sea Lion was to begin. With hopes fading for the possibility of
invasion, on 4 September Hitler authorized a main focus on day and night
attacks on tactical targets, with London as the main target, which became known
as the Blitz. With increasing difficulty in defending bombers in day raids, the
Luftwaffe shifted to a strategic bombing campaign of night raids aiming to
overcome British resistance by damaging infrastructure and food stocks, though
intentional terror bombing of civilians was not sanctioned.
Regrouping of Luftwaffe in Luftflotten
The Luftwaffe regrouped
after the Battle of France into three Luftflotten (Air Fleets) opposite
Britain's southern and eastern coasts. Luftflotte 2 (Generalfeldmarschall
Albert Kesselring), was responsible for the bombing of south-east England and
the London area. Luftflotte 3 (Generalfeldmarschall Hugo Sperrle) concentrated
on the West Country, Wales, the Midlands and north-west England. Luftflotte 5
(Generaloberst Hans-Jürgen Stumpff) from his headquarters in Norway, attacked
the north of England and Scotland. As the battle progressed, command
responsibility shifted, with Luftflotte 3 taking more responsibility for the
night bombing and the main daylight operations fell upon Luftflotte 2.
Initial Luftwaffe estimates
were that it would take four days to defeat RAF Fighter Command in southern
England. This would be followed by a four-week offensive during which the
bombers and long-range fighters would destroy all military installations throughout
the country and wreck the British aircraft industry. The campaign was planned
to begin with attacks on airfields near the coast, gradually moving inland to
attack the ring of sector airfields defending London. Later reassessments gave
the Luftwaffe five weeks, from 8 August to 15 September, to establish temporary
air superiority over England. Fighter Command had to be destroyed, either on
the ground or in the air, yet the Luftwaffe had to preserve its strength to be
able to support the invasion; the Luftwaffe had to maintain a high "kill
ratio" over the RAF fighters. The only alternative to the goal of air
superiority was a terror bombing campaign aimed at the civilian population but
this was considered a last resort and it was forbidden by Hitler. The Luftwaffe
kept broadly to this scheme but its commanders had differences of opinion on
strategy. Sperrle wanted to eradicate the air defense infrastructure by bombing
it. Kesselring championed attacking London directly, either to bombard the
British government into submission or to draw RAF fighters into a decisive
battle. Göring did nothing to resolve this disagreement between his commanders
and gave only vague directives during the initial stages of the battle,
apparently unable to decide upon which strategy to pursue.
Tactics
Fighter Formations
Luftwaffe formations
employed a loose section of two (called Rotte [pack]), based on a leader
(Rottenführer) followed at a distance of about 200 m (220 yd) by his wingman,
Rottenhund pack dog or Katschmarek, the turning radius of a Bf 109, enabling
both aircraft to turn together at high speed. The Katschmarek flew slightly
higher and was trained always to stay with his leader. With more room between
them, both could spend less time maintaining formation and more time looking
around and covering each other's blind spots. Attacking aircraft could be
sandwiched between the two 109s. The formation was developed from principles
formulated by the First World War ace Oswald Boelcke in 1916. In 1934 the
Finnish Air Force adopted similar formations, called partio (patrol; two
aircraft) and parvi (two patrols; four aircraft), for similar reasons, though
Luftwaffe pilots during the Spanish Civil War (led by Günther Lützow and Werner
Mölders, among others) are generally given credit. The Rotte allowed the
Rottenführer to concentrate on shooting down aircraft but few wingmen had the
chance, leading to some resentment in the lower ranks where it was felt that
the high scores came at their expense. Two Rotten combined as a Schwarm, where
all the pilots could watch what was happening around them. Each Schwarm in a
Staffel flew at staggered heights and with about 200 m (220 yd) between them,
making the formation difficult to spot at longer ranges and allowing for a
great deal of flexibility. By using a tight "cross-over" turn, a
Schwarm could quickly change direction.
The Bf 110s adopted the
same Schwarm formation as the 109s but were seldom able to use this to the same
advantage. The Bf 110's most successful method of attack was the
"bounce" from above. When attacked, Zerstörergruppen increasingly
resorted to forming large defensive circles, where each Bf 110 guarded the tail
of the aircraft ahead of it. Göring ordered that they be renamed
"offensive circles" in a vain bid to improve rapidly declining
morale. These conspicuous formations were often successful in attracting RAF
fighters that were sometimes "bounced" by high-flying Bf 109s. This
led to the often repeated misconception that the Bf 110s were escorted by Bf
109s.
Higher-level Dispositions
Luftwaffe tactics were
influenced by their fighters. The Bf 110 proved too vulnerable against the
nimble single-engined RAF fighters and the bulk of fighter escort duties devolved
to the Bf 109. Fighter tactics were then complicated by bomber crews who demanded
closer protection. After the hard-fought battles of 15 and 18 August, Göring
met his unit leaders. The need for the fighters to meet up on time with the
bombers was stressed. It was also decided that one bomber Gruppe could only be
properly protected by several Gruppen of 109s. Göring stipulated that as many
fighters as possible were to be left free for Freie Jagd ("Free
Hunts": a free-roving fighter sweep preceded a raid to try to sweep
defenders out of the raid's path). The Ju 87 units, which had suffered heavy
casualties, were only to be used under favorable circumstances. In early
September, due to increasing complaints from the bomber crews about RAF
fighters seemingly able to get through the escort screen, Göring ordered an increase
in close escort duties. This decision shackled many of the Bf 109s to the
bombers and, although they were more successful at protecting the bombers,
casualties amongst the fighters mounted, primarily because they were forced to
fly and maneuver at reduced speeds.
The Luftwaffe varied its
tactics to break Fighter Command. It launched many Freie Jagd to draw up RAF
fighters. RAF fighter controllers were often able to detect these and position
squadrons to avoid them, keeping to Dowding's plan to preserve fighter strength
for the bomber formations. The Luftwaffe also tried using small formations of
bombers as bait, covering them with large numbers of escorts. This was more
successful, but escort duty kept the fighters tied to the slower bombers making
them more vulnerable.
By September, standard
tactics for raids had become an amalgam of techniques. A Freie Jagd would
precede the main attack formations. The bombers would fly in at altitudes between
5,000 and 6,000 m (16,000 and 20,000 ft), closely escorted by fighters. Escorts
were divided into two parts (usually Gruppen), some operating close to the
bombers and others a few hundred yards away and a little above. If the
formation was attacked from the starboard, the starboard section engaged the
attackers, the top section moving to starboard and the port section to the top
position. If the attack came from the port side the system was reversed.
British fighters coming from the rear were engaged by the rear section and the
two outside sections similarly moving to the rear. If the threat came from
above, the top section went into action while the side sections gained height
to be able to follow RAF fighters down as they broke away. If attacked, all
sections flew in defensive circles. These tactics were skillfully evolved and
carried out and were difficult to counter.
Adolf Galland noted:
We
had the impression that, whatever we did, we were bound to be wrong. Fighter protection
for bombers created many problems which had to be solved in action. Bomber
pilots preferred close screening in which their formation was surrounded by
pairs of fighters pursuing a zigzag course. Obviously, the visible presence of
the protective fighters gave the bomber pilots a greater sense of security.
However, this was a faulty conclusion, because a fighter can only carry out
this purely defensive task by taking the initiative in the offensive. He must
never wait until attacked because he then loses the chance of acting. We
fighter pilots certainly preferred the free chase during the approach and over
the target area. This gives the greatest relief and the best protection for the
bomber force.
The biggest disadvantage
faced by Bf 109 pilots was that without the benefit of long-range drop tanks
(which were introduced in limited numbers in the late stages of the battle), usually
of 300 L (66 imp gal; 79 US gal) capacity, the 109s had an endurance of just
over an hour and, for the 109E, a 600 km (370 mi) range. Once over Britain, a
109 pilot had to keep an eye on a red "low fuel" light on the instrument
panel: once this was illuminated, he was forced to turn back and head for
France. With the prospect of two long flights over water and knowing their
range was substantially reduced when escorting bombers or during combat, the
Jagdflieger coined the term Kanalkrankheit or "Channel sickness".
Intelligence
The Luftwaffe was
ill-served by its lack of military intelligence about the British defenses. The
German intelligence services were fractured and plagued by rivalry; their
performance was "amateurish". By 1940, there were few German agents
operating in Great Britain and a handful of attempts to insert spies into the
country were foiled.
As a result of intercepted
radio transmissions, the Germans began to realize that the RAF fighters were
being controlled from ground facilities; in July and August 1939, for example,
the airship Graf Zeppelin, which was packed with equipment for listening in on
RAF radio and RDF transmissions, flew around the coasts of Britain. Although
the Luftwaffe correctly interpreted these new ground control procedures, they
were incorrectly assessed as being rigid and ineffectual. A British radar
system was well known to the Luftwaffe from intelligence gathered before the
war, but the highly developed "Dowding system" linked with fighter
control had been a well-kept secret. Even when good information existed, such
as a November 1939 Abwehr assessment of Fighter Command strengths and
capabilities by Abteilung V, it was ignored if it did not match conventional
preconceptions.
On 16 July 1940, Abteilung
V, commanded by Oberstleutnant "Beppo" Schmid, produced a report on
the RAF and on Britain's defensive capabilities which was adopted by the
frontline commanders as a basis for their operational plans. One of the most
conspicuous failures of the report was the lack of information on the RAF's RDF
network and control systems capabilities; it was assumed that the system was
rigid and inflexible, with the RAF fighters being "tied" to their
home bases. An optimistic (and, as it turned out, erroneous) conclusion reached
was:
D.
Supply Situation... At present the British aircraft industry produces about 180
to 300 first line fighters and 140 first line bombers a month. In view of the
present conditions relating to production (the appearance of raw material
difficulties, the disruption or breakdown of production at factories owing to
air attacks, the increased vulnerability to air attack owing to the fundamental
reorganisation of the aircraft industry now in progress), it is believed that
for the time being output will decrease rather than increase. In the event of
an intensification of air warfare it is expected that the present strength of
the RAF will fall, and this decline will be aggravated by the continued
decrease in production. — Abteilung V Intelligence
Appreciation of the RAF ("Appendix 4").
Because of this statement,
reinforced by another more detailed report, issued on 10 August, there was a
mindset in the ranks of the Luftwaffe that the RAF would run out of frontline
fighters. The Luftwaffe believed it was weakening Fighter Command at three
times the actual attrition rate. Many times, the leadership believed Fighter
Command's strength had collapsed, only to discover that the RAF were able to
send up defensive formations at will.
Throughout the battle, the
Luftwaffe had to use numerous reconnaissance sorties to make up for poor
intelligence. Reconnaissance aircraft (initially mostly Dornier Do 17s, but increasingly
Bf 110s) proved easy prey for British fighters, as it was seldom possible for
them to be escorted by Bf 109s. Thus, the Luftwaffe operated "blind"
for much of the battle, unsure of its enemy's true strengths, capabilities, and
deployments. Many of the Fighter Command airfields were never attacked, while
raids against supposed fighter airfields fell instead on bomber or coastal
defense stations. The results of bombing and air fighting were consistently
exaggerated, due to inaccurate claims, over-enthusiastic reports and the
difficulty of confirmation over enemy territory. In the euphoric atmosphere of
perceived victory, the Luftwaffe leadership became increasingly disconnected
from reality. This lack of leadership and solid intelligence meant the Germans
did not adopt a consistent strategy, even when the RAF had its back to the wall.
Moreover, there was never a systematic focus on one type of target (such as
airbases, radar stations, or aircraft factories); consequently, the already
haphazard effort was further diluted.
Navigational Aids
While the British were
using radar for air defense more effectively than the Germans realized, the
Luftwaffe attempted to press its own offensive with advanced radio navigation
systems of which the British were initially not aware. One of these was
Knickebein ("bent leg"); this system was used at night and for raids
where precision was required. It was rarely used during the Battle of Britain.
Air-Sea Rescue
The Luftwaffe was much
better prepared for the task of air-sea rescue than the RAF, specifically
tasking the Seenotdienst unit, equipped with about 30 Heinkel He 59
floatplanes, with picking up downed aircrew from the North Sea, English Channel
and the Dover Straits. In addition, Luftwaffe aircraft were equipped with life
rafts and the aircrew were provided with sachets of a chemical called fluorescein
which, on reacting with water, created a large, easy-to-see, bright green
patch. In accordance with the Geneva Convention, the He 59s were unarmed and
painted white with civilian registration markings and red crosses. Nevertheless,
RAF aircraft attacked these aircraft, as some were escorted by Bf 109s.
After single He 59s were
forced to land on the sea by RAF fighters on 1 and 9 July, a controversial
order was issued to the RAF on 13 July; this stated that from 20 July,
Seenotdienst aircraft were to be shot down. One of the reasons given by
Churchill was:
We
did not recognise this means of rescuing enemy pilots so they could come and
bomb our civil population again ... all German air ambulances were forced down
or shot down by our fighters on definite orders approved by the War Cabinet.
The British also believed
that their crews would report on convoys, the Air Ministry issuing a communiqué
to the German government on 14 July that Britain was
unable,
however, to grant immunity to such aircraft flying over areas in which operations
are in progress on land or at sea, or approaching British or Allied territory,
or territory in British occupation, or British or Allied ships. Ambulance
aircraft which do not comply with the above will do so at their own risk and
peril.
The white He 59s were soon
repainted in camouflage colors and armed with defensive machine guns. Although
another four He 59s were shot down by RAF aircraft, the Seenotdienst continued
to pick up downed Luftwaffe and Allied aircrew throughout the battle, earning
praise from Adolf Galland for their bravery.
RAF Strategy
The Dowding System
During early tests of the
Chain Home system, the slow flow of information from the CH radars and
observers to the aircraft often caused them to miss their "bandits".
The solution, today known as the "Dowding system", was to create a
set of reporting chains to move information from the various observation points
to the pilots in their fighters. It was named after its chief architect,
"Stuffy" Dowding.
Reports from CH radars and
the Observer Corps were sent directly to Fighter Command Headquarters (FCHQ) at
Bentley Priory where they were "filtered" to combine multiple reports
of the same formations into single tracks. Telephone operators would then
forward only the information of interest to the Group headquarters, where the
map would be re-created. This process was repeated to produce another version
of the map at the Sector level, covering a much smaller area. Looking over
their maps, Group level commanders could select squadrons to attack particular
targets. From that point, the Sector operators would give commands to the
fighters to arrange an interception, as well as return them to base. Sector
stations also controlled the anti-aircraft batteries in their area; an army
officer sat beside each fighter controller and directed the gun crews when to
open and cease fire.
The Dowding system
dramatically improved the speed and accuracy of the information that flowed to
the pilots. During the early war period, it was expected that an average
interception mission might have a 30% chance of ever seeing their target.
During the battle, the Dowding system maintained an average rate over 75%, with
several examples of 100% rates – every fighter dispatched found and intercepted
its target. In contrast, Luftwaffe fighters attempting to intercept raids had
to randomly seek their targets and often returned home having never seen enemy
aircraft. The result is what is now known as an example of "force
multiplication"; RAF fighters were as effective as two or more Luftwaffe
fighters, greatly offsetting, or overturning, the disparity in actual numbers.
Intelligence
While Luftwaffe
intelligence reports underestimated British fighter forces and aircraft production,
the British intelligence estimates went the other way: they overestimated
German aircraft production, numbers and range of aircraft available, and
numbers of Luftwaffe pilots. In action, the Luftwaffe believed from their pilot
claims and the impression given by aerial reconnaissance that the RAF was close
to defeat, and the British made strenuous efforts to overcome the perceived
advantages held by their opponents.
It is unclear how much the
British intercepts of the Enigma cipher, used for high-security German radio
communications, affected the battle. Ultra, the information obtained from
Enigma intercepts, gave the highest echelons of the British command a view of
German intentions. According to F.W. Winterbotham, who was the senior Air Staff
representative in the Secret Intelligence Service, Ultra helped establish the
strength and composition of the Luftwaffe's formations, the aims of the
commanders and provided early warning of some raids. In early August it was
decided that a small unit would be set up at FCHQ, which would process the flow
of information from Bletchley and provide Dowding only with the most essential
Ultra material; thus the Air Ministry did not have to send a continual flow of
information to FCHQ, preserving secrecy, and Dowding was not inundated with
non-essential information. Keith Park and his controllers were also told about
Ultra. In a further attempt to camouflage the existence of Ultra, Dowding
created a unit named No. 421 (Reconnaissance) Flight RAF. This unit (which
later became No. 91 Squadron RAF), was equipped with Hurricanes and Spitfires
and sent out aircraft to search for and report Luftwaffe formations approaching
England. In addition, the radio listening service (known as Y Service), monitoring
the patterns of Luftwaffe radio traffic contributed considerably to the early
warning of raids.
Tactics
Fighter Formations
In the late 1930s, Fighter
Command expected to face only bombers over Britain, not single-engined
fighters. A series of "Fighting Area Tactics" were formulated and
rigidly adhered to, involving a series of maneuvers designed to concentrate a
squadron's firepower to bring down bombers. RAF fighters flew in tight,
v-shaped sections ("vics") of three aircraft, with four such
"sections" in tight formation. Only the squadron leader at the front
was free to watch for the enemy; the other pilots had to concentrate on keeping
station. Training also emphasized by-the-book attacks by sections breaking away
in sequence. Fighter Command recognized the weaknesses of this structure early
in the battle, but it was felt too risky to change tactics during the battle
because replacement pilots – often with only minimal flying time – could not be
readily retrained, and inexperienced pilots needed firm leadership in the air
only rigid formations could provide. German pilots dubbed the RAF formations
Idiotenreihen ("rows of idiots") because they left squadrons
vulnerable to attack.
Front line RAF pilots were
acutely aware of the inherent deficiencies of their own tactics. A compromise
was adopted whereby squadron formations used much looser formations with one or
two "weavers" flying independently above and behind to provide
increased observation and rear protection; these tended to be the least
experienced men and were often the first to be shot down without the other
pilots even noticing that they were under attack. During the battle, 74
Squadron under Squadron Leader Adolph "Sailor" Malan adopted a variation
of the German formation called the "fours in line astern", which was
a vast improvement on the old three aircraft "vic". Malan's formation
was later generally used by Fighter Command.
Squadron- and Higher-level Deployment
The weight of the battle
fell upon 11 Group. Keith Park's tactics were to dispatch individual squadrons
to intercept raids. The intention was to subject incoming bombers to continual
attacks by relatively small numbers of fighters and try to break up the tight
German formations. Once formations had fallen apart, stragglers could be picked
off one by one. Where multiple squadrons reached a raid the procedure was for
the slower Hurricanes to tackle the bombers while the more agile Spitfires held
up the fighter escort. This ideal was not always achieved, resulting in
occasions when Spitfires and Hurricanes reversed roles. Park also issued instructions
to his units to engage in frontal attacks against the bombers, which were more
vulnerable to such attacks. Again, in the environment of fast-moving,
three-dimensional air battles, few RAF fighter units were able to attack the
bombers from head-on.
During the battle, some
commanders, notably Leigh-Mallory, proposed squadrons be formed into "Big
Wings," consisting of at least three squadrons, to attack the enemy en
masse, a method pioneered by Douglas Bader.
Proponents of this tactic
claimed interceptions in large numbers caused greater enemy losses while
reducing their own casualties. Opponents pointed out the big wings would take
too long to form up, and the strategy ran a greater risk of fighters being
caught on the ground refueling. The big wing idea also caused pilots to over
claim their kills, due to the confusion of a more intense battle zone. This led
to the belief big wings were far more effective than they actually were.
The issue caused intense
friction between Park and Leigh-Mallory, as 12 Group was tasked with protecting
11 Group's airfields whilst Park's squadrons intercepted incoming raids. The
delay in forming up Big Wings meant the formations often did not arrive at all
or until after German bombers had hit 11 Group's airfields. Dowding, to
highlight the problem of the Big Wing's performance, submitted a report
compiled by Park to the Air Ministry on 15 November. In the report, he
highlighted that during the period of 11 September – 31 October, the extensive
use of the Big Wing had resulted in just 10 interceptions and one German
aircraft destroyed, but his report was ignored. Post-war analysis agrees
Dowding and Park's approach was best for 11 Group.
Dowding's removal from his
post in November 1940 has been blamed on this struggle between Park and
Leigh-Mallory's daylight strategy. The intensive raids and destruction wrought
during the Blitz damaged both Dowding and Park in particular, for the failure
to produce an effective night-fighter defense system, something for which the
influential Leigh-Mallory had long criticized them.
Bomber and Coastal Command Contributions
Bomber Command and Coastal
Command aircraft flew offensive sorties against targets in Germany and France
during the battle. An hour after the declaration of war, Bomber Command
launched raids on warships and naval ports by day, and in night raids dropped
leaflets as it was considered illegal to bomb targets which could affect
civilians. After the initial disasters of the war, with Vickers Wellington
bombers shot down in large numbers attacking Wilhelmshaven and the slaughter of
the Fairey Battle squadrons sent to France, it became clear that they would
have to operate mainly at night to avoid incurring very high losses. Churchill
came to power on 10 May 1940, and the War Cabinet on 12 May agreed that German
actions justified "unrestricted warfare", and on 14 May they
authorized an attack on the night of 14/15 May against oil and rail targets in
Germany. At the urging of Clement Attlee, the Cabinet on 15 May authorized a
full bombing strategy against "suitable military objectives", even
where there could be civilian casualties. That evening, a night time bomber
campaign began against the German oil industry, communications, and forests/crops,
mainly in the Ruhr area. The RAF lacked accurate night navigation and carried
small bomb loads. As the threat mounted, Bomber Command changed targeting
priority on 3 June 1940 to attack the German aircraft industry. On 4 July, the
Air Ministry gave Bomber Command orders to attack ports and shipping. By
September, the build-up of invasion barges in the Channel ports had become a
top priority target.
On 7 September, the
government issued a warning that the invasion could be expected within the next
few days and, that night, Bomber Command attacked the Channel ports and supply
dumps. On 13 September, they carried out another large raid on the Channel
ports, sinking 80 large barges in the port of Ostend. 84 barges were sunk in
Dunkirk after another raid on 17 September and by 19 September, almost 200
barges had been sunk. The loss of these barges may have contributed to Hitler's
decision to postpone Operation Sea Lion indefinitely. The success of these
raids was in part because the Germans had few Freya radar stations set up in
France, so that air defenses of the French harbors were not nearly as good as
the air defenses over Germany; Bomber Command had directed some 60% of its
strength against the Channel ports.
The Bristol Blenheim units
also raided German-occupied airfields throughout July to December 1940, both
during daylight hours and at night. Although most of these raids were
unproductive, there were some successes; on 1 August, five out of twelve
Blenheims sent to attack Haamstede and Evere (Brussels) were able to destroy or
heavily damage three Bf 109s of II./JG 27 and apparently kill a Staffelkapitän
identified as a Hauptmann Albrecht von Ankum-Frank.
Two other 109s were claimed by Blenheim gunners.
Another successful raid on Haamstede was made by a single Blenheim on 7 August
which destroyed one 109 of 4./JG 54, heavily damaged another and caused lighter
damage to four more.
There were some missions
that produced an almost 100% casualty rate amongst the Blenheims; one such
operation was mounted on 13 August 1940 against a Luftwaffe airfield near
Aalborg in north-eastern Denmark by 12 aircraft of 82 Squadron. One Blenheim
returned early (the pilot was later charged and due to appear before a court
martial, but was killed on another operation); the other eleven, which reached
Denmark, were shot down, five by flak and six by Bf 109s. Of the 33 crewmen who
took part in the attack, 20 were killed and 13 captured.
As well as the bombing
operations, Blenheim-equipped units had been formed to carry out long-range
strategic reconnaissance missions over Germany and German-occupied territories.
In this role, the Blenheims again proved to be too slow and vulnerable against
Luftwaffe fighters, and they took constant casualties.
Coastal Command directed
its attention towards the protection of British shipping, and the destruction
of enemy shipping. As invasion became more likely, it participated in the
strikes on French harbors and airfields, laying mines, and mounting numerous
reconnaissance missions over the enemy-held coast. In all, some 9,180 sorties were
flown by bombers from July to October 1940. Although this was much less than
the 80,000 sorties flown by fighters, bomber crews suffered about half the
total casualties borne by their fighter colleagues. The bomber contribution
was, therefore, much more dangerous on a loss-per-sortie comparison.
Bomber, reconnaissance, and
antisubmarine patrol operations continued throughout these months with little
respite and none of the publicity accorded to Fighter Command. In his famous 20
August speech about "The Few", praising Fighter Command, Churchill
also made a point of mentioning Bomber Command's contribution, adding that
bombers were even then striking back at Germany; this part of the speech is
often overlooked, even today. The Battle of Britain Chapel in Westminster Abbey
lists in a roll of honor, 718 Bomber Command crew members, and 280 from Coastal
Command who were killed between 10 July and 31 October.
Bomber and Coastal Command
attacks against invasion barge concentrations in Channel ports were widely reported
by the British media during September and October 1940. In what became known as
'the Battle of the Barges' RAF attacks were claimed in British propaganda to
have sunk large numbers of barges, and to have created widespread chaos and
disruption to German invasion preparations. Given the volume of British
propaganda interest in these bomber attacks during September and earlier
October, it is striking how quickly this was overlooked once the Battle of
Britain had been concluded. Even by mid-war, the bomber pilots' efforts had
been largely eclipsed by a continuing focus on the Few, this a result of the
Air Ministry's continuing valorization of the ″fighter boys″, beginning with
the March 1941 Battle of Britain propaganda pamphlet.
Air-Sea Rescue
One of the biggest
oversights of the entire system was the lack of adequate air-sea rescue
organization. The RAF had started organizing a system in 1940 with High Speed
Launches (HSLs) based on flying boat bases and at some overseas locations, but
it was still believed that the amount of cross-Channel traffic meant that there
was no need for a rescue service to cover these areas. Downed pilots and
aircrew, it was hoped, would be picked up by any boats or ships which happened
to be passing by. Otherwise, the local life boat would be alerted, assuming
someone had seen the pilot going into the water.
RAF aircrew were issued
with a life jacket, nicknamed the "Mae West," but in 1940 it still
required manual inflation, which was almost impossible for someone who was
injured or in shock. The waters of the English Channel and Dover Straits are
cold, even in the middle of summer, and clothing issued to RAF aircrew did
little to insulate them against these freezing conditions. The RAF also
imitated the German practice of issuing fluorescein. A conference in 1939 had
placed air-sea rescue under Coastal Command. Because pilots had been lost at
sea during the "Channel Battle", on 22 August, control of RAF rescue
launches was passed to the local naval authorities and 12 Lysanders were given
to Fighter Command to help look for pilots at sea. In all, some 200 pilots and
aircrew were lost at sea during the battle. No proper air-sea rescue service
was formed until 1941.
Phases of the Battle
The battle covered a
shifting geographical area, and there have been differing opinions on
significant dates: when the Air Ministry proposed 8 August as the start,
Dowding responded that operations "merged into one another almost
insensibly", and proposed 10 July as the onset of increased attacks. With
the caution that phases drifted into each other and dates are not firm, the
Royal Air Force Museum states that five main phases can be identified:
26 June – 16 July:
Störangriffe ("nuisance raids"), scattered small scale probing
attacks both day and night, armed reconnaissance and mine-laying sorties. From
4 July, daylight Kanalkampf ("the Channel battles") against shipping.
17 July – 12 August: daylight
Kanalkampf attacks on shipping intensify through this period, increased attacks
on ports and coastal airfields, night raids on RAF and aircraft manufacturing.
13 August – 6 September:
Adlerangriff ("Eagle Attack"), the main assault; attempt to destroy
the RAF in southern England, including massive daylight attacks on RAF airfields,
followed from 19 August by heavy night bombing of ports and industrial cities,
including suburbs of London.
7 September – 2 October:
the Blitz commences, main focus day and night attacks on London.
3–31 October:
large scale night bombing raids, mostly on London; daylight attacks now
confined to small scale fighter-bomber Störangriffe raids luring RAF fighters
into dogfights.
Small Scale Raids
Following Germany's rapid
territorial gains in the Battle of France, the Luftwaffe had to reorganize its
forces, set up bases along the coast, and rebuild after heavy losses. It began
small scale bombing raids on Britain on the night of 5/6 June, and continued
sporadic attacks throughout June and July. The first large-scale attack was at
night, on 18/19 June, when small raids scattered between Yorkshire and Kent
involved in total 100 bombers. These Störangriffe ("nuisance raids")
which involved only a few aeroplanes, sometimes just one, were used to train
bomber crews in both day and night attacks, to test defenses and try out methods,
with most flights at night. They found that, rather than carrying small numbers
of large high explosive bombs, it was more effective to use more small bombs,
similarly incendiaries had to cover a large area to set effective fires. These
training flights continued through August and into the first week of September.
Against this, the raids also gave the British time to assess the German
tactics, and invaluable time for the RAF fighters and anti-aircraft defenses to
prepare and gain practice.
The attacks were widespread:
over the night of 30 June alarms were set off in 20 counties by just 20
bombers, then next day the first daylight raids were carried out during 1 July,
on both Hull in Yorkshire and Wick, Caithness. On 3 July most flights were
reconnaissance sorties, but 15 civilians were killed when bombs hit Guildford
in Surrey. Numerous small Störangriffe raids, both day and night, were made
daily through August, September and into the winter, with aims including
bringing RAF fighters up to battle, destruction of specific military and
economic targets, and setting off air-raid warnings to affect civilian morale:
four major air-raids in August involved hundreds of bombers; in the same month
1,062 small raids were made, spread across the whole of Britain.
Channel Battles
The Kanalkampf comprised a
series of running fights over convoys in the English Channel. It was launched
partly because Kesselring and Sperrle were not sure about what else to do, and
partly because it gave German aircrews some training and a chance to probe the
British defenses. Dowding could provide only minimal shipping protection, and
these battles off the coast tended to favor the Germans, whose bomber escorts
had the advantage of altitude and outnumbered the RAF fighters. From 9 July
reconnaissance probing by Dornier Do 17 bombers put a severe strain on RAF
pilots and machines, with high RAF losses to Bf 109s. When nine 141 Squadron
Defiants went into action on 19 July six were lost to Bf 109s before a squadron
of Hurricanes intervened. On 25 July a coal convoy and escorting destroyers
suffered such heavy losses to attacks by Stuka dive bombers that the Admiralty
decided convoys should travel at night: the RAF shot down 16 raiders but lost 7
aircraft. By 8 August 18 coal ships and 4 destroyers had been sunk, but the
Navy was determined to send a convoy of 20 ships through rather than move the
coal by railway. After repeated Stuka attacks that day, six ships were badly
damaged, four were sunk and only four reached their destination. The RAF lost
19 fighters and shot down 31 German aircraft. The Navy now cancelled all
further convoys through the Channel and the cargo was sent by rail. Even so,
these early combat encounters provided both sides with experience.
Main Assault
The main attack upon the
RAF's defenses was code-named Adlerangriff ("Eagle Attack"). Intelligence
reports gave Göring the impression that the RAF was almost defeated, and raids
would attract British fighters for the Luftwaffe to shoot down. The strategy
agreed on 6 August was to destroy RAF Fighter Command across the south of
England in four days, then bombing of military and economic targets was to
systematically extend up to the Midlands until daylight attacks could proceed
unhindered over the whole of Britain, culminating in a major bombing attack on
London.
Assault on RAF: Radar and Airfields
Poor weather delayed
Adlertag ("Eagle Day") until 13 August 1940. On 12 August, the first
attempt was made to blind the Dowding system, when aircraft from the specialist
fighter-bomber unit Erprobungsgruppe 210 attacked four radar stations. Three
were briefly taken off the air but were back working within six hours. The
raids appeared to show that British radars were difficult to knock out. The
failure to mount follow-up attacks allowed the RAF to get the stations back on
the air, and the Luftwaffe neglected strikes on the supporting infrastructure,
such as phone lines and power stations, which could have rendered the radars
useless, even if the lattice-work towers themselves, which were very difficult
to destroy, remained intact.
Adlertag opened with a
series of attacks, led again by Erpro 210, on coastal airfields used as forward
landing grounds for the RAF fighters, as well as 'satellite airfields'
including Manston and Hawkinge. As the week drew on, the airfield attacks moved
further inland, and repeated raids were made on the radar chain. 15 August was
"The Greatest Day" when the Luftwaffe mounted the largest number of
sorties of the campaign. Luftflotte 5 attacked the north of England. Raiding
forces from Denmark and Norway, which believed Fighter Command strength to be
concentrated in the south, ran into resistance which was unexpectedly strong.
Inadequately escorted by Bf 110s, Bf 109s having insufficient range to escort
raids from Norway, bombers were shot down in large numbers. North East England
was attacked by 65 Heinkel 111s escorted by 34 Messerschmitt 110s, and RAF
Great Driffield was attacked by 50 unescorted Junkers 88s. Out of 115 bombers
and 35 fighters sent, 75 planes were destroyed and many others were damaged
beyond repair. Furthermore, due to early engagement by RAF fighters, many of
the bombers dropped their payloads ineffectively early. As a result of these
casualties, Luftflotte 5 did not appear in strength again in the campaign.
18 August, which had the
greatest number of casualties to both sides, has been dubbed "The Hardest
Day". Following this grinding battle, exhaustion and the weather reduced operations
for most of a week, allowing the Luftwaffe to review their performance.
"The Hardest Day" had sounded the end for the Ju 87 in the campaign.
This veteran of Blitzkrieg was too vulnerable to fighters to operate over
Britain. Göring withdrew the Stuka from the fighting to preserve the Stuka
force, removing the main Luftwaffe precision-bombing weapon and shifting the
burden of pinpoint attacks onto the already-stretched Erpro 210. The Bf 110
proved too clumsy for dog-fighting with single-engined fighters, and its
participation was scaled back. It would be used only when range required it or
when sufficient single-engined escort could not be provided for the bombers.
Göring made yet another
important decision: to order more bomber escorts at the expense of free-hunting
sweeps. To achieve this, the weight of the attack now fell on Luftflotte 2, and
the bulk of the Bf 109s in Luftflotte 3 were transferred to Kesselring's
command, reinforcing the fighter bases in the Pas-de-Calais. Stripped of its
fighters, Luftflotte 3 would concentrate on the night bombing campaign. Göring,
expressing disappointment with the fighter performance thus far in the
campaign, also made sweeping changes in the command structure of the fighter
units, replacing many Geschwaderkommodore with younger, more aggressive pilots
such as Adolf Galland and Werner Mölders.
Finally, Göring stopped the
attacks on the radar chain. These were seen as unsuccessful, and neither the
Reichsmarschall nor his subordinates realized how vital the Chain Home stations
were to the defense systems. It was known that radar provided some early
warning of raids, but the belief among German fighter pilots was that anything
bringing up the "Tommies" to fight was to be encouraged.
Raids on British Cities
On the afternoon of 15
August, Hauptmann Walter Rubensdörffer leading Erprobungsgruppe 210 mistakenly
bombed Croydon airfield (on the outskirts of London) instead of the intended
target, RAF Kenley. German intelligence reports made the Luftwaffe optimistic
that the RAF, thought to be dependent on local air control, was struggling with
supply problems and pilot losses. After a raid on Biggin Hill on 18 August,
Luftwaffe aircrew said they had been unopposed, the airfield was
"completely destroyed", and asked, "Is England already
finished?" In accordance with the strategy agreed on 6 August, defeat of
the RAF was to be followed by bombing military and economic targets,
systematically extending up to the Midlands.
Göring ordered attacks on
aircraft factories on 19 August 1940. Sixty raids on the night of 19/20 August
targeted the aircraft industry and harbors, and bombs fell on suburban areas
around London: Croydon, Wimbledon and the Maldens. Night raids were made on
21/22 August on Aberdeen, Bristol and South Wales. That morning, bombs were
dropped on Harrow and Wealdstone, on the outskirts of London. Overnight on
22/23 August, the output of an aircraft factory at Filton near Bristol was
drastically affected by a raid in which Ju 88 bombers dropped over 16 long tons
(16 t) of high explosive bombs. On the night of 23/24 August over 200 bombers
attacked the Fort Dunlop tyre factory in Birmingham, with a significant effect
on production. A bombing campaign began on 24 August with the largest raid so
far, killing 100 in Portsmouth, and that night, several areas of London were
bombed; the East End was set ablaze and bombs landed on central London. Some
historians believe that these bombs were dropped accidentally by a group of
Heinkel He 111s which had failed to find their target and overshot Rochester
and Thameshaven; this account has been contested as being three separate drops
that night.
More night raids were made
around London on 24/25 August, when bombs fell on Croydon, Banstead, Lewisham,
Uxbridge, Harrow and Hayes. London was on red alert over the night of 28/29
August, with bombs reported in Finchley, St Pancras, Wembley, Wood Green,
Southgate, Old Kent Road, Mill Hill, Ilford, Chigwell and Hendon.
Attacks on Airfields from 24 August
Göring's directive issued
on 23 August 1940 ordered ceaseless attacks on the aircraft industry and on RAF
ground organization to force the RAF to use its fighters, continuing the tactic
of luring them up to be destroyed, and added that focused attacks were to be
made on RAF airfields.
From 24 August onwards, the
battle was a fight between Kesselring's Luftflotte 2 and Park's 11 Group. The
Luftwaffe concentrated all their strength on knocking out Fighter Command and
made repeated attacks on the airfields. Of the 33 heavy attacks in the following
two weeks, 24 were against airfields. The key sector stations were hit repeatedly:
Biggin Hill and Hornchurch four times each; Debden and North Weald twice each.
Croydon, Gravesend, Rochford, Hawkinge and Manston were also attacked in
strength. Coastal Command's Eastchurch was bombed at least seven times because
it was believed to be a Fighter Command aerodrome. At times these raids caused
some damage to the sector stations, threatening the integrity of the Dowding
system.
To offset some losses, some
58 Fleet Air Arm fighter pilot volunteers were seconded to RAF squadrons, and a
similar number of former Fairey Battle pilots were used. Most replacements from
Operational Training Units (OTUs) had as little as nine hours flying time and
no gunnery or air-to-air combat training. At this point, the multinational
nature of Fighter Command came to the fore. Many squadrons and personnel from
the air forces of the Dominions were already attached to the RAF, including
top-level commanders – Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders, Rhodesians and
South Africans. Other nationalities were also represented, including Free
French, Belgian and a Jewish pilot from the British mandate of Palestine.
They were bolstered by the
arrival of fresh Czechoslovak and Polish squadrons. These had been held back by
Dowding, who thought non-English speaking aircrew would have trouble working
within his control system, but Polish and Czech fliers proved to be especially
effective. The pre-war Polish Air Force had lengthy and extensive training, and
high standards; with Poland conquered and under brutal German occupation, the
pilots of No. 303 (Polish) Squadron, which became the highest-scoring Allied
unit, were experienced and strongly motivated. Josef František, a Czech regular
airman who had flown from the occupation of his own country to join the Polish
and then French air forces before arriving in Britain, flew as a guest of 303
Squadron and was ultimately credited with the highest "RAF score" in
the Battle of Britain.
The RAF had the advantage
of fighting over home territory. Pilots who bailed out after being shot down
could be back at their airfields within hours, and aircraft low on fuel or
ammunition could be immediately re-equipped. One RAF pilot interviewed in late
1940 had been shot down five times during the Battle of Britain, but was able
to crash-land in Britain or bail out each time. For Luftwaffe aircrews, a
bailout or crash landing in England meant capture – in the critical August
period, almost as many Luftwaffe pilots were taken prisoner as were killed –
while parachuting into the English Channel often meant drowning. Morale began
to suffer, and Kanalkrankheit ("Channel sickness") – a form of combat
fatigue – began to appear among the German pilots. Their replacement problem
became worse than the British.
Assessment of Attempt to Destroy the RAF
The effect of the German
attacks on airfields is unclear. According to Stephen Bungay, Dowding, in a
letter to Hugh Trenchard accompanying Park's report on the period 8 August – 10
September 1940, states that the Luftwaffe "achieved very little" in
the last week of August and the first week of September. The only Sector
Station to be shut down operationally was Biggin Hill, and it was
non-operational for just two hours. Dowding admitted that 11 Group's efficiency
was impaired but, despite serious damage to some airfields, only two out of 13
heavily attacked airfields were down for more than a few hours. The German
refocus on London was not critical.
Retired Air Vice-Marshal
Peter Dye, head of the RAF Museum, discussed the logistics of the battle in
2000 and 2010, dealing specifically with the single-seat fighters. He said that
not only was British aircraft production replacing aircraft, but replacement
pilots were keeping pace with losses. The number of pilots in RAF Fighter
Command increased during July, August and September. The figures indicate the
number of pilots available never decreased: from July, 1,200 were available;
from 1 August, 1,400; in September, over 1,400; in October, nearly 1,600; by 1
November, 1,800. Throughout the battle, the RAF had more fighter pilots
available than the Luftwaffe. Although the RAF's reserves of single-seat
fighters fell during July, the wastage was made up for by an efficient Civilian
Repair Organisation (CRO), which by December had repaired and put back into
service some 4,955 aircraft, and by aircraft held at Air Servicing Unit (ASU)
airfields.
Richard Overy agrees with
Dye and Bungay. Overy says that only one airfield was temporarily put out of
action and "only" 103 pilots were lost. British fighter production,
not counting repaired aircraft, produced 496 new aircraft in July, 467 in
August, and 467 in September, covering the losses of August and September.
Overy indicates the number of serviceable and total strength returns reveal an
increase in fighters from 3 August to 7 September, 1,061 on strength and 708
serviceable to 1,161 on strength and 746 serviceable. Moreover, Overy points
out that the number of RAF fighter pilots grew by one-third between June and
August 1940. Personnel records show a constant supply of around 1,400 pilots in
the crucial weeks of the battle. In the second half of September it reached
1,500. The shortfall of pilots was never above 10%. The Germans never had more
than between 1,100 and 1,200 pilots, a deficiency of up to one-third. "If
Fighter Command were 'the few', the German fighter pilots were fewer".
Other scholars assert that
this period was the most dangerous of all. In The Narrow Margin, published in
1961, historians Derek Wood and Derek Dempster believed that the two weeks from
24 August to 6 September represented a real danger. According to them, from 24
August to 6 September 295 fighters had been totally destroyed and 171 badly damaged,
against a total output of 269 new and repaired Spitfires and Hurricanes. They
say that 103 pilots were killed or missing and 128 were wounded, a total
wastage of 120 pilots per week out of a fighting strength of just under 1,000,
and that during August no more than 260 fighter pilots were turned out by OTUs,
while casualties were just over 300. A full squadron establishment was 26
pilots, whereas the average in August was 16. In their assessment, the RAF was
losing the battle. Denis Richards, in his 1953 contribution to the official
British account History of the Second World War, agreed that lack of pilots,
especially experienced ones, was the RAF's greatest problem. He states that
between 8 and 18 August 154 RAF pilots were killed, severely wounded, or
missing, while only 63 new pilots were trained. Availability of aircraft was
also a serious issue. While its reserves during the Battle of Britain never
declined to a half dozen planes as some later claimed, Richards describes 24
August to 6 September as the critical period because during these two weeks
Germany destroyed far more aircraft through its attacks on 11 Group's southeast
bases than Britain was producing. Three more weeks of such a pace would indeed
have exhausted aircraft reserves. Germany had also suffered heavy losses of
pilots and aircraft, hence its shift to night-time attacks in September. On 7
September RAF aircraft losses fell below British production and remained so
until the end of the war.
Day and Night Attacks on London: Start of the Blitz
Hitler's "Directive
No. 17 – For the conduct of air and sea warfare against England" issued on
1 August 1940, reserved to himself the right to decide on terror attacks as
measures of reprisal. Hitler issued a directive that London was not to be
bombed save on his sole instruction. In preparation, detailed target plans
under the code name Operation Loge for raids on communications, power stations,
armaments works and docks in the Port of London were distributed to the
Fliegerkorps in July. The port areas were crowded next to residential housing
and civilian casualties would be expected, but this would combine military and
economic targets with indirect effects on morale. The strategy agreed on 6
August was for raids on military and economic targets in towns and cities to
culminate in a major attack on London. In mid-August, raids were made on
targets on the outskirts of London.
Luftwaffe doctrine included
the possibility of retaliatory attacks on cities, and since 11 May small-scale
night raids by RAF Bomber Command had frequently bombed residential areas. The
Germans assumed this was deliberate, and as the raids increased in frequency
and scale the population grew impatient for measures of revenge. On 25 August
1940, 81 bombers of Bomber Command were sent out to raid industrial and
commercial targets in Berlin. Clouds prevented accurate identification and the
bombs fell across the city, causing casualties among the civilian population as
well as damage to residential areas. Continuing RAF raids on Berlin led to
Hitler withdrawing his directive on 30 August, and giving the go-ahead to the
planned bombing offensive. On 3 September Göring planned to bomb London daily,
with General Albert Kesselring's enthusiastic support, having received reports
the average strength of RAF squadrons was down to five or seven fighters out of
twelve and their airfields in the area were out of action. Hitler issued a
directive on 5 September to attack cities including London. In a widely
publicized speech delivered on 4 September 1940, Hitler condemned the bombing
of Berlin and presented the planned attacks on London as reprisals. The first
daylight raid was titled Vergeltungsangriff (revenge attack).
On 7 September, a massive
series of raids involving nearly four hundred bombers and more than six hundred
fighters targeted docks in the East End of London, day and night. The RAF
anticipated attacks on airfields, and 11 Group rose to meet them, in greater numbers
than the Luftwaffe expected. The first official deployment of 12 Group's
Leigh-Mallory's Big Wing took twenty minutes to form up, missing its intended
target, but encountering another formation of bombers while still climbing.
They returned, apologetic about their limited success, and blamed the delay on
being scrambled too late.
The German press jubilantly
announced that "one great cloud of smoke stretches tonight from the middle
of London to the mouth of the Thames." Reports reflected the briefings
given to crews before the raids – "Everyone knew about the last cowardly
attacks on German cities, and thought about wives, mothers and children. And
then came that word 'Vengeance!'" Pilots reported seeing ruined airfields
as they flew towards London, appearances which gave intelligence reports the
impression of devastated defenses. Göring maintained that the RAF was close to
defeat, making invasion feasible.
Fighter Command had been at
its lowest ebb, short of men and machines, and the break from airfield attacks
allowed them to recover. 11 Group had considerable success in breaking up
daytime raids. 12 Group repeatedly disobeyed orders and failed to meet requests
to protect 11 Group airfields, but their experiments with increasingly large
Big Wings had some success. The Luftwaffe began to abandon their morning raids,
with attacks on London starting late in the afternoon for fifty-seven
consecutive nights.
The most damaging aspect to
the Luftwaffe of targeting London was the increased distance. The Bf 109E
escorts had a limited fuel capacity, giving them only a 660 km (410-mile)
maximum range solely on internal fuel, and when they arrived had only 10
minutes of flying time before turning for home, leaving the bombers undefended.
Its eventual stablemate, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190A, was flying only in prototype
form in mid-1940; the first 28 Fw 190s were not delivered until November 1940.
The Fw 190A-1 had a maximum range of 940 km (584 miles) on internal fuel, 40%
greater than the Bf 109E. The Messerschmitt Bf 109E-7 corrected this deficiency
by adding a ventral centre-line ordnance rack to take either an SC 250 bomb or
a standard 300-litre Luftwaffe drop tank to double the range to 1,325 km (820
mi). The ordnance rack was not retrofitted to earlier Bf 109Es until October
1940.
On 14 September, Hitler
chaired a meeting with the OKW staff. Göring was in France directing the
decisive battle, so Erhard Milch deputized for him. Hitler asked "Should
we call it off altogether?" General Hans Jeschonnek, Luftwaffe Chief of
Staff, begged for a last chance to defeat the RAF and for permission to launch
attacks on civilian residential areas to cause mass panic. Hitler refused the
latter, perhaps unaware of how much damage had already been done to civilian
targets. He reserved for himself the power to unleash the terror weapon.
Instead, political will was to be broken by destroying the material
infrastructure, the weapons industry, and stocks of fuel and food.
On 15 September, two
massive waves of German attacks were decisively repulsed by the RAF by
deploying every aircraft in 11 Group. Sixty German and twenty-six RAF aircraft
were shot down. The action was the climax of the Battle of Britain.
Two days after this German
defeat Hitler postponed preparations for the invasion of Britain. Henceforth,
in the face of mounting losses in men, aircraft and the lack of adequate replacements,
the Luftwaffe completed their gradual shift from daylight bomber raids and
continued with nighttime bombing. 15 September is commemorated as Battle of
Britain Day.
Night Time Blitz, Fighter-bomber Day Raids
At the 14 September OKW
conference, Hitler acknowledged that the Luftwaffe had still not gained the air
superiority needed for the Operation Sea Lion invasion. In agreement with
Raeder's written recommendation, Hitler said the campaign was to intensify
regardless of invasion plans: "The decisive thing is the ceaseless
continuation of air attacks." Jeschonnek proposed attacking residential
areas to cause "mass panic", but Hitler turned this down: he reserved
to himself the option of terror bombing. British morale was to be broken by destroying
infrastructure, armaments manufacturing, fuel and food stocks. On 16 September,
Göring gave the order for this change in strategy. This new phase was to be the
first independent strategic bombing campaign, in hopes of a political success
forcing the British to give up. Hitler hoped it might result in "eight
million going mad" (referring to the population of London in 1940), which
would "cause a catastrophe" for the British. In those circumstances,
Hitler said, "even a small invasion might go a long way". Hitler was
against cancelling the invasion as "the cancellation would reach the ears
of the enemy and strengthen his resolve".,
On 19 September, Hitler ordered a reduction in work on Operation Sea Lion. He
doubted if strategic bombing could achieve its aims, but ending the air war
would be an open admission of defeat. He had to maintain the appearance of
concentration on defeating Britain, to conceal from Joseph Stalin his covert
aim to invade the Soviet Union.
Throughout the battle, most
Luftwaffe bombing raids had been at night. They increasingly suffered
unsustainable losses in daylight raids, and the last massive daytime attacks
were on 15 September. A raid of 70 bombers on 18 September also suffered badly,
and day raids were gradually phased out leaving the main attacks at night.
Fighter Command still lacked any effective capacity to intercept night-time
raiders. The night fighters, mostly Blenheims and Beaufighters, at this time
lacked airborne radar and so could not find the bombers. Anti-aircraft guns
were diverted to London's defenses, but had a much-reduced success rate against
night attacks.
From mid September,
Luftwaffe daylight bombing was gradually taken over by Bf 109 fighters, adapted
to take one 250 kg bomb. Small groups of fighter-bombers would carry out
Störangriffe raids escorted by large escort formations of about 200 to 300
combat fighters. They flew at altitudes over 20,000 feet (6,100 m) where the Bf
109 had an advantage over RAF fighters, except the Spitfire.,
The raids disturbed civilians, and continued the war of attrition against
Fighter Command. The raids were intended to carry out precision bombing on
military or economic targets, but it was hard to achieve sufficient accuracy
with the single bomb. Sometimes, when attacked, the fighter-bombers had to
jettison the bomb to function as fighters. The RAF was at a disadvantage and
changed defensive tactics by introducing standing patrols of Spitfires at high
altitude to monitor incoming raids. On a sighting, other patrols at lower
altitude would fly up to join the battle.
A Junkers Ju 88 returning
from a raid on London was shot down in Kent on 27 September resulting in the
Battle of Graveney Marsh, the last action between British and foreign military
forces on British mainland soil.
German bombing of Britain
reached its peak in October and November 1940. In post-war interrogation,
Wilhelm Keitel described the aims as economic blockade, in conjunction with
submarine warfare, and attrition of Britain's military and economic resources.
The Luftwaffe wanted to achieve victory on its own and was reluctant to
cooperate with the navy. Their strategy for the blockade was to destroy ports
and storage facilities in towns and cities. Priorities were based on the
pattern of trade and distribution, so for these months, London was the main
target. In November their attention turned to other ports and industrial targets
around Britain.
Hitler postponed the
Sealion invasion on 13 October "until the spring of 1941". It was not
until Hitler's Directive 21 was issued, on 18 December 1940, that the threat to
Britain of invasion finally ended.
During the battle, and for
the rest of the war, an important factor in keeping public morale high was the
continued presence in London of King George VI and his wife Queen Elizabeth.
When war broke out in 1939, the King and Queen decided to stay in London and not
flee to Canada, as had been suggested.
George VI and Elizabeth officially stayed in Buckingham Palace throughout the
war, although they often spent weekends at Windsor Castle to visit their
daughters, Elizabeth (the future queen) and Margaret. Buckingham Palace was damaged
by bombs which landed in the grounds on 10 September and, on 13 September, more
serious damage was caused by two bombs which destroyed the Royal Chapel. The
royal couple were in a small sitting room about 80 yards from where the bombs
exploded. On 24 September, in recognition of the bravery of civilians, King
George VI inaugurated the award of the George Cross.
Attrition Statistics
Overall, by 2 November, the
RAF fielded 1,796 pilots, an increase of over 40% from July 1940's count of
1,259 pilots. Based on German sources (from a Luftwaffe intelligence officer
Otto Bechtle attached to KG 2 in February 1944) translated by the Air
Historical Branch, Stephen Bungay asserts German fighter and bomber
"strength" declined without recovery, and that from August–December
1940, the German fighter and bomber strength declined by 30 and 25 per cent. In
contrast, Williamson Murray argues (using translations by the Air Historical
Branch) that 1,380 German bombers were on strength on 29 June 1940, 1,420 bombers
on 28 September, 1,423 level bombers on 2 November and 1,393 bombers on 30
November 1940. In July–September the number of Luftwaffe pilots available fell
by 136, but the number of operational pilots had shrunk by 171 by September.
The training organization of the Luftwaffe was failing to replace losses.
German fighter pilots, in contrast to popular perception, were not afforded
training or rest rotations, unlike their British counterparts. The first week
of September accounted for 25% of Fighter Command's and 24% of the Luftwaffe's
overall losses. Between the dates 26 August – 6 September, on only one day (1
September) did the Germans destroy more aircraft than they lost. Losses were
325 German and 248 British.
Luftwaffe losses for August
numbered 774 aircraft to all causes, representing 18.5% of all combat aircraft
at the beginning of the month. Fighter Command's losses in August were 426
fighters destroyed, amounting to 40 per cent of 1,061 fighters available on 3
August. In addition, 99 German bombers and 27 other types were destroyed
between 1 and 29 August.
From July to September, the
Luftwaffe's loss records indicate the loss of 1,636 aircraft, 1,184 to enemy
action. This represented 47% of the initial strength of single-engined fighters,
66% of twin-engined fighters, and 45% of bombers. This indicates the Germans
were running out of aircrew as well as aircraft.
Throughout the battle, the
Germans greatly underestimated the size of the RAF and the scale of British
aircraft production. Across the Channel, the Air Intelligence division of the
Air Ministry consistently overestimated the size of the German air enemy and
the productive capacity of the German aviation industry. As the battle was
fought, both sides exaggerated the losses inflicted on the other by an equally
large margin. The intelligence picture formed before the battle encouraged the
Luftwaffe to believe that such losses pushed Fighter Command to the very edge
of defeat, while the exaggerated picture of German air strength persuaded the
RAF that the threat it faced was larger and more dangerous than was the case.
This led the British to the conclusion that another fortnight of attacks on airfields
might force Fighter Command to withdraw their squadrons from the south of
England. The German misconception, on the other hand, encouraged first
complacency, then strategic misjudgment. The shift of targets from air bases to
industry and communications was taken because it was assumed that Fighter
Command was virtually eliminated.
Between 24 August and 4
September, German serviceability rates, which were acceptable at Stuka units,
were running at 75% with Bf 109s, 70% with bombers and 65% with Bf 110s,
indicating a shortage of spare parts. All units were well below established
strength. The attrition was beginning to affect the fighters in particular. By
14 September, the Luftwaffe's Bf 109 Geschwader possessed only 67% of their
operational crews against authorized aircraft. For Bf 110 units it was 46 per
cent; and for bombers it was 59 per cent. A week later the figures had dropped
to 64 per cent, 52% and 52 per cent. Serviceability rates in Fighter Command's
fighter squadrons, between 24 August and 7 September, were listed as: 64.8% on
24 August; 64.7% on 31 August and 64.25% on 7 September 1940.
Due to the failure of the
Luftwaffe to establish air supremacy, a conference assembled on 14 September at
Hitler's headquarters. Hitler concluded that air superiority had not yet been
established and "promised to review the situation on 17 September for
possible landings on 27 September or 8 October. Three days later, when the
evidence was clear that the German Air Force had greatly exaggerated the extent
of their successes against the RAF, Hitler postponed Sea Lion
indefinitely."
Propaganda
Propaganda was an important
element of the air war which began to develop over Britain from 18 June 1940
onwards, when the Luftwaffe began small, probing daylight raids to test RAF
defenses. One of many examples of these small-scale raids was the destruction
of a school at Polruan in Cornwall, by a single raider. Into early July, the
British media's focus on the air battles increased steadily, the press,
magazines, BBC radio and newsreels daily conveying the contents of Air Ministry
communiqués. The German OKW communiqués matched Britain's efforts in claiming
the upper hand.
Central to the propaganda
war on both sides of the Channel were aircraft claims, which are discussed
under 'Attrition statistics' (above). These daily claims were important both
for sustaining British home front morale and persuading America to support
Britain, and were produced by the Air Ministry's Air Intelligence branch. Under
pressure from American journalists and broadcasters to prove that the RAF's
claims were genuine, RAF intelligence compared pilots' claims with actual
aircraft wrecks and those seen to crash into the sea. It was soon realized that
there was a discrepancy between the two, but the Air Ministry decided not to
reveal this. In fact, it was not until May 1947 that the actual figures were released
to the public, by which time it was no longer important. Many people refused to
believe the revised figures, including Douglas Bader.
The place of the Battle of
Britain in British popular memory partly stems from the Air Ministry's
successful propaganda campaign from July to October 1940, and its praise of the
defending fighter pilots from March 1941 onwards. The pamphlet The Battle of
Britain sold in huge numbers internationally, leading even Goebbels to admire
its propaganda value. Focusing only upon the fighter pilots, with no mention of
RAF bomber attacks against invasion barges, the Battle of Britain was soon
established as a major victory for Fighter Command. This inspired feature
films, books, magazines, works of art, poetry, radio plays and MOI short films.
The Air Ministry also
developed the Battle of Britain Sunday commemoration, supported a Battle of
Britain clasp for issue to the pilots in 1945 and, from 1945, Battle of Britain
Week. The Battle of Britain window in Westminster Abbey was also encouraged by
the Air Ministry, with Trenchard and Dowding, now lords, on its committee. By
July 1947 when the window was unveiled, the Battle of Britain had already
attained central prominence as Fighter Command's most notable victory, the
fighter pilots credited with preventing invasion in 1940. Although given
widespread media coverage in September and October 1940, RAF Bomber and Coastal
Command raids against invasion barge concentrations were less well-remembered.
Aftermath
The Battle of Britain marked
the first major defeat of Germany's military forces, with air superiority seen
as the key to victory. Pre-war theories had led to exaggerated fears of strategic
bombing, and UK public opinion was buoyed by coming through the ordeal. For the
RAF, Fighter Command had achieved a great victory in successfully carrying out
Sir Thomas Inskip's 1937 air policy of preventing the Germans from knocking
Britain out of the war.
The battle also
significantly shifted American opinion. During the battle, many Americans
accepted the view promoted by Joseph Kennedy, the American ambassador in
London, who believed that the United Kingdom could not survive. Roosevelt
wanted a second opinion, and sent William "Wild Bill" Donovan on a
brief visit to the UK; he became convinced the UK would survive and should be
supported in every possible way. Before the end of the year, American
journalist Ralph Ingersoll, after returning from Britain, published a book
concluding that "Adolf Hitler met his first defeat in eight years" in
what might "go down in history as a battle as important as Waterloo or
Gettysburg". The turning point was when the Germans reduced the intensity
of daylight attacks after 15 September. According to Ingersoll, "[a]
majority of responsible British officers who fought through this battle believe
that if Hitler and Göring had had the courage and the resources to lose 200
planes a day for the next five days, nothing could have saved London";
instead, "[the Luftwaffe's] morale in combat is definitely broken, and the
RAF has been gaining in strength each week."
Both sides in the battle
made exaggerated claims of numbers of enemy aircraft shot down. In general,
claims were two to three times the actual numbers. Postwar analysis of records
has shown that between July and September, the RAF claimed 2,698 kills, while
the Luftwaffe fighters claimed 3,198 RAF aircraft shot down. Total losses, and
start and end dates for recorded losses, vary for both sides. Luftwaffe losses
from 10 July to 30 October 1940 total 1,977 aircraft, including 243 twin- and
569 single-engined fighters, 822 bombers and 343 non-combat types. In the same
period, RAF Fighter Command aircraft losses number 1,087, including 53
twin-engined fighters. To the RAF figure should be added 376 Bomber Command and
148 Coastal Command aircraft lost conducting bombing, mining, and reconnaissance
operations in defense of the country.
Stephen Bungay describes
Dowding and Park's strategy of choosing when to engage the enemy whilst
maintaining a coherent force as vindicated; their leadership, and the subsequent
debates about strategy and tactics, had created enmity among RAF senior commanders
and both were sacked from their posts in the immediate aftermath of the battle.
All things considered, the RAF proved to be a robust and capable organization
that was to use all the modern resources available to it to the maximum
advantage. Richard Evans writes:
Irrespective
of whether Hitler was really set on this course, he simply lacked the resources
to establish the air superiority that was the sine qua non [prerequisite] of a
successful crossing of the English Channel. A third of the initial strength of
the German air force, the Luftwaffe, had been lost in the western campaign in
the spring. The Germans lacked the trained pilots, the effective fighter
aircraft, and the heavy bombers that would have been needed.
— Evans, Richard J. "Immoral Rearmament". The New York Review of
Books, No. 20, 20 December 2007.
The Germans launched some
spectacular attacks against important British industries, but they could not
destroy the British industrial potential, and made little systematic effort to
do so. Hindsight does not disguise that the threat to Fighter Command was very
real, and for the participants it seemed as if there was a narrow margin
between victory and defeat. Nevertheless, even if the German attacks on the 11
Group airfields which guarded southeast England and the approaches to London
had continued, the RAF could have withdrawn to the Midlands out of German
fighter range and continued the battle from there. The victory was as much
psychological as physical. Writes Alfred Price:
The
truth of the matter, borne out by the events of 18 August, is more prosaic:
neither by attacking the airfields nor by attacking London, was the Luftwaffe
likely to destroy Fighter Command. Given the size of the British fighter force
and the general high quality of its equipment, training and morale, the
Luftwaffe could have achieved no more than a Pyrrhic victory. During the action
on 18 August, it had cost the Luftwaffe five trained aircrew killed, wounded or
taken prisoner, for each British fighter pilot killed or wounded; the ratio was
similar on other days in the battle. And this ratio of 5:1 was very close to
that between the number of German aircrew involved in the battle and those in
Fighter Command. In other words, the two sides were suffering almost the same
losses in trained aircrew, in proportion to their overall strengths. In the
Battle of Britain, for the first time during the Second World War, the German
war machine had set itself a major task which it patently failed to achieve,
and so demonstrated that it was not invincible. In stiffening the resolve of
those determined to resist Hitler the battle was an important turning point in the
conflict.
Some historians are more
cautious in assessing the significance of Germany's failure to knock Britain
out of the war. Bungay writes, "Victory in the air achieved a modest
strategic goal, for it did not bring Britain any closer to victory in the war,
but merely avoided her defeat." Overy says, "The Battle of Britain
did not seriously weaken Germany and her allies, nor did it much reduce the
scale of the threat facing Britain (and the Commonwealth) in 1940/41 until
German and Japanese aggression brought the Soviet Union and the United States
into the conflict."
The British victory in the
Battle of Britain was achieved at a heavy cost. Total British civilian losses
from July to December 1940 were 23,002 dead and 32,138 wounded, with one of the
largest single raids on 19 December 1940, in which almost 3,000 civilians died.
With the culmination of the concentrated daylight raids, Britain was able to
rebuild its military forces and establish itself as an Allied stronghold, later
serving as a base from which the liberation of Western Europe was launched.
Memorials and Cultural Impact
Winston Churchill summed up
the battle with the words, "Never in the field of human conflict was so
much owed by so many to so few". Pilots who fought in the battle have been
known as The Few ever since, at times being specially commemorated on 15
September, "Battle of Britain Day". On this day in 1940, the
Luftwaffe embarked on their largest bombing attack yet, forcing the engagement
of the entirety of the RAF in defense of London and the South East, which
resulted in a decisive British victory that proved to mark a turning point in
Britain's favor. Within the Commonwealth, Battle of Britain Day has been
observed more usually on the third Sunday in September, and even on the 2nd
Thursday in September in some areas in the British Channel Islands.
Plans for the Battle of
Britain window in Westminster Abbey were begun during wartime, the committee
chaired by Lords Trenchard and Dowding. Public donations paid for the window
itself, which replaced a window destroyed during the campaign, this officially
opened by King George VI on 10 July 1947. Although not actually an 'official'
memorial to the Battle of Britain in the sense that government paid for it, the
window and chapel have since been viewed as such. During the late 1950s and
1960, various proposals were advanced for a national monument to the Battle of
Britain, this also the focus of several letters in The Times. In 1960 the
Conservative government decided against a further monument, taking the view
that the credit should be shared more broadly than Fighter Command alone, and
there was little public appetite for one. All subsequent memorials are the
result of private subscription and initiative, as discussed below.
There are numerous
memorials to the battle. The most important ones are the Battle of Britain
Monument in London and the Battle of Britain Memorial at Capel-le-Ferne in
Kent. As well as Westminster Abbey, St James's Church, Paddington also has a
memorial window to the battle, replacing a window destroyed during it. There is
also a memorial at the former Croydon Airport, one of the RAF bases during the
battle, and a memorial to the pilots at Armadale Castle on the Isle of Skye in
Scotland, which is topped by a raven sculpture. The Polish pilots who served in
the battle are among the names on the Polish War Memorial in west London.
There are also two museums
to the battle: one at Hawkinge in Kent and one at Stanmore in London, at the
former RAF Bentley Priory.
In 2015 the RAF created an
online 'Battle of Britain 75th Anniversary Commemorative Mosaic' composed of
pictures of "the few" – the pilots and aircrew who fought in the
battle – and "the many" – 'the often unsung others whose contribution
during the Battle of Britain was also vital to the RAF's victory in the skies
above Britain', submitted by participants and their families.
Other post-war memorials
include:
Battle of Britain
Class steam locomotives of the Southern Railway
Battle of Britain
Memorial Flight
Battle of Britain
Memorial, Capel-le-Ferne
Battle of Britain
Monument, London
Kent Battle of
Britain Museum
Polish War Memorial
Spirit of the Few
Monument
The battle was the subject
of the film Battle of Britain (1969), starring Laurence Olivier as Hugh Dowding
and Trevor Howard as Keith Park. It also starred Michael Caine, Christopher
Plummer and Robert Shaw as squadron leaders. Former participants of the battle
served as technical advisers, including Adolf Galland and Robert Stanford Tuck.
In the 2001 film Pearl Harbor,
American participation in the Battle of Britain was exaggerated, as none of the
"Eagle Squadrons" of American volunteers saw action in Europe before
1941.
As of 2003, a Hollywood
film named The Few was in preparation for release in 2008, based on the story
of real-life US pilot Billy Fiske, who ignored his country's neutrality rules
and volunteered for the RAF. Bill Bond, who conceived the Battle of Britain
Monument in London, described a Variety magazine outline of the film's
historical content as "Totally wrong. The whole bloody lot."
The 1941 Allied propaganda
film Churchill's Island was the winner of the first Academy Award for
Documentary Short Subject.
Bibliography
General
Allen, Hubert Raymond
"Dizzy", Wing Commander RAF (1974). Who Won the Battle of Britain?.
London: Arthur Barker.
Bishop, Edward (1968).
Their Finest Hour: The Story of the Battle of Britain, 1940. Ballantine] Books.
Bishop, Patrick (2010).
Battle of Britain : a day-by-day chronicle, 10 July 1940 to 31 October 1940.
London: Quercus.
Botquin, Gaston & Roba,
Jean-Louis (September 1998). "La Luftwaffe dans la campagne à l'Ouest et
la Btaille d'Angleterre" [The Luftwaffe in the Western Campaign of the
Battle of Britain]. Avions: Toute l'aéronautique et son histoire (in French) (66):
15–22.
Buckley, John. Air Power in
the Age of Total War. London: UCL Press, 1999.
Buell, Thomas. The Second
World War: Europe and the Mediterranean. New York: Square One Publishers, 2002.
Bungay, Stephen (2000). The
Most Dangerous Enemy : A History of the Battle of Britain. London: Aurum Press.
Collier, Basil. The Defence
of the United Kingdom (1962, Official history)
Collier, Basil. The Battle
of Britain (1962, Batsford's British Battles series)
Collier, Richard. Eagle
Day: The Battle of Britain, 6 August – 15 September 1940. London: Pan Books,
1968.
Churchill, Winston S
(1949), The Second World War – Their Finest Hour (Volume 2), London: Cassell
Churchill, Winston S. The
Second World War – The Grand Alliance (Volume 3). Bantam Books, 1962.
Crosby, Francis (2002). A
Handbook of Fighter Aircraft: Featuring Photographs from the Imperial War
Museum. Hermes House.
Deighton, Len (1996).
Fighter: The True Story of the Battle of Britain. London: Pimlico. (Originally
published: London: Jonathan Cape, 1977.)
Deighton, Len; Hastings,
Max (1980). Battle of Britain. Diane Publishing Company.
Dye, Air Commodore Peter J.
(Winter 2000), "Logistics and the Battle of Britain", Air Force
Journal of Logistics, vol. 24, no. 4
Ellis, John. Brute Force:
Allied Strategy and Tactics in the Second World War. London: Andre Deutsch,
1990.
Evans, Michael. "Never
in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to ... the
Navy."[dead link] The Times, 24 August 2006.
Goodenough, Simon. War
Maps: World War II, From September 1939 to August 1945, Air, Sea, and Land,
Battle by Battle. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982
Halpenny, Bruce Barrymore
(1984). Action Station 4: Military Airfields of Yorkshire. Cambridge, UK:
Patrick Stevens.
Harding, Thomas.
"Battle of Britain was won at sea." The Telegraph, 25 August 2006.
Holland, James (2011). The
Battle of Britain. Transworld.
Hough, Richard; Richards,
Denis (2007), The Battle of Britain: The Greatest Air Battle of World War II,
New York: W.W. Norton & Co Inc
Ingersoll, Ralph (1940),
Report on England, November 1940, New York: Simon & Schuster
Keegan, John. The Second
World War London: Pimlico, 1997.
Korda, Michael (2010), With
Wings Like Eagles: The Untold Story of the Battle of Britain, New York: Harper
Perennial
Manchester, William; Reid,
Paul (2012). The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Defender of the Realm,
1940–1965. Pan Macmillan.
Overy, R. J. (1980). The
Air War, 1939–1945. Scarborough House. ISBN 978-0812861563.
Overy, Richard J. (2001).
The Battle of Britain: The Myth and the Reality. New York: W.W. Norton.
Overy, Richard J. (2013).
The Bombing War : Europe 1939–1945. London & New York: Allen Lane.
Owen, R.E, New Zealanders
with the Royal Air Force Government Printer, Wellington, New Zealand 1953.
Pearson, Simon; Gorman, Ed
(2020). Battle of Britain: The Pilots and Planes That Made History. London,
United Kingdom: Hodder & Stoughton.
Peszke, Michael Alfred
(October 1980), "A Synopsis of Polish-Allied Military Agreements During
World War Two", The Journal of Military History, 44 (3): 128–134
Ponting, Clive (1991).
1940: Myth and Reality. I.R. Dee.
Pope, Stephan. "Across
the Ether: Part One". Aeroplane, Vol. 23, No. 5, Issue No. 265, May 1995.
Price, Alfred (1980), The
Hardest Day: 18 August 1940, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons
Ramsay, Winston, ed.
(1987), The Blitz Then and Now: Volume 1, London: Battle of Britain Prints
International
Ramsay, Winston, ed.
(1988), The Blitz Then and Now: Volume 2, London: Battle of Britain Prints
International
Ramsay, Winston, ed.
(1989), The Battle of Britain Then and Now Mk V, London: Battle of Britain
Prints International
Richards, Denis (1953).
Royal Air Force 1939–1945. Vol. 1: The Fight at Odds 1939–1941. H.M. Stationery
Office.
Robinson, Derek, Invasion,
1940: Did the Battle of Britain Alone Stop Hitler? New York: Carroll &
Graf, 2005.
Shulman, Milton. Defeat in
the West. London: Cassell, 2004 (First edition 1947).
Stacey, C P (1955). The
Canadian Army 1939–1945 An Official Historical Summary. Ottawa: Queen's
Printer.
Stacey, C P. (1970) Arms,
Men and Governments: The War Policies of Canada, 1939–1945 Archived 5 August
2014 at the Wayback Machine Queen's Printer, Ottawa
Taylor, A. J. P.; Mayer, S.
L., eds. (1974). A History of World War Two. London: Octopus Books.
Terraine, John (1985). The
Right of the Line: The Royal Air Force in the European War, 1939-45. Hodder
& Stroughton.
Terraine, John, A Time for
Courage: The Royal Air Force in the European War, 1939–1945. London: Macmillan,
1985.
Winterbotham, F. W. (1975),
The Ultra Secret, London: Futura Publications
Wood, Derek; Dempster,
Derek (2003). The Narrow Margin. Pen and Sword.
Wright, Gordon (1968). The
ordeal of total war, 1939–1945. Harper & Row.
Luftwaffe
Archambault, Claude
(December 2000). "Affrontements meurtriers dans le ciel français, vus en
1940/41 par la 209.I.D." [Deadly Clashs in French Skies, Seen by the 208th
Infantry Division]. Avions: Toute l'Aéronautique et son histoire (in French)
(93): 9–16.
Archambault, Claude
(January 2001). "Affrontements meurtriers dans le ciel français, vus en
1940/41 par la 209.I.D.". Avions: Toute l'Aéronautique et son histoire (in
French) (94): 23–30.
Archambault, Claude
(January 2000). "La Bataille d'Angleterre vue par la 227.I.D." [The
Battle of Britain Viewed by the 227th Infantry Division]. Avions: Toute
l'Aéronautique et Son Histoire (in French) (82): 13–17.
Corum, James. The
Luftwaffe: Creating the Operational Air War, 1918–1940. Lawrence, Kansas:
Kansas University Press, 1997.
de Zeng, Henry L., Doug G.
Stankey and Eddie J. Creek. Bomber Units of the Luftwaffe 1933–1945: A
Reference Source, Volume 1. Hersham, Surrey, UK: Ian Allan Publishing, 2007.
Dildy, Douglas C. "The
Air Battle for England: The Truth Behind the Failure of the Luftwaffe's Counter-Air
Campaign in 1940." Air Power History 63.2 (2016): 27.
Dönitz, Karl. Ten years and
Twenty Days. New York: Da Capo Press, First Edition, 1997.
Hooton, E.R. (2007).
Luftwaffe at War: Blitzkrieg in the West, Vol. 2. London: Chevron/Ian Allan.
Irving, David (1974), The
Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe: The Life of Field Marshal Erhard Milch, Dorney,
Windsor, UK: Focal Point Publications
Kieser, Egbert. Operation
Sea Lion; The German Plan to Invade Britain 1940. London: Cassel Military
Paperbacks, 1999.
Macksey, Kenneth. Invasion:
The German Invasion of England, July 1940. London: Greenhill Books, 1990.
Magenheimer, Heinz (10
September 2015). Hitler's War: Germany's Key Strategic Decisions 1940–45.
Orion.
Mason, Francis K. Battle
Over Britain: A History of the German Air Assaults on Great Britain, 1917–18
and July–December 1940, and the Development of Air Defences Between the World
Wars. New York: Doubleday, 1969.
Murray, Williamson (2002).
Strategy for defeat : the Luftwaffe, 1933–1945. Honolulu, Hawaii: University
Press of the Pacific.
Prien, Jochen; Stemmer,
Gerhard; Rodeike, Peter; Bock, Winfried (2002). Die Jagdfliegerverbände der
Deutschen Luftwaffe 1934 bis 1945—Teil 4/I—Einsatz am Kanal und über
England—26.6.1940 bis 21.6.1941 [The Fighter Units of the German Air Force 1934
to 1945—Part 4/I—Action at the Channel and over England—26 June 1940 to 21 June
1941] (in German). Eutin, Germany: Struve-Druck.
Raeder, Erich. Erich Rader,
Grand Admiral. New York: Da Capo Press; United States Naval Institute, 2001.
Shirer, William (1990)
[1964], The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany,
London: Ballantine
Smith, Howard Kingsbury
(1942). Last Train from Berlin. A. A. Knopf.
Stedman, Robert F. (2012).
Jagdflieger: Luftwaffe Fighter Pilot 1939–45. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Wagner, Ray; Nowarra, Heinz
(1971). German Combat Planes: A Comprehensive Survey and History of the
Development of German Military Aircraft from 1914 to 194. New York: Doubleday
& Company.
Watteau, Pierre (June
2000). "Courrier des Lecteurs" [Readers' Letters]. Avions: Toute
l'Aéronautique et son histoire (in French) (87): 3.
Autobiographies and Biographies
Brew, Steve. A Ruddy Awful
Waste: Eric Lock DSO, DFC & Bar; The Brief Life of a Battle of Britain
Fighter Ace. London: Fighting High, 2016.
Collier, Basil. Leader of
the Few: the Authorised Biography of Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding of Bentley
Priory. London: Jarrolds, 1957.
Deere, Alan Christopher
(1974), Nine Lives, London: Hodder Paperbacks Ltd for Coronet Books
Duncan Smith, W. G. G.
(2002). Spitfire into Battle. Hodder & Stoughton.
Franks, Norman, Wings of
Freedom: Twelve Battle of Britain Pilots. London: William Kimber, 1980.
Galland, Adolf (2005). The
First and the Last: Germany's Fighter Force in the Second World War. Cerberus.
Halpenny, Bruce, Fight for
the Sky: Stories of Wartime Fighter Pilots. Cambridge, UK: Patrick Stephens,
1986.
Halpenny, Bruce, Fighter
Pilots in World War II: True Stories of Frontline Air Combat (paperback).
Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword Books Ltd, 2004.
Orange, Vincent (2001).
Park: The Biography of Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Park, GCB, KBE, MC, DFC,
DCL. Grub Street Publishers.
Aircraft
Ansell, Mark (2005).
Boulton Paul Defiant: Technical Details and History of the Famous British Night
Fighter. Redbourn, Herts, UK: Mushroom Model Publications. pp. 712–714.
de Zeng, Henry L., Doug G.
Stankey and Eddie J. Creek, Bomber Units of the Luftwaffe 1933–1945: A
Reference Source, Volume 2. Hersham, Surrey, UK: Ian Allan Publishing, 2007.
Feist, Uwe (1993). The
Fighting Me 109. London: Arms and Armour Press.
Goss, Chris, Dornier 17: In
Focus. Surrey, UK: Red Kite Books, 2005.
Green, William (1962).
Famous Fighters of the Second World War. London: Macdonald and Jane's
Publishers Ltd.
Green, William (1980)
[First edition, 1970]. Warplanes of the Third Reich. London: Macdonald and
Jane's Publishers Ltd.
Harvey-Bailey, Alec (1995).
Merlin in Perspective: The Combat Years. Derby, UK: Rolls-Royce Heritage Trust.
Holmes, Tony (1998).
Hurricane Aces 1939–1940 (Aircraft of the Aces). Botley, Oxford, UK: Osprey
Publishing.
Holmes, Tony (2007),
Spitfire vs Bf 109: Battle of Britain, Oxford: Osprey
Huntley, Ian D., Fairey
Battle, Aviation Guide 1. Bedford, UK: SAM Publications, 2004.
Jones, Robert C. (1970).
Camouflage and Markings Number 8: Boulton Paul Defiant, RAF Northern Europe
1936–45. London: Ducimus Book Limited.
Lloyd, Sir Ian; Pugh, Peter
(2004). Hives and the Merlin. Cambridge: Icon Books.
Mason, Francis K., Hawker
Aircraft since 1920. London: Putnam, 1991.
McKinstry, Leo (2010).
Hurricane: Victor of the Battle of Britain. Hodder & Stoughton.
Molson, Kenneth M. et al.,
Canada's National Aviation Museum: Its History and Collections. Ottawa:
National Aviation Museum, 1988.
Moyes, Philip, J. R.,
"The Fairey Battle." Aircraft in Profile, Volume 2 (nos. 25–48).
Windsor, Berkshire, UK: Profile Publications, 1971.
Parry, Simon W., Intruders
over Britain: The Story of the Luftwaffe's Night Intruder Force, the
Fernnachtjager. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 1989.
Price, Alfred (1996),
Spitfire Mark I/II Aces 1939–41 (Aircraft of the Aces 12), London: Osprey Books
Price, Alfred (2002), The
Spitfire Story: Revised second edition, Enderby, Leicester, UK: Silverdale
Books
Sarkar, Dilip (2011). How
the Spitfire Won the Battle of Britain. Amberley Publishing Limited.
Scutts, Jerry,
Messerschmitt Bf 109: The Operational Record. Sarasota, Florida: Crestline
Publishers, 1996.
Ward, John (2004). Hitler's
Stuka Squadrons: The JU 87 at War 1936–1945. MBI Publishing Company LLC.
Warner, G (2005), The
Bristol Blenheim: A Complete History (2nd ed.), London: Crécy Publishing
Weal, John (1999),
Messerschmitt Bf 110 'Zerstōrer' Aces of World War 2, Botley,
Additional References
Addison, Paul and Jeremy
Crang. The Burning Blue: A New History of the Battle of Britain. London:
Pimlico, 2000. I
Bergström, Christer.
Barbarossa – The Air Battle: July–December 1941. London: Chevron/Ian Allan,
2007.
Bergström, Christer. The
Battle of Britain – An Epic Battle Revisited. Eskilstuna: Vaktel
Books/Casemate, 2010.
Bishop, Patrick. Fighter
Boys: The Battle of Britain, 1940. New York: Viking, 2003. Penguin Books, 2004.
As Fighter Boys: Saving Britain 1940. London: Harper Perennial, 2004.
Brittain, Vera. England's
Hour. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2005
Campion, Garry (2008), The
Good Fight: Battle of Britain Wartime Propaganda and The Few (First ed.),
Basingstoke, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan
Campion, Garry (2015), The
Battle of Britain, 1945–1965: The Air Ministry and the Few, Palgrave Macmillan
Cooper, Matthew. The German
Air Force 1933–1945: An Anatomy of Failure. New York: Jane's Publishing
Incorporated, 1981.
Craig, Phil and Tim
Clayton. Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain. New York: Simon & Schuster,
2000.
Cumming, Anthony J. The
Royal Navy and The Battle of Britain. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute
Press, 2010.
Fiedler, Arkady. 303
Squadron: The Legendary Battle of Britain Fighter Squadron. Los Angeles: Aquila
Polonica, 2010.
Fisher, David E. A Summer
Bright and Terrible: Winston Churchill, Lord Dowding, Radar and the Impossible
Triumph of the Battle of Britain. Emeryville, CA: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005.
Foreman, John (1988),
Battle of Britain: The Forgotten Months, November And December 1940, New
Malden: Air Research Publications
Gaskin, Margaret. Blitz:
The Story of 29 December 1940. New York: Harcourt, 2006.
Gretzyngier, Robert;
Matusiak, Wojtek (1998). Polish Aces of World War 2. London: Osprey.
Haining, Peter (2005). The
Chianti Raiders: The Extraordinary Story of the Italian Air Force in the Battle
of Britain. Pavilion Books.
Haining, Peter. Where the
Eagle Landed: The Mystery of the German Invasion of Britain, 1940. London:
Robson Books, 2004.
Halpenny, Bruce Barrymore.
Action Stations: Military Airfields of Greater London v. 8. Cambridge, UK:
Patrick Stephens, 1984.
Harding, Thomas. "It's
baloney, say RAF aces". The Telegraph, 24 August 2006.
Hough, Richard. The Battle
of Britain: The Greatest Air Battle of World War II. New York: W.W. Norton,
1989. I
James, T.C.G. The Battle of
Britain (Air Defence of Great Britain; vol. 2). London/New York: Frank Cass
Publishers, 2000.
James, T.C.G. Growth of
Fighter Command, 1936–1940 (Air Defence of Great Britain; vol. 1). London; New
York: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000.
James, T.C.G. Night Air
Defence During the Blitz. London/New York: Frank Cass Publishers, 2003.
McGlashan, Kenneth B. with
Owen P. Zupp. Down to Earth: A Fighter Pilot Recounts His Experiences of
Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain, Dieppe, D-Day and Beyond. London: Grub Street
Publishing, 2007.
March, Edgar J. British
Destroyers; a History of Development 1892–1953. London: Seely Service & Co.
Limited, 1966.
Olson, Lynne; Cloud,
Stanley (2003). A Question of Honor: The Kościuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes
of World War II. New York: Knopf. NB: This book is also published under the
following title: For Your Freedom and Ours: The Kościuszko Squadron – Forgotten
Heroes of World War II.
Mason, Francis K.
"Battle over Britain". McWhirter Twins Ltd. 1969. A day by day
accounting of RaF and Luftwaffe losses.
Prien, Jochen and Peter
Rodeike.Messerschmitt Bf 109 F, G, and K: An Illustrated Study. Atglen,
Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, 1995.
Ray, John Philip (2003).
The Battle of Britain: Dowding and the First Victory, 1940. Cassell.
Ray, John Philip. The
Battle of Britain: New Perspectives: Behind the Scenes of the Great Air War.
London: Arms & Armour Press, 1994. London: Orion Publishing, 1996.
Rongers, Eppo H. De oorlog
in mei '40, Utrecht/Antwerpen: Uitgeverij Het Spectrum N.V., 1969
Townsend, Peter. Duel of
Eagles (new edition). London: Phoenix, 2000.
Wellum, Geoffrey. First
Light: The Story of the Boy Who Became a Man in the War-Torn Skies Above
Britain. New York: Viking Books, 2002. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, 2003. London:
Penguin Books, 2003.
Zaloga, Steven J.; Hook,
Richard (1982). The Polish Army 1939–45. London: Osprey.
 |
| Battle of Britain by Paul Nash. |
Paul
Nash's description of the painting, written for the War Artist's Advisory
Committee: 'The painting is an attempt to give the sense of an aerial battle in
operation over a wide area and thus summarizes England's great aerial victory
over Germany. The scene includes certain elements constant during the Battle of
Britain - the river winding from the town and across parched country, down to
the sea; beyond, the shores of the Continent, above, the mounting cumulus
concentrating at sunset after a hot brilliant day; across the spaces of sky,
trails of airplanes, smoke tracks of dead or damaged machines falling, floating
clouds, parachutes, balloons. Against the approaching twilight new formations
of Luftwaffe, threatening...' The painting majestically reveals the
possibilities of art engaged with history. Its ambition and the scale of the
setting immediately impress; we look down on a huge swathe of the English
Channel and France beyond. oil on
canvas, 1941.
Produced
at the time of the battle, the painting encapsulates its scale and importance.
However, this is not just an image of modern warfare, with its violence and
destruction, or even an iconic victory; it is also a restatement of the value
of art and the defeat of Nazism. Nash, a fierce critic of the way that fighting
on the Western Front of the First World War had been conducted, was immediate
and steadfast in his revulsion towards Nazi Germany and its culture. In the
painting, defences rise up as if out of the very landscape of England to meet
the fascistic machines of war; the regimented patterns of the Luftwaffe are
broken and defeated by Allied fighter planes, they form great flower-like
shapes in the sky, before plummeting into the very earth that has defeated
them. Richard Seddon, pupil of Nash, viewed this work at Nash's Oxford studio.
He advised Nash to include more black smoke trails and painted an example on
the canvas. When the painting was exhibited in London, Seddon's black trail was
still visible on the canvas. Margaret Nash presented Seddon with a 19th-century
lithograph of a storm in Paris which Nash adapted to form the composition of
the Battle of Britain. Nash delivered the work to the Committee in October and
it went on display at the National Gallery in January 1942.
Paul
Nash was one of Britain's best-known artists at the time of the Second World
War. As a former official war artist he was a logical choice to fulfill the
role again, particularly as a patriot who believed in utilizing fine art for
propaganda. Battle of Britain demonstrates this aspect of Nash's outlook. It
presents an epitome of RAF Fighter Command's successful struggle against the
Luftwaffe in 1940. RAF fighters sweep along the English Channel to break up
advancing Luftwaffe formations in a summer sky filled with vapor trails,
parachutes, balloons and cloud. The painting is an imaginative summary of the
event rather than a literal one; Nash favors symbolism and allegory over
factual accuracy. The barrage balloons and aircraft seen from above are not in
proportion to the shadowy suggestions of vulnerable cities below.
Geographically the painting suggests the Thames estuary, with the Channel and
France beyond, but again the emphasis is on imaginative visualization.
 |
| RAF and Luftwaffe bases, group and Luftflotte boundaries, and range of Luftwaffe Bf 109 fighters. Southern part of British radar coverage: radar in North of Scotland not shown. |
 |
| A pivotal fight in the Battle of Britain on Sept. 15, 1940. Art by Gary Eason. |
 |
| Pattern of vapor trails left by British and German aircraft after a dogfight on 18 September 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 4219. |
 |
| Richard Eurich worked for the War Artists Advisory Committee for a number of years during the Second World War. In November 1940 he was commissioned by the Committee to undertake a picture of the re-cent air raid over Portland. Eurich's love for the sea and his often unusual choice of perspective combine admirably in the resulting painting. The exact events of the raid are secondary to the treatment of the sea and clouds mirroring each other in their movements. Eurich gives a wry description of the painting in a let-ter in which he bemoans the lack of warships and apologizes for the lack of overt action. Imperial War Mu-seum photo Art.IWM ART LD 769. |
 |
| The condensation trails from German and British fighter planes engaged in an aerial battle appear in the sky over Kent, along the southeastern coast of England, on September 3, 1940. Note the barrage balloon at upper left. |
 |
| The Prime Minister Winston Churchill helps to build a pillbox at Canford Cliffs, Poole, England, during a visit to Southern Command on 17 July 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 2270. |
 |
| The Prime Minister Winston Churchill meets infantrymen manning a coast defence position near Hartle-pool on 31 July 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 2628. |
 |
| Winston Churchill and his entourage walk away from the crash-site of a Messerschmitt Bf 109E on Church Farm at Church Whitfield near Dover, 28 August 1940. Churchill was travelling between Dover and Rams-gate at the time, touring invasion defences, when the German aircraft was shot down. He ordered his car to halt and walked over to view the wreckage, much to the consternation of his personal bodyguard, In-spector W H Thompson (seen here on the right), as German aircraft were still in the vicinity. Imperial War Museum photo H 3512. |
 |
| A CH (Chain Home) Radar Station on the East Coast by William Thomas Rawlinson, oil on canvas, 1946. |
 |
| Chain Home: AMES Type 1 CH East Coast radar installation at Poling, Sussex. On the left are three (originally four) in-line 360ft steel transmitter towers, between which the transmitter aerials were slung, with the heavily protected transmitter building in front. On the right are four 240ft wooden receiver towers placed in rhombic formation, with the receiver building in the middle. Imperial War Museum photo CH 15173. |
 |
| Chain Home: airmen and WAAF operators at work in the wooden Receiver hut at Ventnor CH, Isle of Wight, during the Battle of Britain. Imperial War Museum photo C 1868. |
 |
Chain Home: CH receiver room at an East Coast station, showing one of the two RF7 Receivers (left) and the Mark 3 Console (right) in use. This is typical of late-war CH stations, which had been semi-automated through the use of an analog computer referred to as the "fruit machine". On the left, the radar operator's hand is resting on the goniometer control, which allowed her to change the sensitive direction of the receiver in order to determine the bearing of the target. An additional control set an electronic pointer on the display, the "strobe", to lie over a selected target. When both the direction and range were selected, a button was pushed to send this information electrically to the fruit machine. The fruit machine then applied a number of calculations to these measures to correct for known oddities of the receiver system and geography of the local site, then translated these corrected range and direction measures into map grid references using basic trigonometry. Operators on the right would use this information to develop "tracks" for various targets, updating them on the board hanging from the right wall (only the back can be seen here). Telephones were used to send this information to the various control stations in the reporting chain. Imperial War Museum photo CH 15176. |
 |
| Radar coverage 1939–1940. |
 |
| Chain Home: WAAF radar operator Denise Miley plotting aircraft on the CRT (cathode ray tube) of an RF7 Receiver in the Receiver Room at Bawdsey CH. Her right hand has selected the direction or height finding and her left hand is ready to register the goniometer setting to the calculator. Imperial War Museum photo CH 15332. |
RAF Bawdsey was originally an experimental system set up at Bawdsey Manor,
home of Robert Watson-Watt's radar development team. When the team was moved
away from Bawdsey, the radar station became a part of the operational Chain
Home (CH) network.
The main display is a large CRT, partially masked off by a metal box so
only the lower half of the CRT remains visible. In earlier versions a scale
running across the top of the opening allowed the range to the target to be
measured. In this later version, a knob is used to move a cursor line across
the screen to lie over a selected return. The cursor is driven by the same
timing electronics as the rest of the radar, ensuring it is properly calibrated
at all times.
The large knob on the left of the image is the goniometer control. Unlike
later systems, CH used separate transmitters and receivers. The transmitter
broadcast a semi-directional signal in front of the station, known as the
"line of shoot", filing space with the signal. The receiver was a
radio direction finder that searched that space for echoes. The goniometer knob
changed the directional sensitivity of the receivers, allowing the angle to the
target to be determined. This was a trial-and-error process of hunting for the
maximum (or minimum) return in a noisy signal. Like most RDF systems, the
antennas were equally sensitive in two directions; the small push-button to the
upper left of the knob, the "sense button", mutes down one of these
directions to determine which one is correct. This button is not visible in the
cropped but higher quality version of the image seen here, it can be selected
below.
A series of switches near Miley's right hand are used to select among
several antennas on the receiver masts. Selecting a pair of these allows the
goniometer to determine vertical angles instead of horizontal azimuth. With
some calculation effort, this could be used to determine altitude. Additional
crewmembers known as "plotters", normally located behind the
operator, were sent a stream of angle and range information and had to
calculate the map location of the targets being measured. These were then
reported up the Dowding system's telephone network to Fighter Command
headquarters in London. Due to the noise caused by the different plotters
calling out calculations to each other, the radar operator was connected to the
main plotter via the intercom Miley wears around her neck.
This version, from later in the war, has been equipped with sensors to
automate the plotting of the aircraft. One of these sensors can be seen
attached to the goniometer control, the box-like object to the right of Miley's
left hand. After measuring an angle with the goniometer and setting the cursor
to measure the range of the selected "blip", the button under Miley's
left hand was pressed to send these settings to a mechanical computer known as
the "fruit machine". It carried out all of these calculations
internally and then directly output the map location and altitude of the
targets. This greatly reduced workload and allowed the stations to have smaller
crews.
The metal box covering the CRT is also a later addition, a simple
anti-jamming system. The Germans could jam the CH stations by broadcasting
false echoes when they received a pulse from the CH station. These false
signals were only partially synchronized, deliberately, so they jumped around
the display and cluttered it up. The CRT was originally supplied with a
fast-acting phosphor of a light blue color, but was later modified by placing a
second layer of slower-acting, less-sensitive yellow phosphor on top. Signals
that stayed in the same location long enough would cause the yellow layer to
begin glowing in that location. When encountering jamming, the operator would
pull the small metal tabs on the left side of the metal cover to move a
yellow-coloured gel in front of the tube, filtering out the now noisy blue
layer and leaving only the stable (but slower reacting) yellow signals visible.
The marks on the metal cover suggest it has been used as an impromptu
chalkboard.
In this example, the radar
receiver system and display are co-located. In later setups, the display was
removed from the receiver and placed beside the plotting boards. This provided
a much more compact layout and allowed the plotters to see the display
directly. Although it cannot be seen in this photo, the shaft from the
goniometer runs out the bottom of the display cabinet and into the receiver
chassis, and can be seen to be at a slightly different angle than the display
itself. The later systems combined this into a single cabinet.
 |
| Chain Home: Flight Officer P M Wright supervises (right) as Sergeant K F Sperrin and WAAF operators Joan Lancaster, Elaine Miley, Gwen Arnold and Joyce Hollyoak work on the plotting map in the Receiver Room at Bawdsey CH, Suffolk. Plotting and reporting tracks was a manpower intensive operation. This image shows the receiver station at RAF Bawdsey, the home of CH development. It is commanded by Flight Officer Wright, on the phone. The radar operator is just visible in the background, just right of centre. She communicated with the plotter, in the foreground wearing headphones, via intercom so the readings could be made out even under attack. Imperial War Museum photo CH 15331. |
 |
| A Composite Radar Station for Air-surface Watching. A coastal radar station with the radar equipment and masts in the center background. In the foreground are several buildings with personnel in dark uniforms milling around outside. The sea is visible in the background to the left. Artist: William Thomas Rawlinson, 1946. Imperial War Museum photo Art.IWM ART LD 5835. |
 |
| Observer Corps spotter on the roof of a building in London. St. Paul's Cathedral is in the background (Ob-server Corps aircraft spotter on the roof of a building in London during the Battle of Britain, with St. Paul's Cathedral in the background.) National Archives and Records Administration photo cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 541899. |
 |
| Observer Corps operating the recording instrument. The Observer Corps provided vital information about incoming German raids. A chain of coastal radar stations was used to plot the raids but, in 1940, they were unable to track aircraft inland and manual tracking was needed. The Observer Corps was largely made up of volunteers, who mostly trained themselves in aircraft recognition and how to estimate their height. When the war broke out, there were 30,000 observers and 1,000 observation posts, which were manned continuously. Their information was sent first to an Observer Corps Centre, and then on to Group and Sector Station Operations Rooms. The system worked well in good weather but the observers struggled in rain or low cloud. Imperial War Museum photo CH 1273. |
 |
| Observers P.C. Austin and E.C. Smith track incoming enemy aircraft. Imperial War Museum photo CH 8215. |
 |
| WAAF telephone operators in the Sector 'G' Operations Room at RAF Duxford, receiving reports of enemy aircraft plots from Observer Corps posts, September 1940. Imperial War Museum photo CH 1404. |
 |
| Interior of the Sector 'G' Operations Room at Duxford, September 1940. The call signs of fighter squadrons controlled by this sector can be seen on the wall behind the operator sitting third from left. The fighter controller is sitting fifth from the left, and on the extreme right, behind the Army liaison officer, are the R/T operators in direct touch with the aircraft. Imperial War Museum photo CH 1401. |
 |
| Speed was crucial. Information gathered by radar and the Observer Corps went to RAF Fighter Command Headquarters at Bentley Priory in North London. They checked the information, and circulated this by phone to RAF Groups across the country. Each Group controlled the RAF aircraft, anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, and barrage balloons in their areas. Every action was plotted on a large map. Known as the ‘Dowding System’, it was the world’s most advanced air defense network. Imperial War Museum photo CH 11756. |
 |
| Three WAAF Teleprinter Operators were awarded the Military Medal for gallantry after they stayed at their posts during a heavy air raid on Biggin Hill on 1 September 1940. L-R Sergeant Joan Mortimer, Corporal (now Acting Section Officer) Elspeth Henderson and Sergeant Helen Turner. Elspeth Henderson was promoted to Corporal in June 1940 and commissioned as an Acting Section Officer in October 1940. The awarding of the Military Medal to all three women was announced in the Air Ministry Bulletin dated 31 October 1940 and this picture was taken after that. |
 |
| An anti-aircraft battery set in countryside with searchlight beams crossing the sky and attendant soldiers. Artist: C.R.W. Nevinson. 1940. Imperial War Museum photo Art.IWM ART LD 14. |
 |
| Queen Elizabeth did not have far to go, to find an anti-aircraft unit ready to turn on the heat for German raiders. This Scottish unit visited by her majesty was in one of London’s Parks, August 7, 1940. |
 |
| Three anti-aircraft guns flash in the dark in London, on September 20, 1940, throwing shells at raiding German planes. Shells in stacked rows behind the guns leap about as the concussions from the firing loosen them. |
 |
| Gunners of 177 Heavy Battery, Royal Artillery, man an anti-aircraft Lewis gun at Fort Crosby near Liverpool, England, 1 August 1940. This operation formed part of British preparations to repel the threatened German invasion of 1940. The Army’s Anti-Aircraft (AA) Command operated searchlights and anti-aircraft guns against incoming German raids. AA Command was a crucial part of the Dowding System and was in constant contact with the RAF. Anti- aircraft guns shot down approximately 300 Luftwaffe aircraft during the Battle of Britain. Searchlights were mainly used to help anti-aircraft guns take accurate aim at night but they could also be used to help damaged bombers navigate in the dark on their return. On hearing a code word, every searchlight near a damaged aircraft shone its beam vertically and then horizontally towards the nearest airfield to guide the bomber safely to land. It’s estimated that 3,000 aircraft were helped in this way. Imperial War Museum photo H 2695. |
 |
| Gunners of ‘G’ Battery (Mercer’s Troop), Royal Horse Artillery, man a Lewis gun in a sandbagged revetment, 29 October 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 5113. |
 |
| Workmen fit a set of paraboloids in a sound detector for use by anti-aircraft batteries guarding England, in a factory somewhere in England, on July 30, 1940. |
 |
| The Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF): Aircraftwomen learning how to handle a barrage balloon at the training station at Cardington. |
 |
| Artist: Andrew Johnson. Printer: Fosh and Cross Ltd, London. Publisher: ARP / Auxiliary Fire Service / Her Majesty's Stationery Office. Imperial War Museum photo Art.IWM PST 13879. |
 |
| Three young Air Raid Precautions (ARP) Wardens read or write, as they wait for a call out. All are wearing their steel helmets and a row of gas masks can be seen on a shelf in the background. Imperial War Museum photo D 1624. |
 |
| A Morrison shelter set up in a dining room, 1941, showing how such a shelter could be used as a table during the day and as a bed at night. The table cloth is partly pulled back to reveal the sleeping area. Imperial War Museum photo D 2053. |
 |
| London Gazette, 20 December 1940: 'Corporal Josephine Maude Gwynne Robins was in a dug-out which received a direct hit during an intense enemy bombing raid. A number of men were killed and two seriously injured. Though dust and fumes filled the shelter, Corporal Robins immediately went to the assistance of the wounded and rendered first aid. While they were being removed from the demolished dug-out, she fetched a stretcher and stayed with the wounded until they were evacuated. She displayed courage and coolness of a very high order in a position of extreme danger.' Artist: Laura Knight, 1941. Imperial War Museum photo Art.IWM ART LD 1467. |
 |
| German planes incessantly bombed airfields and factories on the English Coast during the Battle of Britain. |
 |
| The Duxford station adjutant and his assistants, September 1940. Imperial War Museum photo CH 1387. |
 |
| Interior of the orderly room at RAF Duxford in Cambridgeshire, with RAF, WAAF and civilian clerks at work, September 1940. Imperial War Museum photo CH 1388. |
 |
| The effects of a large concentrated attack by the German Luftwaffe, on London dock and industry districts, on September 7, 1940. Factories and storehouses were seriously damaged; the mills at the Victoria Docks (below at left) show damage wrought by fire. |
 |
| The biggest shipping center for London’s food supplies, Tilbury, had been the target of numerous German air attacks. Bombs dropping on the port of Tilbury, on October 4, 1940. The first group of bombs will hit the ships lying in the Thames, the second will strike the docks. |
 |
| Night time scene showing a bombed building on fire in London during the Blitz, 1940. Imperial War Museum photo HU 67287. |
 |
| The scene over London after heavy German air raids during the Battle of Britain. |
 |
| A huge area of debris in London after heavy German air raids during the Battle of Britain. |
 |
| Fireboats battle flames after a German air raid. |
 |
| Members of the London Fire Brigade train their hoses on burning buildings in Queen Victoria Street, EC4, after the last and heaviest major raid mounted on the capital during the 'Blitz', 11 May 1941. For six hours on the night of 10-11 May 1941, aircraft of the Luftwaffe dropped over 1,000 tons of bombs on London, claiming 1,486 lives, destroying 11,000 houses and damaging some of the most important historical buildings, including the Houses of Parliament, the British Museum and St James Palace. The low tide and more than 40 fractured mains deprived the firefighters of water and many of the 2,000 fires blazed out of control. Imperial War Museum photo HU 1129. |
 |
| Members of a gas company repair squad assess the damage to pipes in a large hole in the ground in a London street, following an air raid. Imperial War Museum photo D 1470. |
 |
| MTC Girls for America: Women of the Mechanised Transport Corps at work, London, England, 1940. Miss Winifred Ashford and Mrs Pat Macleod enjoy a cup of tea beside their mobile canteen amongst rubble and other debris. In the background, St. James's Church, Paddington, can be seen. The spire of the church is shrouded in scaffolding, as it was badly damaged in an air raid. Imperial War Museum photo D 2538. |
 |
| Auxiliary Firemen Richard Southern and R H Betts stand amidst smoke as they aim their hose at a fire just off camera. To the right of the photograph, Auxiliary Fireman Matvyn Wright can be seen. Behind them, another fireman, possibly Robert Coram, is also just visible. Imperial War Museum photo D 2649. |
 |
| On 8 September 1940, the day after the Luftwaffe's first major raid on London, Prime Minister Winston Churchill visits the bomb-damaged East End. In a later speech, he would remark 'What a triumph the life of these battered cities is, over the worst that fire and bomb can do!' Imperial War Museum photo H 3978. |
 |
| Eileen Dunne, aged three, sits in bed with her doll at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, after being injured during an air raid on London in September 1940. Imperial War Museum photo MH 26395. |
 |
| A semi-detached house which became suddenly detached when a German bomb scored a direct hit on its partner on the eastern outskirts of London. Imperial War Museum photo HU 86166. |
 |
| 1940s Cecil Beaton print of bomb damage to HMV (His Master's Voice) Gramophone Shop, Oxford Street, London, 1940. The shop had been opened by Sir Edward Elgar in 1921. Imperial War Museum photo HU 112276. |
 |
| Londoners sleep on the escalators while taking shelter overnight from German air raids in a underground station. Imperial War Museum photo HU 287. |
 |
| Men and women shop at a stall and in corrugated iron sheds which have been erected in place of shops that were destroyed during an air raid. Amid the rubble, signs advertising the new locations of various shops state that B J Woodrow, Chemist and Arnold's Seeds have moved to Market Avenue and Saltash Street respectively. Imperial War Museum photo D 16663. |
 |
| A man sleeping in a stone sarcophagus in an East London church in November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 1511. |
 |
| A young boy places a Union flag into the remains of his home, which was destroyed in an air raid on London in 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 1303. |
 |
| The headlamps of cars streak through the darkness as they travel around Piccadilly Circus in London, 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 712. |
 |
| Looking across Tower Bridge at night in 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 709. |
 |
| Trafalgar Square at night looking towards the National Gallery and St Martin's-in-the-Fields, 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 706. |
 |
| Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London. with its plinth covered with wartime posters advertising Defence Bonds in 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 702. |
 |
| Looking across Tower Bridge through the traces of car headlights, 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 715. |
 |
| Nighttime view of the Houses of Parliament, Westminster, London in 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 717. |
 |
| Christ Church, Spitalfields: A group of women occupy themselves by reading and knitting in the East End shelter. Imperial War Museum photo D 1510. |
 |
| Liverpool Street Underground Station Shelter: A family sleeps in the underground tunnel; even the girl's doll has its own improvised bed. Imperial War Museum photo D 1582. |
 |
| West End Book Business Basement Shelter, Bloomsbury: A row of people, their faces hidden by the wooden shelving, sleep in the book business basement. Imperial War Museum photo D 1523. |
 |
| Liverpool Street Underground Station Shelter: A group of sleeping children bedded down for the night in the station tunnel. Imperial War Museum photo D 1578. |
 |
| An Elephant and Castle platform crowded with shelterers, some resting against the stationary London Transport train, 11 November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 1570. |
 |
| Mannequins litter the pavement outside the John Lewis department store on London’s Oxford Street after an air raid in September 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 1091. |
 |
| Volunteers prepare to distribute tea to people taking shelter in North London. Imperial War Museum photo D 1435. |
 |
| Local boys play a game of cards in an air raid shelter in southeast London in November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 1619. |
 |
| A woman sleeps on a bed made on top of a row of barrels in the cellar of a wine merchant’s in East London in 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 1507. |
 |
| Civilians take shelter in Elephant and Castle Underground Station in south London during an air raid in November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 1568. |
 |
| Damage to St Paul's Cathedral. A bomb hit the north transept, crashed through the floor and exploded into the crypt. Imperial War Museum photo PL 4864A. |
 |
| Londoners sheltering from an air-raid on the stairs between escalators at Bounds Green underground station, 11 October 1940. |
 |
| Londoners regularly retreated to the safety of underground stations, and slept all night when necessary. |
 |
| As well as working in a factory and being a member of the Air Training Corps, 19 year old George Metcalfe also spends time as a fire watcher. He is on duty once every ten days, and can be seen here in tin hat and 'Fire Guard' brassard patrolling his 'beat' around Norwood, London. Imperial War Museum photo D 17934. |
 |
| Bomb damage in Kensington. |
 |
| Civilians take refuge in a London subway during an air raid. |
 |
| The Church of Saint Mary Le Bow in London after a night raid by German bombers. |
 |
| Morning: a sentry fire pump soaks down the still-smoldering London rubble. |
 |
| At 8.02pm on 14th October 1940 a 1400kg semi-armor piercing bomb dropped on Balham Underground Station, causing the massive crater shown here. The bomb exploded 32 feet underground above the passageway which joined the two platforms. A number 88 bus, traveling in the black out, drove straight into the crater. About 600 people were sheltering in the station when the bomb exploded. Water, gas and sewage mains were all ruptured and many people drowned as the station flooded. 68 people were killed. Imperial War Museum photo HU 130320. |
 |
| Another view of the double-decker bus in a bomb crater as seen in the two previous photos, Balham Road, south London, September 1940. |
 |
| Another view of the double-decker bus in a bomb crater as seen in the previous photo, Balham Road, south London, September 1940. |
 |
| Another view of the double-decker bus in a bomb crater as seen in the two previous photos, Balham Road, south London, September 1940. |
 |
| Another view of the same bus in a crater in Balham Road, south London, after a bombing raid. Imperial War Museum photo HU 36188. |
 |
| Another view of the same bus in a crater in Balham Road, south London, after a bombing raid. Imperial War Museum photo HU 128856. |
 |
| The debris of St. Thomas's Hospital, London, the morning after receiving a direct hit during the Blitz, in front of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. 1940. The “Blitz” was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged, and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, half of them in London. |
 |
| People sheltering in a tube train and on the platform at Piccadilly Tube Station, London, during an air raid. 1940. |
 |
| A milkman delivering milk in a London street devastated during a German bombing raid. Firemen are dampening down the ruins behind him. 1940. |
 |
| A scene in central London, the morning after a bomb raid. 1940. |
 |
| A fireman attempts to check the flames from a gas explosion, after an air raid in Central London the previous night. 1940. |
 |
| A view of devastation around St Paul's Cathedral in the City. Circa 1940. |
 |
| A homeless boy points out his bedroom to his friends, after his home had been wrecked during a random bombing raid in an eastern suburb of London. 1940. |
 |
| East Londoners are made homeless during German air raids on London. Circa 1940. |
 |
| View of St. Paul’s Cathedral during the Blitz. |
 |
| English children in a trench during an air attack. |
 |
| A London building set ablaze by heavy German air raid attacks. |
 |
| Fires set by bursting German bombs lit up the docks along the River Thames in London, on September 7, 1940, and brought into vivid relief the merchant ships lying alongside the many docks which line London’s busy port. British sources said the bombing that night was the heaviest of the war to date. |
 |
| These London schoolchildren are in the midst of an air raid drill ordered by the London Board of Education as a precaution in case an air raid comes too fast to give the youngsters a chance to leave the building for special shelters, on July 20, 1940. They were ordered to go to the middle of the room, away from windows, and hold their hands over the backs of their necks. |
 |
| View along the River Thames in London towards smoke rising from the London docks after an air raid during the Blitz. September 7, 1940. National Archives and Records Administration photo cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 541917. |
 |
| Members of the London Auxiliary Firefighting Service. Over 500 firemen and members of the London Auxiliary Fire Fighting Services, including many women, combined in a war exercise over the ground covered by Greenwich (London) Fire Station. Circa July 1939. National Archives and Records Administration photo cataloged under the National Archives Identifier (NAID) 541893. |
 |
| King George VI and Queen Elizabeth standing with workmen, while inspecting bomb damage at Buckingham Palace. Imperial War Museum photo HU 63234. |
 |
| Wartime composite photograph of St Paul's Cathedral with contrails in the sky above it, intended to portray a scene during the Battle of Britain, 1940. Imperial War Museum photo HU 54557. |
 |
| Birmingham Raid. Imperial War Museum photo ZZZ 8126C. |
 |
| One badly damaged house still stands amidst the piles of timber and rubble following an air raid on Queen's Road, Aston, Birmingham, on 11 December 1940. Imperial War Museum photo D 4130. |
 |
| Nurses leaving the wrecked nurses home of the Royal Infirmary, Cardiff, with their salvaged possessions, following German air attack. Imperial War Museum photo HU 86176. |
 |
| Damage to a tenement in the recent raid on Clydeside. 17th March 1941. Shown is Shiskine Street, Maryhill, Glasgow, destroyed by a parachute mine on the night of 14 March 1941, along with other houses in Kilmun Street. Imperial War Museum photo PL 3119A. |
 |
| Bomb damage in the center of Coventry after the devastating German air raid on the night of 14 November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 5600. |
 |
| A wrecked bus stands among a scene of devastation in the center of Coventry after the major Luftwaffe air raid on the night of 14/15 November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 5593. |
 |
| The 14th-century cathedral and surrounding buildings lie in ruins in Coventry, England, on 16 November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 5597. |
 |
| Troops march through the center of devastated Coventry on 16 November 1940. The cathedral can be seen in the background. Much of the city was destroyed during the severe German air raids on the night of 14-15 November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 5602. |
 |
| A member of the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps shovels the debris of ruined buildings in the center of Coventry two days after the severe German air raids on the city on the night of 14-15 November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 5596. |
 |
| Men from the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps clear debris in Coventry two days after the severe German air raids on the night of 14-15 November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 5594. |
 |
| The smoking ruins of buildings two days after they were destroyed by the severe German air raids on the night of 14-15 November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 5595. |
 |
| The remains of Coventry Cathedral following the devastating German air raids on the city on the night of 14-15 November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 5604. |
 |
| Soldiers march past the ruins of buildings on Broadgate, Coventry, on 16 November 1940. The Owen Owen department store can be seen in the distance. Much of the city was destroyed during the severe German air raids on the night of 14-15 November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 5599. |
 |
| A Union Flag hangs defiantly from a building in the aftermath of the air raid which devastated the center of Coventry on the night of 14/15 November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 5598. |
 |
| The ruins of Coventry Cathedral two days after the air raid on the city in November 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 5603. |
 |
| Out of the ashes: the ruins of Earl Street in Coventry following the Blitz in November 1940. |
 |
| British Oil and Cake Mills on fire at Hull Docks after an air raid. Imperial War Museum photo HU 36199. |
 |
| Troops of 9th Battalion, The Hampshire Regiment, clear bomb damage in Hull sustained during the Blitz. Imperial War Museum photo H 11954. |
 |
| Buildings burning in Manchester after a German air raid on the night of 23 December 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 6318. |
 |
| Buildings surrounding a bus station in Manchester burning after a German air raid on the night of 23 December 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 6322. |
 |
| Buildings burning in Manchester during a German air raid on the night of 3 December 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 6325. |
 |
| Buildings in Manchester burn after an air raid on the night of 23 December 1940. Imperial War Museum photo H 6319. |
 |
| An Anderson shelter standing intact amid a scene of debris in Norwich. Imperial War Museum photo HU 36196. |
 |
| A great column of smoke billowing upward from a fire started at Plymouth, South West England, in November 1940, as a result of heavy enemy bombardment. |
 |
| Free French sailors help salvage belongings and clear up amid the wreckage of a blitzed building in Portsmouth on 14 January 1941. Imperial War Museum photo HU 55590. |
 |
| Damage in Fitzalan Square, Sheffield, after the first air raid on the city. Photo shows: People looking at the bomb damaged buildings and wrecked trams. Imperial War Museum photo HU 36207. |
 |
| The interior of Leicester Square underground station with figures lying asleep on the floor of the station platform. There is a large man sitting smoking a pipe in the foreground, and several ARP wardens wearing helmets standing further down the platform. Feliks Topolski, October 1940, War Artists Advisory Committee commission. Imperial War Museum photo Art.IWM ART LD 672. |
 |
| Lower High Street, Southampton after the air raids of 30 November and 1 December 1940. Imperial War Museum photo ZZZ 8205C. |
 |
| Firefighters of Yarmouth, England, battle the flames that followed a German bombing raid in April 1941. |
 |
| War poster entitled 'Back Them Up!' produced by the British Government during the Second World War. Posters such as these were used to promote and maintain morale among the civilian population, especially in times of crisis such as during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. |
 |
| Although the poster, with its famous quotation of Winston Churchill, was a tribute to the fighter pilots of the Battle of Britain, the airmen featured actually belonged to a bomber crew. The pilots were, from left to right, Sgt 'Dinty' Moore, Sgt Peter Elliot, Sgt Rawles, Sgt Harold Stone (DFM) and Sgt James Craig. However, by picturing these sergeant-pilots, as opposed to commissioned officers, the message of the poster was clear; the victory of 1940 was one won through the efforts and sacrifices of the Royal Air Force as a whole. Imperial War Museum photo Art.IWM PST 8774. |
 |
| Eckersley, Tom (Undefined); Lombers, Eric (Undefined); Loxley Brothers Ltd., London & Sheffield (printer); National Safety First Association (Inc.), London (publisher/sponsor); The Industrial Welfare Society (Inc.), London (publisher/sponsor), 1939. Imperial War Museum photo Art.IWM PST 3619. |
 |
| Wait! Count 15 slowly before moving in the Blackout. Issued by the National 'Safety First' Association (Inc.), Terminal House, 52, Grosvenor Gardens, London, S.W.1 BLC/9. Printed by Loxley Brothers, Ltd. Imperial War Museum photo Art.IWM PST 0096. |
 |
| Air Raid Wardens WANTED - AND THEY ARE WANTED - NOW - GET INTO TOUCH WITH YOUR LOCAL COUNCIL. Artist: Cecil Walter Bacon, 1939. Printed for H.M. Stationery Office by Fosh and Cross Ltd., London (51/4919) A.R.P. 88, 1939. Imperial War Museum photo Art.IWM PST 13849. |
 |
| Food Flying Squad. Imperial War Museum photo HU 105015. |
 |
| Food Flying Squad. Imperial War Museum photo HU 105013. |
 |
| USA Allied Relief Fund mobile canteen feeds bombed out people. Imperial War Museum photo HU 105016. |
 |
| A woman warden looks after a cart horse which has been taken out of the shafts during the air raid warning. London, 30 August 1940. Imperial War Museum photo HU 128848. |
 |
| A lucky cat who, thanks to his nine lives, lived quite unharmed through severe dockland raids, is rescued from a damaged building today, 8 September 1940. Imperial War Museum photo HU 128843. |
 |
| Canine treatment by candle light. When the candle light failed at the Dumb Friends League depot, first aid was still given to this dog who had suffered from air raids, 16 December 1940. Imperial War Museum photo HU 128849. |
 |
| Apart from his more urgent jobs, rescuing pets is one of his many duties which the ARP Warden has imposed on himself. This cat was saved from a bombed house in East London this morning, 21 September 1940. Imperial War Museum photo HU 128844. |
 |
| Caring for animal bomb victims. Great work is being done by the National ARP animals committee for animals who have been injured or rendered homeless by enemy action. Animals and birds which are rescued by members of the NARPAC from bombed homes and are cared for until their owners are found or they have recovered from their injuries. Imperial War Museum photo HU 128850. |
