Lords of the Sky: Fighter Pilots and Air Combat, From the Red Baron to the F-16 (30 page)

Though ships were attacked and some sunk, this second series of rescues brought back an additional 190,000 survivors—many of them able-bodied men who could continue fighting. The lack of an all-out effort by the Luftwaffe to prevent the escape is astounding. Again, one senses indecisiveness from Berlin and perhaps surprise from winning so quickly. Hitler basked in the glory of the French surrender, and Goering was so unconcerned that he went to Amsterdam to collect art. Dynamo and Ariel could not have been stopped, perhaps, but they certainly could’ve been more costly to the Allied forces. No doubt part of this underestimation stemmed from Hitler’s belief that with no allies left, the British would have to sue for peace. Why wouldn’t they? After all, the French had surrendered and become a puppet state, so why not Britain?

He quite obviously did not understand the English. Churchill’s stirring, defiant words, delivered to Parliament, should’ve been a warning:

“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills—we shall never surrender!”

Dissent also came from Hitler’s top military professionals, who did not want to invade. The heads of the Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine (German navy) both expressed reluctance about Operation Lion, as it was initially known. However, Hitler’s fundamental ambition was the conquest of the Soviet Union and the utter destruction of the perceived global Jewish Bolshevik threat. Without neutralizing the British, he couldn’t deal with Stalin as he wished, or Germany would have another two-front conflict. Having endured this as a combat soldier during the Great War, Hitler was aware of the peril.

Besides, most of his military was poised along the Atlantic coast, so with Goering’s unequivocal promise to sweep the skies clear, Hitler became convinced that finishing off England was expedient. There were big problems with this decision, and it caused considerable angst among the German generals. In the first place, the Wehrmacht was a land force designed around continental campaigns and had no marines, amphibious troops, or landing craft. The only specialty assault units were
Fallschirmjäger
—paratroops, and not many of them.

Also, the Luftwaffe was primarily a tactical air force built to support ground troops. There were no heavy bombers for strategic strikes, and airlift was limited by the shortage of Ju 52 transports. Hitler’s belief, then, encouraged by Goering (who should’ve known better), was that the air force would bring Britain to her knees and the bargaining table. This delusion was infectious, and by late summer of 1940 millions of heavily armed and highly motivated Germans stared expectantly across a bare 25 miles of gray water at the faint white Dover cliffs. What remained of the Allies stared back, panting and bloody.

Control of the air was everything. It was the key to the survival of Britain and Western civilization against the threat of a Nazi-dominated Europe. Without German air superiority there could be no invasion, so Britain’s hope could survive a while longer. Now, in the summer of 1940, fewer than a thousand fighter pilots stood between England and a German invasion.

They meant to prevail—or die trying.

CHAPTER 8

CLASH OF EAGLES

THE MEN FACING
each other in the air over the English Channel were very different, yet in many ways startlingly similar. The Luftwaffe certainly bears a closer look, as it produced the top 109 fighter pilots in history—all from World War II. These men accounted for a staggering 4,534 aerial victories, with 1,453 kills going to the top five alone. Erich “Bubi” Hartmann is the top-scoring ace of all time, with 352 kills over 1,404 combat missions. He survived the war and was held by the Russians for ten years before finally coming home in 1955.

As impressive as Hartmann was, the most-decorated pilot ever was Hans-Ulrich Rudel, king of close air support. Son of a Lutheran minister, Rudel was the only recipient of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds.
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Flying Stukas and Focke-Wulf 190s, Rudel survived an astonishing 2,530 combat missions while personally destroying 519 tanks, four trains, a battleship, two cruisers, and a destroyer. He accounted for 800 miscellaneous vehicles and more than 150 artillery pieces. During all this he was shot down, or forced down, on more than thirty missions and wounded five times.

So how were these men made into fighter pilots?

Once Germany began openly rearming and expanding her military, Hermann Goering set out to make his Luftwaffe the best air force in the world. Good pay and living conditions were big inducements, as were special uniforms. Before the war, he provided jobs with Lufthansa and civil aviation. Low-interest mortgages and government loans were also attractive incentives.

With fewer traditions to overcome, just as in the Great War, the Luftwaffe was relatively egalitarian. Officers were still definitely officers, but they all had a sense of belonging to a new, powerful, and elite organization. Pilots, especially
Jagdflieger
(fighter pilots), were special. The German air force was also home to the paratroopers, so these unique groups added to the attitude and mystique.

Prior to the war, new recruits endured a typical six-month basic training program focusing on time-honored military standards of discipline, marching, and rifle drill. Potential aircrew candidates were carefully selected and sent to
Flieger-Ausbildungsregiment
(aircrew development). Their performance here separated these men into potential pilots, potential aircrew, and washouts. Once war broke out, the process was combined into one basic training and screening program. This facilitated the flow of replacements and eliminated superfluous nansense such as marching in formation.

So after six to nine months of screening, the pilot candidates finally arrived at flight school.
Flugzeugführerschule
A/B was initially divided into four sections. The “A” course was contact flying; takeoffs, landings, stalls, and other basic flight procedures needed to solo a student. Following this, the A2 section was mostly classroom instruction in navigation, aerodynamics, meteorology, and all the other diverse book knowledge that pilots need. The B1 part of the course was basic flying with more powerful single-engine aircraft. Following about 150 total hours, the student was advanced to the B2 section. This section introduced aerobatics, complex navigation, and multiengine aircraft. It was here that prospective fighter pilots were identified from the remaining students.

A/B
Schule
lasted a year, and upon completion each man had at least two hundred hours of flight time and wore his
Flugzeugführerabzeichen
pilot’s badge. Those who failed the course but still had some aptitude were sent to navigator training. New pilots were then divided into single-engine or multi-engine categories. The multi-engine types, which included future Me 110 fighter pilots, were sent to C
Schule
, which added another fifty hours of Link simulators plus night and instrument flying. Dive-bomber pilots were also picked here after a grueling selection process. Anyone not picked for bombers went to the
Transportfliegerschulen
to fly cargo planes.

The very few selected to fly single-seat, single-engine aircraft went off to
Jagdfliegerschule
(JFS), fighter pilot school. A four-month course focusing on formation, air-to-air gunnery, and aerobatics, JFS was one more rite of passage. This was followed by intermediate flight school, which taught aerobatic maneuvers as they pertain to dogfighting. The instructors were combat veterans, if available, or highly experienced pilots who had been rotated back for a rest. In this fashion the latest knowledge, techniques, and tactics were passed along before the young pilot arrived at his fighter group for final polishing.

Waffensschule
, fighting school, was just that. It was specific to each fighter group and was conducted by operational flyers to make the new pilot into an effective wingman. This was also the last bit of quality control before a man could enter the rarefied world of a line fighter squadron. All told, the process took over two years and produced a well-trained, disciplined wingman who flew extremely well
and
could shoot. The Luftwaffe never lost sight of a fighter pilot’s true purpose, which was to kill.

Not so with the Royal Air Force.

During the 1920’s and 1930’s this extraordinary organization was emasculated by shortsighted politicians and budget cuts. Flying was once again a gentlemanly pursuit done in good weather with the sole aim of improving one’s formation techniques. Those who disagreed with this were quietly sidelined or politely ignored.

But by 1936 Hitler’s threat seemed real enough, so the RAF created a Volunteer Reserve. The goal of the RAFVR was to provide a pool of trained pilots who could be recalled during war. The regular RAF paid for their flight training, and in return they gave up weekends and periodic evenings for lectures.
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The pilots were all sergeants, which enabled the RAF to lower the entry requirements somewhat and pay them less. The RAFVR was intended to supplement the Auxiliary Air Force (AAF) squadrons that had been formed back in 1925.

Auxiliary squadrons were truly flying clubs, recruited by district and initially composed of men with close personal or social ties. AAF units operated more or less independently of the RAF and added their sponsoring region to their squadron identification: for example, No. 603 (County of Edinburgh) Squadron, RAF, or No. 609 (West Riding) Squadron, RAF. These pilots were all officers and typically first-rate flyers who joined for the challenge, the danger, and patriotism, usually in that order. No. 601 (County of London) consisted of wealthy young men who generally owned their own aircraft. Called the “Millionaires Squadron,” they cheerfully ignored RAF regulations that didn’t pertain to flying. Known for their sports cars, playing polo, and lining their uniforms with red silk, they, like most RAF pilots, turned into raging tigers in the air.

Twenty fighter squadrons, one-fourth of the total RAF fighter strength, were formed by the Auxiliary Air Force by the summer of 1940. Regardless of the type of squadron or rank of the man, RAF pilot wings were earned through a process similar to the Luftwaffe’s. One had to pass initial selection based on fitness and aptitude. Unavoidable military basic training followed unless the candidate was directly commissioned from a university. Basic flight training lasted seven weeks and got a “pupil pilot” to the solo stage. Advanced training followed, usually on a Tiger Moth, at a base such as Hadfield or Hartwell. After this the pilots were given a few weeks at RAF Depot Uxbridge to order uniforms and learn the etiquette required for the officers’ mess.

Don’t judge them by our mores and standards. Then as now, the military officer class was supposed to act differently and was held to other standards. In time of war they were expected to shoulder the responsibility that went with those privileges—and, if necessary, to die. The Millionaires’ Squadron is again a good example. Those young men, by virtue of education and family connections, could have comfortably sat out the war in a safe position somewhere—yet they didn’t. In fact, it wouldn’t have occurred to them to do so.

One of the Americans in 601 Squadron, Billy Fiske, was the scion of a New England banking family. At St. Moritz in 1928, he became the youngest Olympic gold medalist in history at sixteen years of age. He repeated the feat four years later in Lake Placid before eventually completing his studies at Cambridge. Marrying the Countess of Warwick in 1938, Billy Fiske had it all, yet he never hesitated to join the RAF when war threatened. Carl Davis was another such American. With degrees from Cambridge and McGill University in Montreal, he worked as a mining engineer before joining the Royal Air Force. Davis would have nine confirmed victories before being killed in a dogfight south of London in 1940.

After Uxbridge, those going to fighters would spend the next nine months accumulating another hundred flight hours. Just before the war this meant flying Hawker Hinds, perfecting aerobatics and the “Six Fighter Attacks” (see Chapter 7, p. 194) beloved by the peacetime RAF. On the whole, the prewar Royal Air Force was built around a small cadre of regular professionals and augmented by well-meaning amateurs. War, however, turns all fighting men into professionals, even if only temporarily.

TWO ASSETS, ONE
made by nature and the other by man, gave the British some desperately needed time during the summer of 1940. First was the Channel. Just as in the Great War, those 20-odd miles of water left the attackers staring impotently across at the Dover cliffs. Only now, in 1940, one could fly over the water to attack, and that was the problem. Since the Gotha strikes of 1916, the English had known that their island was vulnerable from the air. The sky, as any fighter pilot will tell you, is a big place. This is especially true when you have to find the enemy with only your eyeballs and fuel is always short. Knowing that if you miss the enemy the bombs fall on your families is a tremendous pressure. But what to do about it?