With Wings Like Eagles (19 page)

It is a measure of the wild overestimates on both sides of the battle that RAF pilots claimed seventy-eight German aircraft “destroyed,” thirty-three “probable,” and at least forty-nine “damaged” for the day. Even more wildly exaggerated claims of RAF aircraft shot down were made by the Germans, and announced triumphantly over Radio Berlin, preceded by the boastful
Luftwaffe
marching song
Bomben auf England.

Both sides suffered from the same problem—in the heat of battle, at high speeds, and flying into and out of cloud cover, British and German fighter pilots and the gunners on German bombers frequently claimed the same “kill” several times over, or counted a plane as “destroyed” when it was merely damaged, or “damaged” when in fact it was still capable of flying home. In fact one German gunner whose aircraft was badly hit, with both engines trailing smoke, took to his parachute only to see, as he descended, the smoke stop and the bomber, together with the rest of his crew, fly on and disappear into a cloud, leaving him to spend the rest of the war as a POW. Excessive and overoptimistic claims on both sides were an inescapable feature of the battle, despite the stringent standards—stricter on the German side than the British—used by intelligence officers (and deeply resented by the fighter pilots) to validate a pilot’s claim to a kill, and this would remain so until the universal introduction of the “ciné gun,” a small movie camera in the wing of a fighter that filmed the target whenever the guns were fired. Also, on both sides, it was easier to know how many planes your own side had lost than to estimate the number of the enemy that had been shot down—you only had to count the empty places at the dinner table in the mess, or the number of ground crews standing around mournfully on the tarmac waiting in vain for their aircraft to return.

Despite Fink, Göring and his commanders were jubilant. If Beppo Schmidt’s estimate that RAF Fighter Command had no more than 300 or 400 fighters left at most was correct, then they had, by their own count, destroyed between one-third and one-fourth of Fighter Command’s remaining strength in two days of combat, while rendering a major fighter factory
kaput
and putting out of action several of Fighter Command’s airfields. (In fact, Fighter Command actually had 647 serviceable aircraft at the end of the day.
¹
) All the flight commanders commented on the relatively small number of British fighters they encountered. However effective the Hurricanes and Spitfires might be—and nobody denied their effectiveness—the actual number engaged seemed comparatively modest. From the German point of view, this suggested once again that Dowding’s resources were slender after his losses in France and over Dunkirk. The attack on the 12th against the radar sites was less successful than had been hoped, to be sure, but nobody doubted that these sites would eventually be dealt with by dive-bombers, and in the meantime, a few more days like the 12th and the 13th would no doubt see Fighter Command reduced to its last reserves. It was just a question of continuing to push hard, and of course good weather. Colonel General Halder, the forbiddingly skeptical and competent chief of the army general staff in Berlin, was informed that eight RAF bases were “virtually destroyed,” and that “the ratio of German to British aircraft losses was one to three for all types, one to five for fighters.” This was tantamount to putting the army on notice that the first condition for Operation Sea Lion might be fulfilled by the
Luftwaffe
at any moment—news which Halder, who was not an enthusiast for the invasion of England, can hardly have welcomed, if he believed it.

Of course, from the viewpoint of Bentley Priory, where Dowding left his office from time to time to watch the progress of the air battles on the big board, with his usual glacial calm, the Germans’ jubilation, of which he was in any case unaware, was unfounded. He was not pleased by the loss of thirteen fighters and three pilots, and he was distressed by the damage to the Ventnor radar station, which seemed to indicate that if the Germans tried hard enough (and concentrated on one or two neighboring stations) they could blast a “hole” in Fighter Command’s radar coverage for long enough to get a substantial number of raids through without warning. But he had been gratified by the extraordinary courage of the WAAFs at Ventnor, who had gone on working while bombs exploded all around them, eliciting from Dowding a rare personal signal to express his “satisfaction and pride in the behavior of the WAAF in the face of enemy attack.” The steady nerves of young women in uniform while being dive-bombed were not the only thing that satisfied him. Park had fed his fighter squadrons into the battle one or two at a time, just as he had been ordered, attacking in squadron strength again and again, drawing blood every time, but never giving the enemy an opportunity to guess what Fighter Command’s real strength was. More important still, what we would now call the interface between the radar stations, group operations rooms, the filter room at Fighter Command headquarters, and the individual squadrons in the air had been seamless.

The next day seemed something of an anticlimax. The weather was “Mainly cloudy with bright patches and cloud in the Channel,” which in principle was good for the attackers but posed problems for the defenders. The Germans came on and off throughout the day, in small raids spread out all over the southern part of Britain, with no plan that was clearly discernible to the British, although eleven RAF aerodromes were bombed, none of them all that seriously, except for RAF Sealand, where the sergeants’ mess was blown up. Railway lines were bombed, apparently at random, but these were quickly and easily repaired; and four RAF personnel and twelve civilians were killed on the ground. Fighter Command lost eight aircraft and had four pilots killed; the Germans lost nineteen aircraft, and the commander of KG 55, Colonel Stoeckl, was killed in action. A disproportionate amount of the German losses on the 14th, as on the preceding days, consisted of Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers. However effective they were—and in the hands of a good pilot with steady nerves the Stuka could deliver a 500-pound bomb with amazing accuracy—they were so slow as to make them sitting ducks for British fighters. This was doubly so because a Stuka pilot needed to extend the aircraft’s dive brakes to slow it down as he dived steeply (almost vertically) toward his target, and lost further speed when he climbed sharply after releasing his bomb. Already, the question was being raised whether it was worth using the four
Stukageschwader
of Air Fleets 2 and 3 over England, though they represented a substantial part of the strength of
Luftflotte
3.

Although a concentrated attack on the radar stations might have paid dividends, the Germans’ effort for the day was largely wasted in “penny packets” (a favorite phrase of General Montgomery), consisting of small raids spread out over many airfields, none of which was seriously damaged. In addition, eight barrage balloons were shot down and the Goodwin Light Vessel was sunk—hardly major targets from Fighter Command’s point of view, or challenging ones for the Germans to hit. There was only minimal raiding on the night of the 14th—the RAF described it as “very slight enemy activity”—but one He 111 bomber was shot down by antiaircraft fire near Sealand, perhaps a welcome revenge for the destruction of the sergeants’ mess.

The German attacks of the 14th, then, as opposed to those of the two preceding days, were relatively limited, but not from any lack of resolve on the part of the
Luftwaffe
. The perfect weather Göring had been waiting for was predicted for the 15th, and intense preparations were being made throughout all three
Luftflotten
for an attack that would finally deliver the coup de grâce to Fighter Command.

Throughout the battle so far, the Germans had demonstrated a considerable sense of tactics, sending out flights of Bf 109 fighters in strength across the Channel to lure British fighters away from the German bomber formations. This plan had not been successful, largely because it was exactly what Dowding expected the Germans to do, and because Park kept a tight control over the squadrons in No. 11 Group. What was intended for the 15th was something similar, but on a much larger scale. It would, in fact, be the biggest battle in the short history to date of air warfare.

What the Germans had in mind was a vast aerial equivalent of the pincer movement beloved of the German general staff, using, for the first time, the full strength of all three of the
Luftflotten
simultaneously, including General Stumpff’s
Luftflotte
5, which was based in Denmark and Norway. The idea was for
Luftflotte
5 to attack targets in northern Britain, while the two larger air fleets in France, the Netherlands, and Belgium made an all-out assault on Fighter Command’s airfields in the south, thus preventing No. 13 and No. 12 Groups from reinforcing No. 11 Group. There were flaws in this strategy, however, some of which the Germans could hardly be expected to perceive.

Contrary to what was supposed in Berlin, No. 12 Group had
not
so far been supporting No. 11 Group (No. 13 Group was too far north to do so effectively) to any significant degree; in fact, there was already bad blood between Air Vice-Marshal Park and Air Vice-Marshal Leigh-Mallory on that subject. Park, who had always disliked Leigh-Mallory, felt that the latter had been slow and unwilling to respond to calls for support from No. 11 Group—that Leigh-Mallory was, in effect, deliberately ignoring Dowding’s orders, given at Fighter Command before the battle at the meeting on July 3. He also felt that when No. 12 Group fighters
did
manage to come to his aid, they ignored the instructions of No. 11 Group’s ground controllers and wandered around in the air over Kent, getting in the way and confusing the controllers. In his own quiet way, Park fumed at Leigh-Mallory’s lack of support, while Leigh-Mallory was nothing like as anxious to send his squadrons into No. 11 Group’s area as the Germans supposed him to be.

Leigh-Mallory, for his part, resented the fact that the action and most of the glamour and awards were going to No. 11 Group, and he had come to the conclusion that Dowding’s tactics (and Park’s strict adherence to them) were in any case completely wrong. He had particularly disliked Dowding’s suggestion—which would have been better presented to him as a firm, written order—that No. 12 Group should come south to protect No. 11 Group’s airfields while No. 11 was engaged in attacking the Germans. This struck him, and his pilots, as a passive, secondary role. He also felt strongly that it would be better to attack the Germans in strength over the Channel with large numbers of aircraft—a “big wing,” as it soon became known, consisting of three to five squadrons under a single commander—rather than to chivy them over land in squadron strength. He did not keep his opinion to himself—indeed, it was quickly passed on (and even more quickly embellished) by Dowding’s numerous enemies at the Air Ministry.

Leigh-Mallory’s theory (which was the exact opposite of what Dowding was so carefully doing) would soon become known throughout Fighter Command as the “big wing controversy,” and Leigh-Mallory’s part in it was a reflection of the anger felt by his own pilots, who saw themselves as being pushed out of the limelight by No. 11 Group, and deprived of their fair share of the fighting and the glory. Admittedly, Dowding was tired and overburdened with enormous responsibilities, but he was by no means unaware of what was going on between his two most important commanders, and it is hard not to conclude that he should have taken the time to order Park and Leigh-Mallory to appear at his headquarters at once and settle their differences. Dowding’s failure to do so was the biggest mistake he made in the battle.
*

Although personality (and old, long-held grudges) played a large part in this dispute, Park’s objection to the “big wing” was based on straightforward, unemotional reason and experience: it simply took too long for that number of aircraft to form up. Each squadron climbed from its separate airfield and “sauntered” (the RAF word for flying at minimum speed) around at a given altitude and position in the sky looking for the other squadrons; then they all tried to assemble in a coherent formation, with the result that by the time they arrived where they were needed they were often too late to make a difference. The practical limitation was the amount of time it took for the radar operators to detect and track a German raid (and determine its height, its intended target, and the number of “bandits”—enemy aircraft—involved), and there was as yet no way to shorten that process. Park sent his squadrons up one by one to attack as the raid progressed; there was no time to waste forming a “big wing,” in his opinion or, more important, in Dowding’s.

The leading proponent of the “big wing” theory was Squadron Leader Douglas Bader, commanding officer of No. 242 Squadron at RAF Duxford and part of Leigh-Mallory’s No. 12 Group. Bader was perhaps the most flamboyant, determined, tough-minded, difficult, and opinionated personality in all of Fighter Command, despite many competitors, and as much admired by the
Luftwaffe
as he was in the RAF. Bader was and would remain throughout his life a legendary figure—the only pilot on either side of the Battle of Britain to have a hugely successful movie made about him (with Kenneth More playing Bader), based on Paul Brickhill’s best-selling biography of Bader,
Reach for the Sky
, which is still in print today and at one time, in an abridged version, was obligatory reading for every British schoolboy. It was as if Bader had been cast by nature for leadership as a fighter pilot in the RAF—he had a solid middle-class English background, with a family that had served for three generations in the Indian military and civil service; was an indifferent scholar; was more than a bit of a bully; and was an accomplished athlete, “full of a breezy, non-stop enthusiasm that infected everyone else…dedicated, tireless and fearless.” He was also impatient, argumentative, rebellious toward authority, a fierce boxer and a fearsome rugby player, a natural pilot, and a good shot. A cadetship at Royal Air Force College Cranwell, the RAF equivalent of the army’s Sandhurst, seemed to everybody the best thing for him, and he was graduated second in his class in 1930, with the note in his report: “Plucky, capable, headstrong.” The word that most people used to describe him, then and later, was “cocky.”