Britain, battle of

Britain, battle of, term coined beforehand by Churchill to describe the attempt by the German High Command (OKW) to gain air superiority over southern England, and to soften British morale, the necessary prerequisites for Operation SEALION, the proposed invasion of the UK. In Britain the period of the battle is normally defined as being from mid-June to mid-September 1940. In fact, although there was a prolonged period of fencing before the battle proper, the Luftwaffe did not launch its main assault until 13 August, Adlertag (‘Eagle Day’), and British fighters continued to be heavily committed to containing daylight raids well into the autumn.

British preparations had been handicapped in the 1930s by the air ministry's reluctance to accept the possibility of close fighter defence, preferring the doctrine of defence through counter-attack by bombers. The diplomatic requirements of appeasement had also favoured priority for bombers, as a form of deterrent against German aggrandizement. It was not until early 1938 that Fighter Command was given full priority. Air Chief Marshal Dowding, commander of Fighter Command since its formation in 1936, therefore had very little time to make his force ready. The technological breakthroughs which were to be so important in the battle, moreover, were of only recent origin: the basic principle of radar was first demonstrated only in 1935; the Spitfire and Hurricane fighters only began to enter service in any numbers in 1939. Dowding had to work rapidly to link these developments together with an efficient communications network based on the group and the sector system, the basic system of fighter control used in the battle (see Figure and Map 18). In the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that some slight flaws were to be detected in Fighter Command's ground organization. In August 1940, however, the virtually untried matrix of technology meshed successfully together.

Fighter Command's problems were compounded by the defeats of the first year of the war. The campaigns on the European mainland reduced Dowding's aircraft and pilot reserves. Though the mobilization of the aircraft industry in the last year of peace was bearing fruit by the summer of 1940, so much so that Fighter Command was never seriously worried by lack of aircraft during that year, the provision of fully-trained pilots to make good losses was to prove more problematical. New dispositions also had to be made hurriedly to cover attacks from the Low Countries (Luftflotte 2) and northern France (Luftflotte 3), as well as long-range attacks from Scandinavia (Luftflotte 5). The weight of the attacks was likely to fall on 11 Group in the South-East, commanded by Air Vice-Marshal Park, and on 12 Group in east Anglia and the Midlands, commanded by Air Vice Marshal Leigh-Mallory, but Dowding could not expose his flanks by denuding 10 Group in the South-West or 13 Group in the North and Scotland. In the early summer of 1940, Fighter Command hoped to have 60 squadrons ready by September, whereas some in the air ministry calculated that 120 squadrons were needed to achieve security. Dowding would have to rely on economy of effort or mistakes on the part of the Luftwaffe commanders.

On paper the Luftwaffe appeared to have the distinct advantage. In Field Marshals Kesselring and Sperrle and General Stumpff, commanding of Luftflotten 2, 3, and 5 respectively, Dowding was confronted with the most successful commanders the age of air power had yet seen. He could reckon on a steadily growing front line, but began the battle with approximately 900 fighters, of which he could expect to put at best some 600 in the air simultaneously. Luftflotten 2, 3, and 5, between them, had some 1,260 long-range bombers available, about 320 dive-bombers, 800 single-engined and 280 twin-engined fighters, and a number of reconnaissance aircraft. The distance that Luftflotte 5 would have to fly, however, meant that they would be without single-engined fighter cover, and this left the burden of the task to Luftflotten 2 and 3. In practice, then, with only two-thirds of the front line normally available, the Luftwaffe would rely on a core of some 750 long-range bombers, about 250 dive-bombers, rather more than 600 single-engined, and 150 twin-engined fighters. The Luftwaffe, moreover, suffered from some weaknesses in equipment. Though the Messerschmitt 109s were probably the best interceptors in the air in 1940, their short range was to limit the time they could spend in British air space; the twin-engined Me110 fighters were to prove too sluggish against a sophisticated air force; the dive-bombing Ju87s, spectacular though they appeared in newsreels, had neither the speed nor the payload to make any decisive impression on the RAF; and the longer-ranged Heinkel 111s, Dornier 17s, and Junkers 88s, were medium rather than heavy bombers, and found it difficult to inflict damage of strategic importance. Moreover, even with the experience of the Polish campaign and the fall of France behind them, German crews had not worked up the necessary accuracy to make the most of their equipment.

The aim of the German offensive itself was also problematic. The Luftwaffe owed its recent success to the fact that it had been working in close support of the army. This time it was given an independent task: to prepare for SEALION, which would not proceed until this task had been achieved. Any short-term success, therefore, could not be immediately followed up on the ground. There was also to be some confusion as to how the aim should be achieved. Target selection moved between coastal convoys, Fighter Command advanced aerodromes, sector stations, the aerodromes of Coastal and Bomber Commands (the utility of which was questionable in a search for command of the air), aircraft and related industries, as well as other industrial targets which were of general military value but not vital to the air war. In particular, the Luftwaffe did not make any concerted attempt to destroy the eyes of Fighter Command, the radar chain.

The weaknesses of the Luftwaffe were not apparent at the time. It took only six minutes to cross the Channel to Dover, and only ten minutes longer for German bombers to be over 11 Group's sector airfields. The bomber waves could be picked up by radar as they massed south of Cap Gris Nez, but it took four minutes for radar information to reach the squadrons and thirteen minutes for a Spitfire to get to 6,100 m. (20,000 ft.), while top-cover Me109 escorts often came in at 7,900 m. (26,000 ft.). Expert though they became, radar operators often found it difficult to predict the size and height of approaching bomber formations. Fighter Command's advanced information was sparse and rarely covered planned raids in the degree of detail Dowding needed for effective preparation. The gravest danger was that diversionary raids would commit 11 Group to attack well away from their airfields while the main attack then fell on their ground organization. To guard against this, 12 Group was often committed to guard 11's airfields. This enforced dispersal meant that Fighter Command was seldom able to achieve the kind of concentration that could wreak havoc among the bombers. Before September, Park's 11 Group was rarely given time to mass an attack on the bombers. The Luftwaffe's basic tactical unit was the Gruppe of 30 aircraft, while that of Fighter Command was the squadron of 12. To attack before the bombers reached their targets, Park often had little option but to commit his fighters cumulatively in penny packets of single-squadron strength. Only as experience was gained, and as the bomber attacks became more predictable, was it possible to mount simultaneous multi-squadron attacks as a matter of course. Eventually 12 Group was able to build the Duxford ‘Big Wing’, five squadrons of Hurricanes and Spitfires working as a single tactical unit of 60 aircraft (see also fighters, 2).

Through June and July and up to 12 August, the Luftwaffe concentrated its attack on shipping in the Channel, hoping to stretch Fighter Command's resources by forcing the British to adopt close fighter escort for this important coastal traffic. These attacks were supplemented by relatively light raids on south coast ports. In this period 30,000 tons of shipping were lost, but that was out of a total of almost a million tons a week passing through the Channel. By the end of July, meanwhile, German planning for SEALION had reached something of an impasse, with the army and navy commands at odds over the landing zones and the time it would take to transport the initial echelons across the Channel. Hitler accepted that the invasion could not take place before mid-September, and that it could not take place at all in 1940 unless the RAF was defeated. The Luftwaffe was therefore ordered to destroy the British Air Force as soon as possible. On 12 August, which saw the first concerted attacks on British fighter aerodromes, the Ventnor radar station was put out of service. During the next two weeks, however, the Luftwaffe failed to concentrate on these most important targets. ‘Eagle Day’, 13 August, proved a damp squib when bad weather led to a series of badly co-ordinated Luftwaffe attacks. Two days later, the three Luftflotten attacked in concert, but the weakly defended attack from Scandinavia suffered particularly heavy losses to 12 and 13 Groups, the Luftwaffe losing 75 aircraft in 24 hours to Fighter Command's 34. This was to prove to be Luftflotte 5's first and last major intervention in the battle of Britain.

Both sides were already greatly overestimating the losses they had inflicted on one another, but the German intelligence failures were to prove the more fateful. The Luftwaffe believed that the British were down to a front line strength of only 300. In fact, Dowding had lost only 200 aircraft and the front line remained at about 600. Nevertheless, the next stage in the battle was to prove the most dangerous for the British. In the brief respite afforded by poor weather between 19 and 24 August, Göring decided on a change of tactics, forcing air battles between fighters to break what he believed was the dwindling strength of Fighter Command. This was to be achieved by smaller concentrations of bombers, with relatively larger and closer escort forces, attacking targets the British were bound to defend, airfields in particular. The remaining bombers were to concentrate on unescorted night attacks to stretch the defences and to maintain the strain on British nerves. This was to prove a much more effective policy but, in that it was based on the assumption that Fighter Command was already close to defeat, its failure to bring early decisive results tested German confidence in the feasibility of launching SEALION in 1940. Fighter Command believed that it had too often allowed itself to get involved in battles with the escorts, and that it should concentrate more closely on the bombers. This approach was to be blocked by the new German tactics, and British losses edged close to those of the Luftwaffe in the next weeks.

Strong and partly successful attacks on Biggin Hill, Horn church, North Weald, and West Malling severely tested 11 Group's organization at the end of August and the beginning of September. This led to a dispute between the commanders of 11 and 12 Groups about the defence of 11's airfields while Park's fighters were in the air. It was 12 Group's contention that requests for support from 11 often came too late and that the massing of larger formations of defenders to hit the bombers would have much greater effect, even if this took time. Events were soon to provide an opportunity for the ‘Big Wing’ tactics to be put to the proof.

There is still much controversy about the origins of the German decision to switch the weight of their bombing from the airfields to London. One view is that an unintentional German attack on London prompted the British air ministry to attack Berlin on 25 August, an attack which so incensed Hitler that he determined to retaliate. The Luftwaffe High Command appears to have believed that such an attack would force Dowding to commit his last reserves, finally break Fighter Command and soften British resistance to the invasion. Whether, at this stage, Hitler still intended to launch SEALION is uncertain. Clearly, the invasion could not be contemplated before the RAF was defeated, but that defeat might itself make SEALION redundant, effectively neutralizing the UK for the time being and leaving the Germans free to concentrate on the long-term aim of achieving Lebensraum in the east (see BARBAROSSA). Heavy air attacks on London and other British cities might therefore be a substitute for the dangerous and perhaps unnecessary invasion.

The attacks on London began in earnest in daylight on 7 September. Fighter Command, expecting continued attacks on its airfields, was caught unprepared. Huge fires were left burning in the East End, providing beacons for the follow-up night attack. The next day, however, the Duxford wing abandoned the airfields it was asked to defend north of the Thames and met the bombers as they came over south-west London, an intervention which may have unnerved some in 11 Group but the success of which was to be confirmed a week later. On 15 September the Luftwaffe abandoned its usual practice of sending up feints and diversions, so that the radar network was left in no doubt about the main attack by mid-morning. Park was thus given time to meet the bombers with paired squadrons as far forward as Canterbury, and the ‘Big Wing’ made contact over East London. A second attack in the afternoon met a similarly prepared defence. On ‘Battle of Britain Day’, 15 September, the defence claimed to have shot down 185 German aircraft. In fact, the Luftwaffe had lost only 60, but that brought the tally of losses since 7 September to about 175, enough to test severely the confidence of a force which had been engaged virtually continuously for two months, and which had believed it was on the verge of victory. Two days later SEALION was indefinitely postponed. Although daylight raids continued until the weather worsened in October, their strength was gradually reduced as the bombers switched to night attacks. The Luftwaffe priority was no longer only the defeat of the RAF; the battle of Britain had merged imperceptibly into the Blitz on London and other cities.

The figures of losses remain controversial, but the best estimates suggest that, between 10 July and 31 October, Fighter Command had lost approximately 788 and the Luftwaffe 1,294 aircraft.

Malcolm Smith

Bibliography

Collier, B. , The Defence of the United Kingdom (London, 1957).
Hough, R., and and Richards, D. , The Battle of Britain: A Jubilee History (London, 1990).
Murray, W. , Luftwaffe (London, 1985).