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Today! 85 years since the Germans launched their biggest attack of the BoB on London. It kind of marks the period of time they began to realise it was a battle they weren’t going to win.
58 German aircraft lost with a further 20 seriously damaged. The RAF lost 29 with 21 damaged. The day was subject to massive over claiming. From the British perspective most of it was by class A idiot Leigh-Mallory’s 12 Group with their unwieldy impractical ‘Big Wing’ promoted by Bader. But the propaganda figure of 185 was allowed to stand.
The Germans similarly over claimed with far graver consequences. They believed through rubbish intelligence that the RAF was down to the bare bones. It wasn’t, though losses of experienced pilots was a problem for Dowding. This misread by the Luftwaffe led to confusion, recriminations and further unnecessary losses. It could be argued that the Luftwaffe never truly recovered from its defeat in the summer of 1940.
Regardless, German daylight attacks began to reduce in scale after mid September and while engagements continued throughout the autumn the pressure on Fighter Command progressively relaxed. The Blitz followed, but while this led to a lot of death and destruction, that was never going to force Britain’s hand.
One famous incident was the destruction of Oberleutnant Zehbe’s KG76 Dornier 17Z. It developed engine trouble and fell behind the formation. It was attacked by plenty of RAF fighters to the point where it was shot to hell. Sgt Ray Holmes spotted it and attacked and collided with it. He said that the tail looked fragile so attempted to knock it off with his wing. He did just that. This account by him differs from his combat report but regardless the Dornier was filmed pitching down, outboard wings ripped off and tail gone.
The aircraft fell on Victoria Station and the surrounding streets. Some of the bombs hit Buckingham Palaces and Holmes’ Hurricane crashed on the crossroads in between. Holmes parachuted and survived that and the war. The German pilot Zehbe parachuted and landed in Kennington. Women attacked him basically with anything they could get their hands on. He died of his wounds the following day. Two other crew members survived, another died in the aircraft.
Today I asked 3 adults under 40 and one at 55 about the Battle of Britain. I am sad to say none of them knew what or when it was.
This is a serious indictment on our education system.
How can we expect them to acknowledge our country when they do not even know about when we stood alone to save democracy in Europe and the actions of the "few".
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Battle of Britain Day on 20:46 - Sep 15 with 326 views
Today I asked 3 adults under 40 and one at 55 about the Battle of Britain. I am sad to say none of them knew what or when it was.
This is a serious indictment on our education system.
How can we expect them to acknowledge our country when they do not even know about when we stood alone to save democracy in Europe and the actions of the "few".
They are just listening to the wrong modern music:
Today I asked 3 adults under 40 and one at 55 about the Battle of Britain. I am sad to say none of them knew what or when it was.
This is a serious indictment on our education system.
How can we expect them to acknowledge our country when they do not even know about when we stood alone to save democracy in Europe and the actions of the "few".
Sadly too many people have forgotten or never bothered to learn about what we were fighting against and why. Both my teenagers are aware of the BoB. It’s still covered in school - hopefully that’ll long continue although you do wonder how much coverage it will still get after all this time and now no pilots remain after the death of John “Paddy” Hemingway earlier this year. Heroes the lot of them.
Battle of Britain Day on 21:09 - Sep 15 by Swansea_Blue
Sadly too many people have forgotten or never bothered to learn about what we were fighting against and why. Both my teenagers are aware of the BoB. It’s still covered in school - hopefully that’ll long continue although you do wonder how much coverage it will still get after all this time and now no pilots remain after the death of John “Paddy” Hemingway earlier this year. Heroes the lot of them.
Talking of heroes, the obituary of the last surviving combatant to have won the Victoria Cross was in the Guardian a couple of weeks ago, although he didn't serve in the RAF until a bit later in the war.
The Luftwaffe failing to recover is something that is not often touched upon. They expended a huge amount of aircraft and many experienced pilots in the BoB and other actions in the run up to Barbarossa. Combined with the Luftwaffe policy of 'fly until you die', they whittled away so much experience. It's not immediately obvious because the Red Airforce is a shambles, but eventually they get ground down by a multifront air war. You have Americans by day, RAF by night on the Homefront and a rejuvenated Soviet air force 42/43 onwards.
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Battle of Britain Day on 23:30 - Sep 15 with 6 views
Battle of Britain Day on 22:49 - Sep 15 by Kievthegreat
The Luftwaffe failing to recover is something that is not often touched upon. They expended a huge amount of aircraft and many experienced pilots in the BoB and other actions in the run up to Barbarossa. Combined with the Luftwaffe policy of 'fly until you die', they whittled away so much experience. It's not immediately obvious because the Red Airforce is a shambles, but eventually they get ground down by a multifront air war. You have Americans by day, RAF by night on the Homefront and a rejuvenated Soviet air force 42/43 onwards.
There were several problems with the Luftwaffe in the BoB. Its structure was divided into air fleets, mainly to stop anyone getting too powerful. Nazi politics.
Crucially, their fly till you die policy was totally inefficient compared to how the RAF operated. It had to degrade aircrew ability over time and their training capacity fell way short.
It was a tactical airforce, not a strategic one. The bomb loads of their twin engine bombers was too small and the Ju87 dive bomber was never designed for the role it tried to undertake - and was soon withdrawn. Their intelligence was also poor along with comms. Bombers were often left with no fighter cover at all.
The Bf109E-3 and E-4 fighter was state of the art and competed well with the Spitfire. It had far better dive and climb capability, heavier armament and fuel injection. But its range was short. 20 mins over London was the absolute max. Tactically, the fighters were misused. Goering by insisting on close escort negated the 109s free chase strengths.
The Luftwaffe recovery and repair structures were totally inadequate as was its ability to replace aircraft losses. Britain was out producing Germany by 2-1 by the end of 1940.
Their understanding of radar and the Chain Home system was negligible and remained poor by comparison throughout the war.
By comparison, RAF fighter command was superbly organised. Dowding was in charge and got binned after the battle because he was no politician, yet his brilliance was key to preserving the RAF and wearing down the Germans. Park, his subordinate who commanded 11 Group, was equally superb, but again binned after thanks to politics.
The Spitfire was a better aeroplane than the Hurricane, but the latter amounted to 2/3ds of fighter command and destroyed a similar proportion of enemy aircraft. It was rugged, superbly designed for operational use, manoeuvrable, good gun platform and given height and a decent pilot it was a very effective aeroplane. Yet the Spitfire even down to its very name got the reputation, even amongst the enemy. A beautiful, thoughtfully designed aircraft, it was capable of being developed throughout the war and was. If a Spitfire flies over, you look up.
Pilot wise, the RAF ranged from excellent to barely trained in 1940. Shortage was Dowding’s biggest headache. The ground crews, Ops Room people, Observer Corps, recovery crews, etc etc everybody contributed.
The four months covering Dunkirk to the winding down of the BoB determined the war’s outcome. It was the turning point, despite the disasters still to come.
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