Battle of Britain diary

[stona]

Hi Laurie,
Bomber Command certainly tried, but received a bewildering number of directives from the beginning of the war until the second half of 1940, after the Fall of France.

I think the fact that between 24 June and 27 August Bomber Command dropped a total of just 3,131 short tons of bombs on all targets is telling, certainly when compared to the effort later in the war. The Command simply did not have the bomb lift capacity to seriously damage any of the targets laid out in the Directives (all of which were still based on the Western Air Plans as of September 1 1939).

An effort was made against the invasion ports in September, as well as targets in Germany.

On September 9 it was considered that German bombing of Britain had become indiscriminate, and consequently RAF crews were not required to bring their bombs back if they failed to identify their primary target. Instead, they could aim them at secondary targets, even if these were in built up areas. They were not supposed to aim them indiscriminately at a city, but of course...

At the end of October 1940, when it was clear that there would be no invasion this year, oil was restored as the first priority, followed by the German aircraft industry. Cities were advocated as secondary targets, but not formally adopted until January 1941, along with 17 specific oil targets. This was the beginning of what we now call area bombing and a reversion to the Trenchardian doctrine which had been in competition with notions of a more precise application of force since the end of the First War.

All the bombing in 1940/41 was largely ineffective. Bombers could not regularly find their targets, let alone hit them. This was finally recognised with the publication of the Butt Report in August 1941. I have a copy of the report*, which goes into all sorts of detail about bombing in various conditions and the effects of everything from 'ground features' to AA fire, but it is the summary which is most often quoted. Here are the two most important points.

1. Off those aircraft recorded as attacking the target, only one in three got within five miles.

6. All these figures relate only to aircraft recorded as attacking the target; the proportion of the total sorties which reached within five miles is less than by third. Thus, for example, of the total sorties only one in five get within five miles of the target, i.e. within the 75 square miles surrounding the target.

Emphasis in original.

*Appendix 13 of Volume IV (Annexes and Appendices) of the official history, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany 1939-1945, from p.205 in my version.

 

[Deleted member 5496]

Hi Laurie,
Bomber Command certainly tried, but received a bewildering number of directives from the beginning of the war until the second half of 1940, after the Fall of France.

I think the fact that between 24 June and 27 August Bomber Command dropped a total of just 3,131 short tons of bombs on all targets is telling, certainly when compared to the effort later in the war. The Command simply did not have the bomb lift capacity to seriously damage any of the targets laid out in the Directives (all of which were still based on the Western Air Plans as of September 1 1939).

An effort was made against the invasion ports in September, as well as targets in Germany.

On September 9 it was considered that German bombing of Britain had become indiscriminate, and consequently RAF crews were not required to bring their bombs back if they failed to identify their primary target. Instead, they could aim them at secondary targets, even if these were in built up areas. They were not supposed to aim them indiscriminately at a city, but of course...

At the end of October 1940, when it was clear that there would be no invasion this year, oil was restored as the first priority, followed by the German aircraft industry. Cities were advocated as secondary targets, but not formally adopted until January 1941, along with 17 specific oil targets. This was the beginning of what we now call area bombing and a reversion to the Trenchardian doctrine which had been in competition with notions of a more precise application of force since the end of the First War.

All the bombing in 1940/41 was largely ineffective. Bombers could not regularly find their targets, let alone hit them. This was finally recognised with the publication of the Butt Report in August 1941. I have a copy of the report*, which goes into all sorts of detail about bombing in various conditions and the effects of everything from 'ground features' to AA fire, but it is the summary which is most often quoted. Here are the two most important points.

1. Off those aircraft recorded as attacking the target, only one in three got within five miles.

6. All these figures relate only to aircraft recorded as attacking the target; the proportion of the total sorties which reached within five miles is less than by third. Thus, for example, of the total sorties only one in five get within five miles of the target, i.e. within the 75 square miles surrounding the target.

Emphasis in original.

*Appendix 13 of Volume IV (Annexes and Appendices) of the official history, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany 1939-1945, from p.205 in my version.

Yes Steve agree & add certainly most of the war bomding was inefective except the Mosquito.

Produced a film about the Mosquito. The figures I searched out what it did it's accuracies. Better if they had conce;ntrated o]n that than the Lancaster.

But then i will be shouted down but the data is there. One day i will put the film on Ytube when i get the urge.

Laurie

 

[Deleted member 5496]

Typos appearing. Weird typing with just left hand & using mouse on left hand. Brain is brainswashed for normal

 

[stona]

Tuesday 17 September

Heavy cloud and rain in the morning but clearing slightly with squally showers and bright intervals later.

Ideal weather for the defenders this morning.

At 15.00 Luftflotte 2 finally got its fighters airborne and a fighter sweep comprising the Bf 109s of JG 27, III./JG 26 and III./JG 53. The fighters came in over the Dover-Folkestone area in two waves. These were largely ignored by Park though No 501 Squadron, patrolling over Ashford, was bounced by JG 53, losing one Hurricane and Sgt Eddie Egan who was killed. Sgt Tony Pickering gave this account.

“We were flying along, just the two of us, looking out all the time for trouble, and I saw four Spitfires, or what we thought were Spitfires, behind us. We were talking to each other on the R/T, monitoring the movements of these fighters. Suddenly one of them zoomed forward, just left the others standing, shooting Eddie down. I turned towards Eddie’s assailant but the old Hurricane was just too slow. The Hun just shot Eddie down and flew off with the others, they just climbed high and left us.”

No. 607, up in two separate Flights was patrolling the Biggin Hill-Gravesend line, covering the south eastern approaches to London, when it was bounced by Bf 109s of JG 27. P/O Harry Welford was shot down, but he accounted for one of the Bf 109s.

“…an unseen 109 fired a cannon shell which hit my air intake. I did a quick flick roll which dropped me below cloud. Again no 109s about and just a lone Hurricane which guarded my tail as I force landed. The engine had seized and looking down I saw a field into which I thought I could land. As I made the approach glycol and smoke streamed from the engine and when I opened the hood the fumes were sucked into the cockpit and impaired my vision. The field was smaller than I thought but there was a wattle fence that acted as an arrester wire and the plane skidded across the second field, and was brought to an abrupt stop by a tree at the far end, making me crack my head on the reflector sight and blood poured from my face. Thinking that the plane might catch fire, I undid my belt and jumped out only to fall flat on my face because my leg, which was injured by shrapnel, collapsed on me. Two farm workers rushed over and picked me up and put me on a wattle fence telling me that there was a German plane down in the next field with the pilot in it, very dead. I regret now that I declined their offer to show me, but at the time I felt pretty dicky.”

Welford made light of his injuries and he did not return to his squadron until 20 October. He was credited with the dead German in the next field. No JG 27 loss matches this claim, in fact I can’t find any trace of this mysterious ‘dead German’.

Spitfires of No 41 Squadron were pulled into combat with Bf 109s of JG 53 over east Kent, as was the Duxford Wing. Nos 19 and 303 (Polish) Squadrons claimed successes. As JG 53 withdrew in some disarray it was attacked by a lone Hurricane near Ashford. This was flown by 501 Squadron’s Sgt James ‘Ginger’ Lacey. The Germans blocked his attack, and immediately afterwards Hauptmann Wolf-Dietrich Wilcke, commander of III./JG 53, got into position behind Lacey’s Hurricane and set it on fire. When Lacey abandoned his burning Hurricane and took to his parachute it was the third time in less than three weeks that he had been shot down. He remained on 18 victories, having failed to add to his tally. Lacey, unlike a German in a similar situation, made a prompt return to his squadron.

Uffz Karl-Heinz Bock of JG 26 suffered an engine failure and made a good landing in his 'White 2' at Broomhill Farm, East Sussex. The British recorded the werknummer of this aircraft as 6294F. The F stands for 'Flugklar' showing that this aircraft had suffered major damage at some time previously, but had been repaired and cleared for flight. Despite this it had not been upgraded from its E-1 standard, being yet another Bf 109 with armament recorded by the British in the Crashed Enemy Aircraft Report as 'Four MG17'. Again, it is not true that all Bf 109s flying in the Battle of Britain had cannon armament. I'm repeating this because I watched James Holland on television a couple of nights ago arguing that it was the cannon armament of the Bf 109 that gave it an edge over the British fighters, which begs the question, what does that make the roughly 40% of Bf 109s flying in the Battle armed with just half weight of armament of the British fighters?
For the model builders out there, a very good photograph of the cockpit interior shows it and the framing of the windscreen to be in a dark colour, presumably RLM 66 applied at the time of the repair. (The hood and rear canopy were jettisoned.)

Today the Luftwaffe had lost 5 of its aircraft with three more damaged. The RAF both lost 6 fighters withy 5 more damaged but repairable.

Also today, five copies of an order, ‘Nr 00 761/40 g. Kdos’ was sent from Hitler’s Supreme Headquarters to the High Commands of the Army, Navy and Luftwaffe. It stated that order ‘Nr 33 255/40 g. Kdos. Chefs’ of 3 September, fixing S-Day, the launching of Sealion, for 21 September was postponed until further notice.

Tonight, the Luftwaffe again made a significant effort. 268 bombers attacked London and other targets. The John Lewis department store on Oxford Street was a notable victim. Merseyside also suffered a heavy raid. British night fighters had limited success, accounting for two bombers. One was a Ju 88 of I./KG 54, shot down by Sgts Laurence and Chard flying a Defiant night fighter of No 141 Squadron, who took full advantage of the full moon. A lone German aircraft managed to hit the cruiser HMS Sussex in Glasgow’s harbour so badly that the ship burned for 23 hours and finally had to be beached.

Bomber Command mounted its biggest operation of the war so far. It dispatched 194 aircraft, two thirds of which attacked German invasion preparations in the Channel ports. An ammunition train was hit at Dunkirk causing a large explosion. Whether ‘500 tons’ of ammunition exploded, as is often claimed, is a moot point. Eighty barges were sunk or damaged.

 

[adt70hk]

Steve

Yet again thanks for this!

ATB

Andrew

 

[Tim Marlow]

Thanks yet again for this....with respect to the performance of the fighter aircraft, I thought it was the dive/zoom capability of the 109 that gave it the edge in combat? Armament in fighter v fighter combat is only really useful if you can get in position to use it ......

 

[stona]

Thanks yet again for this....with respect to the performance of the fighter aircraft, I thought it was the dive/zoom capability of the 109 that gave it the edge in combat? Armament in fighter v fighter combat is only really useful if you can get in position to use it ......

I don't think that the Bf 109 had an edge over the Spitfire or vice-versa. I think that the deciding factors were invariably the skill of the pilots and the tactical situation when the fight began. Time and again you will read accounts where formations were 'bounced' by the enemy, almost immediately losing at least one or two aircraft. Whichever side had the advantage and made the 'bounce' won.

Much is made, for example, of the ability of the Bf 109 to bunt into a dive due to its fuel injection system. It is true that if a Spitfire or Hurricane attempted this manoeuvre it would suffer a rich cut out as the engine flooded, causing the clouds of smoke and puffing and banging described by those who experienced it. However, as I once saw Bader explain, negative g is 'rather unpleasant' and causes dust dirt and 'old spanners' to fly up from beneath the pilot. Any pilot worth his salt would simply roll his aircraft inverted and pull into the dive with positive g subsequently rolling back to hopefully see the Bf 109 in front of him. The advantages of carburettors are often ignored, most obviously the increase in power afforded by the cooling of the charge introduced to the cylinders.
The Bf 109 could dive fast but there was a belief in the Luftwaffe that pulling out too hard from a fast dive could result in wing failures. The loss of Balthasar is an example often mentioned. This meant, in Bader's words, that the German pilots tended to be 'a little porky on the joystick when going very fast', allowing a well flown Spitfire to cut the corner and close up on the Bf 109.

All of this depends on pilot skill, not any intrinsic property of either aircraft which were so closely matched.

Hans Eckhardt Bob always maintained that he could out manoeuvre a Spitfire in his Bf 109, and I believe him. He was a superb pilot who could fly his machine at its limit. Many of the men he flew against were not and could not. If a Spitfire and Bf 109 are both flown to their limit, the Spitfire will always out turn the Bf 109, whatever has been written elsewhere. This is basically a matter of physics, not pilots As the man who designed the Spitfire's wing, Beverley Shenstone, explained. "Wing loading is the vital point. No matter how fast one can fly, if the wing loading is high, one is caught by the more lightly loaded aeroplane when manoeuvring." There is a reason why the short stubby wing of the Bf 109 used high lift devices (the slats).

Holland said a lot of things in that programme with which I would not agree, but this is just an indication of how strong and ingrained certain myths have become. For example, he correctly said that Goering asked his fighters to operate in a free hunting way, flying high above the bombers, making sweeps ahead of the bombers etc. but then later ordered them into close escort. It's just not true. The fighters were ordered to provide a closer escort; it happened tomorrow, eighty years ago, after the Battle was already lost, and the order was not Goering's, it was Kesselring's. Kesselring had a background in artillery, he was not a fighter pilot like Goering.

 

[Deleted member 5496]

Thanks fo the little extra on the Barges. Very interested in that aspect.

As you have poited out soe aspects of what happened are circumspect.

Just wondering if in Enemy Coast Ahead by Guy Gibson may have info. Do no have the book after disposing of my 800 colection.

 

[stona]

As you have pointed out some aspects of what happened are circumspect.

Sometimes it is just impossible to reconcile claims and losses or individual accounts, like that of the the dead German in the field with a specific person. Welford had no reason to make such a story up, and I don't doubt that he was told that the downed German was in the next field. It is almost certain that there was a downed German nearby, it's just that today, so many years later, we can't say who he was. I don't think he was from JG 27, but that's about all we can say.

I was just looking at some accounts from the fighting in a few days' time. There is a famous photograph which, almost by repetition, is captioned as a No 72 Squadron Spitfire flying over a downed Luftwaffe machine. In my humble opinion this must be a No 41 Squadron Spitfire flown by P/O George ‘Ben’ Bennions. It doesn't matter, whenever that image is reproduced in the future it will be captioned as a No 72 Squadron Spitfire

 

[Deleted member 5496]

Yes at the moment the news programmes put out some nonsense on the B o B. Plus with no explanation at all.

Dan Snow is another. One of my sons, a film editor, worked on the invasion beaches. Being my son Peter I looked at the content in detail.
So much speculation and this is then trapped in people's minds.

Hasten to add my son did an exemplary job but did not have an input on content.

On this subject way off topic we were a boating family. One trip we investigated from Cherbourg to Le Havre. Fascinating to see all the remains of the temporary harbours etc. Dived into most of the villages small towns with marinas & saw a lot of what went on. Pity Snow did not.

Look out for Peter Stewart editor supreme. had to say that Apologies.


Back to B of B & Steve..

 

[Tim Marlow]

Most written popular history tends to be synthesis work using existing secondary sources rather than original research using primary source material. This makes it very easy for populist historians to regurgitate earlier assumption gleaned from these secondary sources, when perhaps the source material wasn’t available, as fact. There is also the “Liberty Valance” effect whereby if the truth is less interesting than the legend, they print the legend. Lastly you have to take into account what the viewpoint of the Historian is, because they select the facts to support their argument. I suppose the only way around this is to read extensively around the subject and form your own opinions.

 

[Deleted member 5496]

Agree Tim.Most of the history I have gleaned is from autobiographies plus biographers (perhaps in some cases a bit snowy).

Love the autobiographies as they give a human point of view and written in the most near the event.

 

[stona]

You are right Tim.
In the case of Goering there was a concerted post war campaign to portray him as some kind of incompetent buffoon, encouraged in no small part by certain German survivors to cover up their own shortcomings.
Goering was, of course, a highly decorated WW1 pilot and consummate politician; President of the Reichstag, The real number two to Hitler, not only commanding the Luftwaffe but also in charge of the German economy, etc., etc. He was also one of the most rabid of the Nazis.
I want to be clear that I am no fan of Goering or anything he did or stood for, quite the reverse, but many of his post war portrayals do a disservice to history. Just because we don't like someone or what they stood for does not mean we should ignore them or shout them down. That is not a good way to learn the lessons of history.
At Nuremberg, Goering was the only Nazi leader to make an intelligent defence. Of course, he denied or 'justified' everything he had done, what else could he do? He did, however, make coherent arguments and raise questions about the entire process which are still discussed today. None of that makes him any less the disgusting human being he really was, but we should not ignore it.

The cannon armament question is just a case of poor research many years ago. The CEARs describing the armament of downed Bf 109s have been available for years. The German production figures, clearly showing E-1s leaving factories until the end of August have also been available. Many of the delivery figures are available, as are the recollections of men like Steinhilper which I quoted.
There was a documentary made many years ago in which no lesser luminaries than Douglas Bader and Bob Stanford-Tuck discuss the relative merits of the Spitfire and Bf 109. It's been years since I watched it, but, playing with Airfix 1/24 models they demonstrate the tactics used by the two sides. At one point Bader comments on the armament, saying that the Bf 109 had particularly powerful armament, a cannon firing through the spinner. That armament was introduced with the F series (which had just one 20mm motor cannon and two MG17 machine guns, even the Germans thought that it was under armed! A very few pre-production Bf 109 Fs may have made it into the last days of the BoB. The problem is, that when a man like Bader says something like that the vast majority of the audience, who know next to nothing about Luftwaffe aircraft (why would they?) take him at his word. Bader's faulty memory becomes the new truth.

 

[Deleted member 5496]

The problem is, that when a man like Bader says something like that the vast majority of the audience, who know next to nothing about Luftwaffe aircraft (why would they?) take him at his word. Bader's faulty memory becomes the new truth.

Phew fancy saying that Steve. Think that clears that up very succinctly. Totally agreed.

I certainly would not have wanted to be in his Squadron. Would not have minded being in with the Poles ---- as a tail ender.

 

[stillp]

Bader's faulty memory becomes the new truth.

A couple of thoughts on this. It seems only human nature to exaggerate the armament of the opposition, thereby a)having a good excuse for being shot down (if you lost), and b)enhancing your own skill and daring (if you won! Also when Bader, Gibson, Brickhill et al were writing soon after the events, they didn't necessarily have access to the amount of data (e.g. Luftwaffe records) that more modern researchers have at their disposal but had to rely on the claims made at the time. They were also subject to the Official Secrets Act which constrained what they could write, very obvious in Gibson's Enemy Coast Ahead.
Pete

 

[stona]

A couple of thoughts on this. It seems only human nature to exaggerate the armament of the opposition

I honestly believe that Bader was simply correctly remembering the centreline armament of the Bf 109 F, which was a subject of considerable interest and debate among Allied pilots, and transposing it to the BoB period of a few months earlier. When a Bf 109 F was inadvertently delivered to us in July '41, by Rolf Pingel, Bader took a great interest in it. I have copies of some of his correspondence about it, essentially saying that there was no point in allowing Farnborough have it for months making their assessment, he or one of the other Wing Commanders Flying could fly it for an hour and work out everything they needed to know! It's typical Bader, he certainly didn't lack self confidence.

Human memory is terribly fallible. I don't for one second think that Bader was being dishonest or disingenuous. He was just making a mistake recalling events which had happened thirty odd years earlier. That his honest mistake is then taken as 'proof' of something that didn't happen is hardly his fault.

When I see things like this I always ask myself how sure I am of my own memories from thirty or forty years ago

 

[Deleted member 5496]

They were also subject to the Official Secrets Act which constrained what they could write, very obvious in Gibson's Enemy Coast Ahead.
Pete

It was first published in book form in 1946, to much critical acclaim and a fully uncensored account released in 2003

 

[stona]

Not exactly on topic, but here you go. This is Bader's initial letter to 11 Group about the Bf 109 F.

 

[stillp]

I don't for one second think that Bader was being dishonest or disingenuous.

Oh, neither do I, I just think there could be a bit of unconscious, and perfectly understandable, bias, just like the 'overclaiming' of combat successes. Don't get me wrong, Bader and Gibson were boyhood heroes of mine, and still are.
Pete

 

[stillp]

I wonder if that memo from Bader is suggesting that he be the one to test the 109F?
Pete