Below is my own notes/ transcript from a Documentary which was uploaded to YouTube (Thank you!) detailing the Battle of Britain. Some of my notes are a direct quote from the program, some are my own descriptions. I have included the links to each video as it is split across 5 YouTube Videos. I plan on distilling down the information here and using it to help me better understand the position the British were in during and directly after the Battle of Britain.
When you attempt to re-write history as we are, I have found myself looking into a lot of the what-if's of the situation. It is this method which has often left me feeling bewildered because something as simple and as natural as cloud-cover became one of the most pivotal events during the battle. On August 13th dubbed by Goering 'Eagle Day' there was thick cloud across the Channel at 4:00AM and so the order was made to hold back the attack until 14:00PM when the skies had cleared. This message was not received by all the airplanes and so the Battle started with a shambled attempt. This also meant the the brute force of the Luftwaffe was significantly more scattered allowing the British more of a chance with their depleted RAF forces. To think that if the weather had been better that morning, there would have been a completely different Battle had that day is astonishing. One single event could have tipped the balance in German favour and our 'Alternate reality' that we are fictionally writing may have not been fiction.
When you attempt to re-write history as we are, I have found myself looking into a lot of the what-if's of the situation. It is this method which has often left me feeling bewildered because something as simple and as natural as cloud-cover became one of the most pivotal events during the battle. On August 13th dubbed by Goering 'Eagle Day' there was thick cloud across the Channel at 4:00AM and so the order was made to hold back the attack until 14:00PM when the skies had cleared. This message was not received by all the airplanes and so the Battle started with a shambled attempt. This also meant the the brute force of the Luftwaffe was significantly more scattered allowing the British more of a chance with their depleted RAF forces. To think that if the weather had been better that morning, there would have been a completely different Battle had that day is astonishing. One single event could have tipped the balance in German favour and our 'Alternate reality' that we are fictionally writing may have not been fiction.
Battle of Britain: The Lost
Evidence Transcription
The Germans Misinterpreted photos at the start of the battle
In France Luftwaffe dive bombers were used to support
invading German military, being able to provide air support minutes after a
radio call. Moved ahead of the tanks to destroy allied strongholds
The RAF were the strong force battling the Luftwaffe back
May and June – 100s of British hurricanes are sent to France to stem the flood
of German forces. Between May and June alone – 477 British aircraft are
destroyed and 284 pilots killed
June 1940 German aerial recon Planes fly across the whole of
southern England producing a complete aerial photo map highlighting all of Britain's
vital airfields and defence systems and arms factories
Britain has been preparing for attack for over four years. In
1938 radar stations were constructed around the southern coast of England called
the chain home system. They formed a shield that could detect approaching enemy
aircraft – but it only works over the sea – and not under 1,000 feet. So a
second set of defences is formed with a web of observation posts designed to
spot planes that get through the net but the only work if the skies are clear. Britain
had 1800 anti-aircraft guns to protect the entire country from air assault. The
most important defence were the airfields in the south of the country. Height
and surprise trump numbers every time and the British used this tactic to their
benefit many a time.
There are arguments among the German leadership as to who
should lead the invasion on England.
July 1940 – much of Europe under Nazi rule. The air chiefs are
very confident. Precious weeks are wasted while Hitler comes to a decision on
who should lead the invasion. Britain pick up the slack in their production of
arms and defences whilst this is going on. Aircraft fighter production grew rapidly
whilst Hitler was undecided, German factories remained at the same rate and so Britain
took over them in manufacture.
Herman Goering convinces Hitler to use him to lead the
invasion
The Germans underestimate how many planes the British can bring
into action each month (off the factory production lines) By using their aerial
photographs they assume the RAF are hopelessly outnumbered by the Luftwaffe.
(They were wrong!)
The Germans sent a spy over to England which was codenamed
Ostro to find out what our production figures were. It turned out that Ostro
was a double agent so he told the Germans that the English were producing the
same amount per month as the Germans (about 200) which was plausible enough.
The hurricane and the spitfire are two of the most
technologically advanced aircraft in the world.
Bob Doe – RAF Fighter Pilot describes piloting a spitfire; “The
spitfire…you wanted to turn you thought about it and it turned – it was a
dream. You strapped the spitfire on your back and flew”
The largest mistake the Germans make is that they do not
fully understand how the RAF defence system works. They underestimated the
importance and power of using radar as a defence mechanism, and also as an
attack. If the Germans realised how clear a picture the RAF could have of the
air above Britain using radar, they would have bombed the Chain Home System
bases first so as to make the pilots blind. But they do not understand what
they are looking at in the recon photographs taken and so do not notice the
radar towers.
July 10th 1940
The Germans plan to attack the British shipping ports using Luftwaffe
– that way they will lure the RAF into battle. After the Luftwaffe ‘destroy’
the RAF they will be able to land on British soil and continue to take England
by land (as the ports defences will be down).
The JU87 (Stuka) – Flys in using its Screaming siren as a moral
dampener. It also has excellent bomb accuracy, and so would be ideal to attack
the shipping.
During the afternoon of July 10th a formation of
60 JU87s, 75 Dornier 17s, 200 ME109s attack a convoy in the English Channel.
The RAF scrambles their fighters and instead of aiming for the ME109s (which
are being used as armoured escorts for the slower bombers) they attack the
bombers and it is the stuka which takes the full brunt of the attack. They were
the slower and less armed aircraft in the formation and so were easy to attack
and hard to defend from. An educated choice. From that day the Germans called
their JU87s ‘the flying coffins’.
August 1st 1940
Hitler is growing impatient with Hermann’s delay and tells
his military chiefs that he wants the invasion of Britain to being on September
15th. As a last warning to Britain to sign a peace treaty, Luftwaffe
drops thousands of leaflets calling for the British public to see reason. The British
thread string through the papers and hang them on toilet walls.
On August 6th Goering and his advisors come up
with a new tactic to speed up the battle. The Luftwaffe then decided to change
tactics (a risky move in the middle of a battle) and bomb the RAF planes on the
ground and in the air – they hope to level the RAF, and thus have Britain begging
for surrender.
By August 11th
the RAF has shot down 172 German aircraft and damaged another 79, but the British
are in a weakened position due to 115 fighters being destroyed and badly
damaging 106. At that rate of attrition, neither parties would be able to keep
on fighting for long. The greatest loss for both sides however is the loss of
trained pilots and air crew. Germans; 153 killed and 45 wounded. British 89
killed and 28 wounded.
The reason Hermann decided to change tactic is that the Germans
had recently studied their latest recon photographs of England and have calculated
that the RAF is down to its last 450 fighters. Once again they have got it
wrong – most of the fighter planes are not at the main base, they are hidden
close by in a carefully camouflaged satellite base. The RAF also cunningly camouflages
its main airbases by spreading black sand across the runways; it looks like
hedgerows from 10,000 feet in the air – making it almost impossible to
distinguish from aerial photographs. Because of these tactics from the British,
the Germans are unaware that the RAF currently has 750 fighters ready to go at
a moment’s notice, with the factories turning out nearly 400 new aircraft a
month.
Goering boasts that with this new (incorrect) information
the RAF can be wiped out in just 4 days….and declares August 13th ‘Eagle
Day’; the day they set in motion their plan to crush the RAF.
On August 12th (6:30AM) Goering unleashes the Luftwaffe
to destroy the radar stations along the coastline. Very little damage is done
however and strangely the Luftwaffe hardly ever attack them again. The Germans know
of the radar towers but assume they must be some sort of civilian aircraft
landing system, and decide that Britain has no operational radar.
One of the most incredible mistakes the Germans make is to
misinterpret the threat of a radar tower on the east coast of England; Bawdsey
Manor Radar station. The towers are marked on a map by a German Intelligence Expert
as being ‘no military target’. This was the most powerful device in the RAF’s
arsenal (spoken by Aryeh Nusbacher of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst) enabling
the RAF to win. Ignoring radar was a war losing move from a German point of
view.
Radar enables information to get to fighter command
headquarters at speed. A fighter plane needs 13minutes from the order to
scramble to reach its operational height – but German bombers crossed the English
channel in only 5 minutes. This means that with the 20mins warning that the
radar channels can give, there was almost no room for error.
On the eve of ‘Eagle Day’ Goering sends a chilling message
to his pilots; “Within a short period you will wipe the British air force from
the sky – Hail Hitler”
At 4:30AM the long awaited Eagle Day got off to a bad start – heavy clouds over
the channel means that the start of the attack has to be postponed until 2pm
when visibility is better. However some bomber groups were not told the change
of plan and have already taken off!!!!!! Goering’s planned attack on Britain is
already going seriously wrong – but it would be a day of mistakes on both
sides.
·
- At 4:50AM British radar picks up a formation of 55 Dornier 17’s heading toward the channel. (Due to radio problems on the German side they cannot be recalled, so a fighter pilot in an ME109 performs a series of acrobatics in front of them to try and turn them back – they think he is just showing off and continue on)
- · At 5:50AM The Pilots still unaware of the change of plan; a second wave of 88 JU87s escorted by 60 ME110s and 173 ME109s head for the British coast.
- · Because of heavy clouds the RAF radars and plotters misread the exact amount of enemy aircraft approaching them. Also because of the low clouds the observer core thinking it is a small raid gives the wrong bearings and directions of the bombers. 5 RAF Squadrons are scrambled but because of bad intelligence only 1 intercepts the enemy.
- · Throughout the morning the bad weather continues but the Luftwaffe presses home their attacks targeting air bases and luring the fighters into the air.
- · At 2pm the weather improves and Goering can unleash his formations against Britain. In the first wave are over 100 bombers protected by ME109 fighters.
- · At 2:54PM they cross over into British airspace. The radar stations and plotting rooms are on red alert as they struggles to keep up with the waves of German aircraft.
- · British fighter command launches squadron after squadron at the Luftwaffe formations in an attempt to keep them at bay. Throughout the day crews on red alert are waiting their turn to be scrambled to action. For some the waiting is worse than the fighting - it was almost impossible to relax.
- · The countryside becomes littered with shot-down aircraft.
- · A German formation of bombers manages to get through the RAF’s defences and heads for a particular target – RAF base at East Church. The German recon photos were said to show that spitfire squadrons were based there. At 7:00PM the bomber planes drop more than 100 high explosive bombs on the aircraft hangars and buildings. 16 personnel are killed and 48 are seriously wounded. Although 5 RAF aircraft were destroyed, they were old fighter bombers not spitfires. The German intelligence had gotten it wrong again!
- · Incredibly over the following days the Luftwaffe returned 6 times to bomb East Church (a shipment protection airfield). This type of mistake would be repeated by the Germans throughout the battle.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5kPjX9XBQg&feature=relmfu
- · The RAF has lost 84 fighters and the Germans 47 aircraft. The British call it a miracle that they survived. Goering withdraws to his hunting lodge in East Prussia and calls senior Luftwaffe commanders to join him – as they gorge on wine and wild boar they celebrate their progress. They are convinced that if they continue to attack the fighters and airbases that the RAF will soon be finished.
- · Because of the success of Eagle Day – Goering decides to increase the attacks and launch the largest air offensive of the war – Some the most deadly and vicious dogfights in history ensue in the British skies.
·
The correctly identified fighter bases in south England
from German recon photos are as follows ; Biggin Hills (front-line fighter
base) South of London, Debden in the East of London, and Kennelly in the South
of England.
·
August 18th 1940 is known as the
hardest day. The Luftwaffe has over 1000 bombers and 745 fighters –the RAF only
635 fighters.
·
12:00PM on a fine and hazy Sunday Radars report
of a build-up of aircraft over Calais.
108 German bombers are heading for the RAF fighter base at Kennelly, and are
escorted by 483 fighters. Immediately the squadrons are launched and go into
battle. The most fierce dog fights follow and it is this type of one-on-one
battle that is the test of man and machine – only the winner survives. If you
flew in a straight line for more than 15 seconds you had ‘had-it’ so you had to
keep turning to prevent someone getting behind you. Height is vital – if you
can dive on your opponent, you have him at your mercy. With only 12 seconds of
ammunition on board – pilots have to get in close ot be sure of a hit, but even
then at closing speeds of over 600 miles per hour the fight is over almost
before it begins.
·
Pilots tried to fight with the sun behind them
so that they could reduce their opponent’s visibility. Using clouds for cover
was ineffective as it put the pilot in hiding at a disadvantage as much as the
pilot you were hiding from – this course of action often backfiring on them.
·
By days end the Luftwaffe has lost 69 aircraft
and 31 badly damaged –with their huge armada of aircraft they can just about
afford these losses. The RAF has lost 63 fighters with another 62 damaged – and
they can barely afford to lose the aircraft – they certainly cannot afford to
lose the pilots. At this rate of attrition the RAF will cease to exist within a
few weeks.
Photographs taken of the Belgian and French
coast show huge numbers of landing barges are assembling in the channel ports
of northern France and Holland. These are what will carry 250,000
battle-hardened troops onto British land, to invade a nation whose army has
been almost totally destroyed.
·
German guns based in Calais were able to land shells
on Dover – the Luftwaffe had taken over the Channel and things felt like they
were hanging on by a thread. The pressure was now on the young pilots of the
RAF. Churchill calls them the few – but by day 59 of the battle of Britain the
RAF is on their knees.
·
September 7th 15:30PM– radars pick up
the largest attack yet – more than 1000 planes are crossing the channel.
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