With Wings Like Eagles (24 page)

A few of the British fighter pilots had been scrambled in pursuit of the German reconnaissance aircraft, one of which was shot down, but most of them passed an uneventful morning, and were beginning to hope there was a chance for a peaceful lunch. By noon, however, British radar operators were becoming aware that something big was happening, and by twelve-forty-five they were reporting to Fighter Command that at least six major concentrations of enemy aircraft were forming up over France and heading for the coast, estimating the total number at 350. This was about 100 more than the Germans were actually sending—108 bombers and 150 fighters—but radar was still undependable at estimating enemy numbers. Either way it was enough to start Air Vice-Marshal Park getting his fighter squadrons into the air.

On the German side, however, the problem of organizing a complex, multilayered attack on two targets, to be carried out at very different altitudes, and composed of aircraft flying at different speeds and gathered from more than a dozen airfields, was proving to be a more difficult task than anybody had anticipated. Despite the generally good weather there were clouds over the Calais area from about 6,000 to 10,000 feet, so inevitably some of the bomber formations missed each other and their fighter escorts were unable to find them. The attack was a brilliant piece of planning, but it depended on the perfect synchronization of its various elements, and this is hard to achieve in the air. Sixty of the German fighters were supposed to sweep over southern England from Dover to Kenley and Biggin Hill, a distance of about forty miles, and engage British fighters before the bomber formations appeared, while the remainder stuck close to the bombers to protect them. RAF Kenley was supposed to receive first a concentrated, precision dive-bombing attack on its vital buildings; then, immediately afterward, a conventional high-altitude bombing attack to destroy the runways; finally, as the coup de grâce, a daring and unexpected rooftop-level attack to destroy anything that remained undamaged. This whole rapid and carefully choreographed succession of separate attacks would be over in ten minutes, and was intended to leave Kenley a smoldering ruin. In the meantime, the force of sixty He 111s would attack Biggin Hill from a high altitude, putting it out of action, while the speed of the combined attacks, the fact that they were aimed at two separate targets, and the sheer number of German fighters overhead would overcome or distract the British fighter squadrons. On paper it seemed like a sure thing.

That it was not was shortly made apparent by the appearance of no fewer than nine squadrons of Spitfires and Hurricanes, nearly 100 British fighters—almost half Dowding’s total force, if you believed Beppo Schmidt’s numbers, as Göring evidently did. Park prudently kept half of them to the northeast of Kenley and Biggin Hill, to cover the Thames and Dover. Although the Germans had no way of knowing it, Park also had three more squadrons in reserve at RAF Tangmere and six more he could draw on if he needed them. Further evidence that the day was not going to go as smoothly as planned became rapidly obvious to the leader of the Ninth
Staeffel
of Do 17s, which had been sent on a different course from that of the main force, crossing the English coast farther east at Beachy Head to deliver the third, low-level attack on Kenley. The commander, Captain Joachim Roth, had led the aircraft in so low over the Channel that the wash of their propellers left a wake on the sea—in fact, as they approached England they were well below Beachy Head, looking
up
at the chalk cliff face, on top of which was an Observer Corps post! As it happened, a war photographer was with them, and shooting with an ordinary Leica, he was able to capture pictures of English civilians sprinting for cover in the small town of Lewes, north of Brighton, as the German planes flew over them (one man is running while carrying a shopping bag; another is looking up in amazement). The German fliers observed cyclists on the roads below them hastily abandon their bicycles and run for the nearest ditch. The startled observers on Beachy Head had been looking
down
on the German bombers, rather than up at them, and reported that they had crossed the coast at “zero altitude,” and indeed Roth maintained an altitude of about fifty feet as he followed the railway line from Southease to Blechingley, a brilliant piece of navigation, though from time to time he had to pull up a bit, to avoid hills and electricity lines. Flying a bomber at an altitude of fifty feet and a speed of 250 miles per hour requires intense concentration, so it was not until Roth passed over the village of Blechingley, less than six miles south of his target, that he became aware of what he was
not
seeing ahead of him: there was no huge column of smoke rising from the airfield.

Owing to a muddle and the scattered cloud cover over the French coast, Roth’s aircraft were the first to strike Kenley, instead of the last. Although, as the Germans had guessed, they were too low to be picked up by radar, thanks to the Observer Corps they were going to receive a warm welcome. Kenley, like all the Sector airfields, was strongly defended. Detachments of infantry were present at all of them—in the event of an invasion, it was recognized by everybody except Winston Churchill that RAF ground personnel would be no substitute for trained infantry—and in Kenley’s case they were from the Scots Guards, one of the five foot regiments of the Brigade of Guards, and one of the oldest and most prestigious regiments in the British Army. In addition, there were both heavy and rapid-fire antiaircraft guns (Bofors forty-millimeter quick-firing cannon), manned by the Royal Artillery; large numbers of machine guns; and the much maligned UP projectors, manned by airmen. Despite the short warning period, Kenley, Biggin Hill, and Croydon had all scrambled their remaining fighters, and also had time to broadcast the alert, warning everybody to take cover immediately. The personnel in the Kenley operations room, men and women, having donned their steel helmets, stayed at their posts, however, and watched as the plotters moved the air-raid markers across the map until they converged on their own airfield, then braced themselves for the bombs they knew were coming.

Roth’s low-level attack destroyed three hangars and many other buildings, and briefly severed the electricity cable to the operations room, but at a terrific cost to his own unit—he would lose almost half his aircraft, and he himself would be taken prisoner, after being badly burned along with his pilot, crash-landing in a field close to Kenley. Ironically, the UP projectiles helped bring Roth down—his pilot was so startled by the long rows of bright orange flashes ahead of him as the rockets were launched at the northwestern end of the airfield that he pulled the aircraft up to clear them, giving the Bofors gunners a perfect chance to hit him as he climbed. Another German bomber banked sharply to avoid whatever was ahead, with the result that one of the suspended wires snagged a wing, then slid off without the parachute opening, puzzling the crew. A third UP did exactly what it was supposed to do and pulled a Dornier out of the sky, bringing it down on a nearby house with an explosion that killed everyone on board, including a full colonel who had been flying as an observer. The UP had created consternation in the air and on the ground—to the German pilots it looked as if they were flying into an inexplicable, lavish daytime fireworks display; but to the British airmen, gunners, and infantrymen on the ground the sight of what seemed like a cloud of white parachutes in the sky led to the conclusion that German paratroopers were landing in what must be the first act of the invasion. One consequence was that throughout the day RAF fighter pilots who were shot down and landed by parachute found themselves being held at gunpoint by the Home Guard or by a farmer armed with a shotgun. Usually, a burst of angry swearing was sufficient proof of British identity, but this did not help Poles, Czechs, or, in one case, an enraged New Zealander.

The low-level raid was over in a couple of minutes. Ironically,
Hauptmann
Roth, his hands and face badly burned, and his pilot were brought to RAF Kenley as prisoners just in time to be bombed by what should have been the first wave of the attack. One WAAF described the scene as she took cover: “Beyond our trench—perhaps 50 yards away—the hangars were ablaze; everything seemed to be burning fiercely in a pall of black smoke blowing across to the right.” For a moment, the only noise heard was the crackling of burning hangars and the occasional explosion of an oxygen cylinder; then the antiaircraft guns opened up again as the twenty-seven Dorniers of the high-altitude force and their fighter escorts appeared over the airfield, subjecting Kenley—and the surrounding villages—to a heavy pasting. The Ju 88 twin-engine dive-bombers, which should have been the first to attack Kenley, did not turn up until the airfield, seen from the sky, seemed to have been demolished, and therefore flew on to their alternative target, at RAF West Malling. The entire attack had taken a grand total of eight minutes, and with the hangars and buildings on fire, the runways pockmarked with bomb craters, and so many fire engines responding to the blazing RAF station and the homes nearby hit by stray bombs that the surrounding roads were blocked, the Germans concluded they had succeeded, albeit with heavy losses. In fact, Kenley would be ready for action again in two hours—the operations room was moved to the vacant butcher shop, a runway was marked out that avoided the bomb craters, and the fires were brought under control. Twelve airmen had been killed, and there were many RAF and army personnel and civilian wounded, but at the end of the day Kenley was still usable.

The high-altitude bombing of Biggin Hill by sixty He 111s was more conventional, but had even less effect. Most of the bombs missed the airfield, and exploded harmlessly in the woods and fields. From the air, the smoke and dust made it look to German aircrew as if the airfield was destroyed, but on the ground the RAF personnel and soldiers moved quickly to make the airfield usable as soon as the bombers had left. Perhaps the most memorable moment of the raid on Biggin Hill was the defusing of an unexploded German bomb by a WAAF sergeant, who would become the second airwoman in the Battle of Britain to be awarded the Military Medal for courage in action. (Another WAAF and two Wrens—members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service—would win awards for courage under fire on August 18, as did one army lieutenant and five NCOs and soldiers. It was a day when the ground personnel, men and women, acted with the same heroism as the fighter pilots.) As the Germans streamed back across Kent and Sussex toward the Channel, they were fiercely attacked by British fighters, and losses on both sides were high.

The day was not yet over—in fact, it had hardly begun. The aircraft of
Luftflotte
2 had scarcely landed back at their bases (the survivors of the ill-fated low-level attack on Kenley were disbelieved and ridiculed when they described the mysterious fireworks display and the tangle of cables into which they had flown) when those of Field Marshal Sperrle’s
Luftflotte
3 took off from their bases west of the Seine to attack Gosport, Ford, and Thorney Island, all clustered around Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.

This was the largest concentration of Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers ever assembled for a single raid on Britain, and it was protected by no fewer than 157 fighters. The ambitious attack had several flaws, however. First, the Stukas had already demonstrated that they were sitting ducks for British fighters. Secondly, although the attack might have contributed to overwhelming No. 11 Group by sheer numbers had it been made at the same time as the attacks on Kenley and Biggin Hill, it would actually begin more than half an hour later. Consequently, Park had a slim opportunity (or as we would now say, a window of opportunity) in which to get his squadrons refueled and rearmed, while sending up whatever he had left to meet the new threat. Third, thanks to another failure of German intelligence, none of the three airfields being attacked was used by Fighter Command. Gosport and Thorney Island were both naval airfields (Thorney Island’s official name was HMS
Peregrine
, since all permanent shore bases belonging to the Royal Navy are named like ships, something which Beppo Schmidt’s staff could have discovered by looking at an AA road map); and RAF Ford was a Coastal Command airfield. All three targets were also well defended, and very close to RAF Tangmere and several other Fighter Command airfields. A look at the map should have warned Sperrle and his bomber commander, Major General Baron Wolfram von Richthofen (a cousin of the famous Red Baron of World War I), that Fighter Command would be able to dominate the sky above the targets.

The Stukas came over in perfect, massed formation, wingtip to wingtip as if they were flying at the annual Hendon Air Show, an enormous, tightly packed display of aircraft that impressed everybody who observed it. Each Stuka carried a 500-pound bomb under the fuselage and four 110-pound bombs under the wings, a powerful bomb load for a single-engine, two-seat aircraft, and one that a good dive-bomber pilot could aim with pinpoint accuracy. Since this area was to the south of England, Park could draw on the fighters of No. 10 Group to his west when he needed them. This option had an additional advantage: there was no bad blood or friction between Park and Air Vice-Marshal Sir Christopher Brand, as there was between Park and Air Vice-Marshal Leigh-Mallory of No. 12 Group. By the time the Stukas, now joined by their fighter escort (because of their greater speed, the fighters had taken off later), were approaching the coastline, Park had nearly seventy British fighters in the air. That still left him at odds of two to one with the German fighters, but it was not an insignificant number, and the German fighter pilots were once again faced by two insoluble problems—how to protect the slow, lumbering dive-bombers at low altitude in a plane that could fly almost 150 miles per hour faster and was at its best above 20,000 feet, and how to fight a prolonged battle with one eye on the fuel gauge or the “low fuel” warning light.