The Battle Of Britain

August-September, 1940

The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces, and was also the largest and most sustained aerial bombing campaign to that date.

While attacks on shipping and ports in the English Channel began July 10, On August 8th "Adlertag" or Eagle Day, the codename for the first day of the air offensive against Great Britain, is launched.

The objective of the German campaign was to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), especially Fighter Command, before they can launch an invasion, which was being prepared on the continent.

Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine (German Navy), had earlier told Hitler that an invasion could only be contemplated as a last resort, and only then with full air superiority. The Kriegsmarine had been nearly crippled by the Norwegian Campaign, with many of its ships having been sunk or damaged, while the Royal Navy still had over 50 destroyers, 21 cruisers and eight battleships in the British Home Fleet. There was little the weakened Kriegsmarine could do to stop the Royal Navy from intervening. The only alternative was to use the Luftwaffe's dive bombers and torpedo bombers, which required air superiority to operate effectively.
Although he agreed with Raeder, Hitler ordered the preparation of plan code-named Sea Lion to invade Britain; Germany's plan was to be able to cross the channel by mid to late September. Hitler also hoped that news of the preparations would frighten Britain into peace negotiations.

For the air attack, Germany's air force commander Hermann Goering assembled 2800 aircraft against Britain's 700 fighters. Initial Luftwaffe estimates were that it would take four days to defeat the RAF Fighter Command in southern England. This would be followed by a four-week offensive during which the bombers and long-range fighters would destroy all military installations throughout the country and wreck the British aircraft industry. The only alternative to the goal of air superiority was a terror bombing campaign aimed at the civilian population, but this was considered a last resort and it was expressly forbidden by Hitler.

The name of the battle derived from a famous speech delivered by Prime Minister Winston Churchill in the House of Commons: "The Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin..."

Of crucial importance to the outcome of the battle were the performance of the British Hurricane and Spitfire fighters flying against the Luftwaffe Stuka, Heinkel bombers, and Me109 fighters. The performance of the Spitfire over Dunkirk came as a surprise to the Germans, although their pilots retained a strong belief that the 109 was the superior fighter. However, the Messerschmit Bf 109E had a much larger turning circle than either the Hurricane or the Spitfire.

Britain's fate rested upon the bravery, determination, and skill of its fighter pilots led by Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh "Stuffy" Dowding, a 'stiff-upper-lip' officer displaying the trademark proper British bearing. As a side note, Sir Laurence Olivier was picked to portray him in Hollywood movie Battle Of Britian.

The keystone of the British defense was the complex infrastructure of detection, command, and control that ran the battle. This was the "Dowding System", the core of which was implemented by Dowding himself: the use Radio Direction Finding (RDF, later called radar, for radio direction finding and ranging).
The first indications of incoming air raids were received by the RDF facilities located around the coastlines of the UK. In most circumstances, RDF could pick up formations of Luftwaffe aircraft as they organized over their own airfields.
Once the raiding aircraft moved inland over England, the formations were also plotted and reported by the Observer Corps. The information from RDF and the Observer Corps were sent through to the main operations room of Fighter Command Headquarters at Bentley Priory. The plots were assessed to determine whether they were "hostile" or "friendly". If hostile, the information was sent to the main "operations room", which was in a large underground bunker.
Here the course information of each raid was plotted by WAAFs who received information by a telephone system. Intelligence was also provided by the "Y" Service radio posts which monitored enemy radio transmissions, and the "Ultra" decoding center based at Bletchley Park.
Color coded counters representing each raid were placed on a large table, which had a map of the UK overlaid and squared off with a grid. As the plots of the raiding aircraft moved, the counters were pushed across the map by long rakes. This system enabled the main controller (usually of squadron leader rank) and Dowding to see quickly where each formation was heading and allowed an estimate to be made of possible targets. Because of the simplicity of the system, decisions could be made quickly and easily.

Göring stopped attacks on the radar chain. These were seen as unsuccessful, and neither the Reichsmarschall nor his subordinates realized how vital the Chain Home stations were to the defense. It was known that radar provided some early warning of raids, but the belief among German fighter pilots was that anything bringing up the "Tommies" to fight was to be encouraged.

Front line RAF pilots were acutely aware of the deficiencies of their own tactics. A compromise was adopted where squadrons used looser formations with one or two "weavers" flying independently above and behind to provide increased observation and rear protection; these tended to be the least experienced men and were often the first to be shot down without the other pilots even noticing that they were under attack.

18 August, which had the greatest number of casualties to both sides, was dubbed "The Hardest Day".

Although successful in previous Luftwaffe engagements, the Stuka suffered heavy losses in the Battle of Britain, particularly on 18 August, due to its slow speed and vulnerability to fighter interception after the dive bombing. As a result of the losses and limited payload and range, Stuka units were largely removed from operations over England and concentrated on shipping instead.

The whole of the Battle can be roughly divided into four phases:
* 10 July–11 August: Kanalkampf, ("the Channel battles"). These comprised a series of running fights over convoys in the English Channel and occasional attacks on the convoys by Stuka dive bombers.
* 12 August–23 August: Adlerangriff ("Eagle Attack"), the early assault against the coastal airfields.
* 24 August–6 September: the Luftwaffe targets the airfields. The critical phase of the battle. Göring ordered attacks on aircraft factories on 19 August 1940; then on 23 August he ordered that RAF airfields be attacked. Raids on airfields continued through 24 August, and Portsmouth was hit by a major attack. That night, several areas of London were bombed; the East End was set ablaze and bombs landed on central London.
In retaliation, the RAF bombed Berlin on the night of 25–26 August, and continued bombing raids on Berlin until the end of the war. Göring's pride was hurt, as he had previously claimed the British would never be able to bomb the city. The attacks enraged Hitler, who reversed his earlier stance on civilian targets and ordered retaliatory attacks on London to weaken civilian morale. These attacks were termed by Londoners as "The Blitz".
* 7 September onwards: the day attacks switch to British towns and cities. In the face of mounting losses in men, aircraft and the lack of adequate replacements, the Luftwaffe switched from daylight to night-time bombing.

The RAF had the advantage of fighting over home territory. Pilots who bailed out of their downed aircraft could be back at their airfields within hours. For Luftwaffe aircrews, a bailout over England meant capture, while parachuting into the English Channel often meant drowning or death from exposure. Morale began to suffer, and Kanalkrankheit ("Channel sickness") — a form of combat fatigue — began to appear among the German pilots. Their replacement problem was even worse than the British.

The position for Britain was grim in the extreme as from August 24th to September 6th 295 fighters had been totally destroyed and 171 badly damaged, against a total output of 269 new and repaired Spitfires and Hurricanes. Worst of all, during the fortnight 103 pilots were killed or missing and 128 were wounded, which represented a total wastage of 120 pilots per week out of a fighting strength of just under 1,000. Experienced pilots were like gold-dust, and each one lost had to be replaced by an untried man who for some time would be vulnerable, until he acquired battle know-how. During the whole of August no more than 260 fighter pilots were turned out and casualties in the same month were just over 300.

On 14 September Hitler called a meeting with the OKW staff. Goering was absent in France, as he had decided to direct the decisive part of the battle from there. At the meeting Hitler raised the question, "Should we call it off altogether?". Hitler had accepted that an invasion with massive air cover was no longer possible. Instead he opted to try to crush British morale, while maintaining the threat of invasion.
At this point Hitler was against canceling the invasion as "the cancellation would reach the ears of the enemy and strengthen his resolve".
On 15 September two massive waves of German attacks were decisively repulsed by the RAF, with every aircraft of 11 Group being used on that day. The total casualties on this critical day were 60 German and 26 RAF aircraft shot down. The German defeat caused Hitler to order two days later the postponement of preparations for the invasion of Britain.

Overall, by 2 November, the RAF fielded 1,796 pilots, an increase of over 40% from July 1940's count of 1,259 pilots.
German fighter and bomber "strength" declined without recovery, and that from August - December 1940, the German fighter and bomber strength declined by 30 and 25 percent. 1,380 German bombers were on strength on 29 June 1940, 1,420 bombers on 28 September.
In July - September the number of pilots available fell by 136, but the number of operational pilots had shrunk by 171 by September. The training organization of the Luftwaffe was failing to replace losses. German fighter pilots, in contrast to popular perception, were not afforded training or rest rotations unlike their British counterparts. The first week of September accounted for 25 percent of the Fighter Command, and 24 percent of the Luftwaffe overall losses.

From July to September, the Luftwaffe's loss records indicate the loss of 1,636 aircraft, 1,184 to enemy action. This represented 47 percent of the initial strength of single-engine fighters, 66 percent of twin-engine fighters, and 45 percent of bombers. This indicates the Germans were running out of aircrews as well as aircraft.

(A note of trivia regarding the movie Battle Of Britain. When it was made in 1965, the fleet of aircraft assembled to film it was termed the "world's 35th largest air force". Out of 109 remaining British Spitfires, 27 were available for filming, 12 of which were flyable. Other aircraft used were 6 British Hurricanes (3 flying), 2 German Protukas (Stuka trainer), 32 Spanish-built German Heinkel bombers, 27 Spanish-built German Me109 fighters (17 flying), and 2 Spanish-built Junker transports.)

Due to the failure of the Luftwaffe to establish air supremacy, a conference assembled on 14 September at Hitler's headquarters. Hitler concluded that air superiority had not yet been established and "promised to review the situation on 17 September for possible landings on 27 September or 8 October. Three days later, when the evidence was clear that the German Air Force had greatly exaggerated the extent of their successes against the RAF, Hitler postponed SeaLion indefinitely."

Total British civilian losses from July to December 1940 were 23,002 dead and 32,138 wounded, with one of the largest single raids on 19 December 1940, in which almost 3,000 civilians died.

The Royal Air Force roll of honour for the Battle of Britain recognizes 595 non-British pilots (out of 2,936) as flying at least one authorized operational sortie with an eligible unit of the RAF or Fleet Air Arm between 10 July and 31 October 1940.[76][77] These included 145 Poles, 127 New Zealanders, 112 Canadians, 88 Czechoslovaks, 32 Australians, 28 Belgians, 25 South Africans, 13 French, 10 Irish, 7 Americans, and one each from Jamaica, the British Mandate of Palestine, and Southern Rhodesia.

The failure of Germany to achieve its objectives of destroying Britain's air defenses, or forcing Britain to negotiate an armistice or an outright surrender, is considered its first major defeat and one of the crucial turning points in the war, with air superiority seen as the key to victory.