Monday 2 September
A fine warm day after early morning mists had cleared.
The Luftwaffe was off to an early start today. A large raid was plotted forming over Calais at 07.00. Five squadrons, sixty fighters were scrambled to intercept the raid and patrol 11 Group’s airfields. Having crossed the coast the raid divided, as was now common practice, and fanned out to attack Biggin Hill, Rochford, Eastchurch and North Weald. Nos. 222 and 249 Squadrons managed to break up the formation attacking North Weald and no bombs fell on the airfield. No 249 lost three aircraft in the effort. No 72 Squadron managed to intercept the Biggin Hill raid, but while fighting through the escort nine Do 17s flew in at low level and bombed the airfield causing further damage. The raids on Rochford and Eastchurch were more successful. At Rochford an ammunition dump was hit, with predictable consequences. Five aircraft were destroyed on the ground. No 603 Squadron was scrambled from Hornchurch when it looked like that airfield might be bombed. It consequently chased this raid as it retired, downing three Bf 109s.
At 12.00 another large raid of 250 bombers and fighters was plotted approaching Dover. Park ordered his fighters off earlier, in an attempt to engage the raid before it split up and made for its various targets. No 72 Squadron was the first to engage just north of Rochester. No 603 joined east of Sheerness, losing three of its fighters. The German formation managed to split into several separate raids and fighting continued over most of Kent. Nos 111 and 222 Squadrons both sustained losses, No 43 Squadron shot down two Bf 109s for the loss of three of its own. The large escort once again succeeded in keeping most of the British fighters away from the bombers. Biggin Hill, Kenley and Hornchurch were all targeted, only Hornchurch was saved by No 603 Squadron which managed to break up the bomber formation, causing them to jettison their bombs over open countryside.
We have a description of Kenley from Corporal Bob Morris, who moved to Kenley this day with No 66 Squadron.
“When we of No 66 Squadron arrived at Kenley it was an absolute shambles, there was hardly a building left standing. As we drove around the aerodrome to our assembly point, I saw a car park full of vehicles – but there was not one which hadn’t been riddled by gunfire or shrapnel. There were shelters destroyed, buildings flattened. We knew that we would be in for a hard time.”
In a few days, Park would make what some later historians have attempted to characterise as a pessimistic report about 11 Group’s infrastructure, but Kenley was not atypical of several of his airfields at this time. They were still, mostly, operating but were far from unscathed.
At 17.30 the Luftwaffe was again over Kent and 250 aircraft, at least 160 of which were fighters, were met by Nos. 46, 72, 111, 222, 501, 603 and 616 Squadrons. Detling and Eastchurch were hit again. At Eastchurch, which seems to have been one of the most frequent targets for the Luftwaffe, the bomb dump was hit and exploded, destroying almost everything in a 400 yard radius. Buildings, drainage, telephone and electricity lines and many buildings were destroyed along with five aircraft. It was the final straw for Eastchurch, which became non-operational. The bombers also reached aircraft factories. At Brooklands the Vickers works, producing Wellingtons was hit, but the Hawker factory producing Hurricanes was not, a lucky escape. Short Bros at Rochester was hit again.
At the end of the day Fighter Command had lost 14 fighters with 18 more ‘damaged but repairable’. The Luftwaffe had managed to attack seven airfields and two vital factories, for which it had lost or written off 34 aircraft (not the often reported 22) in operations against Britain with 11 more damaged. 21 of the aircraft shot down were Bf 109s, one of the worst days of the Battle for these units.
The Luftwaffe made an effort tonight, about 120 bombers attacking various targets. They followed what were becoming two established routes. Dieppe-Sussex to London and Birmingham or Cherbourg-Hampshire-Dorset-Gloucestershire and on to the Midlands and North West.
In an earlier post I mentioned Intelligence Officers having to make a report on ‘a smoking hole in the ground’. There was a case of that today.
Here an officer takes notes on the smoking hole left by Werner Kluge’s Bf 109 which dived into the ground at Streets Farm, Ulcombe, about six miles SE of Maidstone. Kluge attempted to bale out but was killed.
I’ll also post a picture of the wing of Anton Glomb’s Bf 109 which was shot down today, crashing into Cale Hill Park, Little Chart, in Kent. I've posted this to dispel another ‘myth’ of the Battle of Britain. In this context myths are sacred cows which have become reinforced by repetition, particularly on the internet, over the last thirty years or so.
The myth: Bf 109s had superior armament to the Spitfire and Hurricane because they were all cannon armed, having two MG FF 20mm cannon in the wings.
The facts: as many as 4 in 10 Bf 109s that flew in the Battle were still to E-1 standard and had two MG 17 machine guns in the wings, making a total of just four rifle calibre machine guns,
just half the weight of armament of a Spitfire or Hurricane. Clearly visible in the picture is one of the wing mounted MG 17s. Many Crashed Enemy Aircraft Reports note the armament of downed Bf 109s as four MG 17s.
Although production of the Bf 109 E-1 version was terminated in August 1940, of 323 Bf 109s delivered to the units at the English Channel as late as in September 1940, exactly 100 were the E-1 version.
For the model builders, this was a 4./JG 2 aircraft and appears to have white wing tips.