Many Not the Few: The Stolen History of the Battle of Britain

by Richard North

  Almost as if in response, in area after area in Britain, people were picking themselves up and dusting themselves off. Some 44 civilians had been killed the previous day, with 250 injured. The larger numbers of 110 killed and 585 injured were recorded on this day. By contrast, the RAF lost 3 with 11 injured. Exceptionally, the previous day – with the Biggin Hill raid – 40 had been killed and 28 ground staff injured. The RAF though, was in the front line. The civilians were supposed to be the “many” who owed so much to the “few”.

  One of those “few”, Sgt William Rolls of No. 72 Sqn, experienced his first scramble from Biggin Hill on this day. No contact was made with the enemy and the squadron was relocated to Croydon Airport to relieve pressure on the station. At 5.30 p.m., a small group of Dorniers, under the cover of a fighter sweep bombed Biggin Hill for the second time that day. Two WAAF telephone operators remained at their posts when a 250kg bomb brought down the heavy concrete ceiling above them. The raid had destroyed communications though. Post Office engineers worked late into the night, in constant danger from further bombs and in craters filled with water and escaping gas, to restore telephones. These men, Mason concedes, as much as any wearing uniform, contributed to the survival of Dowding’s fighter forces.

  Meanwhile, at his new home, Sgt Rolls was disconcerted to find that dispersal consisted of large bell tents and that the lounges and bars of what had been London Airport were available only to officers. His quarters, with the other non-commissioned officers (NCOs), were two semi-detached houses bordering the airfield – no furniture and only old iron bedsteads with straw palliasses. Breakfast was brought to them in the tents. And while the officers had the use of the restaurant, the NCOs were restricted to the canteen. The tragedy was almost overwhelming.13

  Nevertheless, Rolls had a point. From his lumpy palliasse that evening, he might have been slightly comforted by the words of J. B. Priestley drifting from the radio – had he been given one. “The true heroes and heroines of this war, whose courage, patience and good humour stand like a rock above the morass of treachery, cowardice and panic, are the ordinary British folk”, said the Yorkshire sage. This was the first opportunity Priestley had had to respond to Churchill’s “few” speech.

  Certainly, the airmen had not delivered anything by way of spectacular victories this day. In a day of scrappy fighting, Fighter Command had lost sixteen aircraft, including a Hurricane destroyed by a direct hit while on the ground at Biggin Hill. Bomber and Coastal Command between them lost six aircraft, including two Wellingtons, bringing total losses to twenty-two. The Luftwaffe loss returns for this day were incomplete. Nine were officially reported but at least seven Dorniers were shot down in southern England, and an Me-109 was also lost, none of which appear in the official returns. On balance though, the Luftwaffe might have come out ahead, with seventeen losses.

  DAY 55 – MONDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 1940

  Despite the previous day’s losses, the Daily Express was still in triumphal mood, devoting another front-page banner headline to RAF successes. This time it was the proclamation: “WE’RE WINNING IN THE AIR”. The RAF, it added, was “mastering [the] Nazi criminals”. This was actually a message from Churchill, crafted on the instructions of the War Cabinet and released to the press. But, while Fighter Command was battling for supremacy of the skies, the message was addressed to Bomber Command and its then Air Officer Commanding, Air Marshal Sir Charles Portal.

  The specific purpose of the exercise, the Express told its readers, was to congratulate the bomber squadrons “who have been engaged in the recent long-distant attacks on military objectives in Germany and Italy”. It was “very satisfactory”, wrote Churchill, “that so many tons of British bombs have been discharged with such precision in difficult conditions and at such great distances and that so many important military objectives in Germany and Italy have been so sharply smitten”.

  Privately, the record of his separate communication marked “Secret”, Churchill told the War Cabinet of his exploits at No. 11 Group HQ on 31 August. He then reviewed the results of the last month of hard air fighting. “We had every right to be satisfied,” he said, “our own Air Force was stronger than ever and there was every reason to be optimistic about the 1940 Air Battle of Britain”.14

  Nearly nine years later, this same man was to write of the events of this period: “In the life or death struggle of the two Air Forces this was a decisive phase”. He continued: “We never thought of the struggle in terms of the defence of London or any other place, but only who won the air”. Then did Churchill convey that “[t]here was much anxiety at Fighter Headquarters at Stanmore, and particularly at the Headquarters of No. 11 Fighter Group at Uxbridge”.15 This, he had not said at the time – not to the War Cabinet, at any rate. “Our own Air Force was stronger than ever”, he had said on this day, then going on to ask for – and get – permission to tell parliament on 5 September that the results of the air battle were “generally satisfactory”.

  This was the day, however, that Hitler issued orders that “retaliatory attacks” should be carried out against London, whenever weather conditions permitted it.16 Hitler and Göring had already conferred on this, and by the end of August, Grossangrift auf London was common gossip, the operation to be named Loge (the German for theatre box). Even while Plesman was still pursuing his peace initiative, Luftwaffe bombers were ordered to move to advanced bases in northern France.17 Something of this was picked up by the British, Colville writing that the movements were thought to indicate an intensification of air attack towards the end of the week. “It is already on a sufficiently large scale!” he added.18

  For the moment, though, there were the more immediate dangers of the sea war, the Express also carrying news of a ship, which it did not name, being torpedoed on its way to Canada, carrying 321 children. This was the SS Volendam, which had been hit on 30 August. All had been saved.

  Throughout the previous month, the Ministry of Information had been encouraging wall-to-wall media coverage of RAF exploits. But, at this “decisive phase” in “the life or death struggle of the two Air Forces” the Daily Mirror ran the SS Volendam as its lead story and devoted its political cartoon from Zec to a spontaneous tribute to the Royal Navy. On this day alone, sailors had far more contact with the enemy than the RAF. Notably, HM Submarine Sturgeon had a singular success, torpedoing the German steamer Pionier fifteen nautical miles north-east of Skagen, in between Denmark and Norway. The ship was heavily laden with a “mystery cargo”. It had 753 men aboard, many of them troops on their way to posts in Norway. Some sources suggested 230 had been lost – others claimed that nearly everyone on board had perished.19

  Sturgeon was not the only submarine in action. HM Submarine Tigris was another, although less lucky when she unsuccessfully attacked U-58. And the Fleet Air Arm was active over Flushing. An Albacore of No. 826 Sqn from RNAS Peregrine was shot down. Three crewmen were captured. In a separate action, U-46 sunk the steamers Thornlea, with three survivors, and Bibury with the loss of all hands. Canadian destroyer Skeena and Norwegian steamer Hild rescued the Thornlea survivors. U-47 then sunk Belgian steamer Ville de Mons. The entire crew was rescued. The battle with the Luftwaffe also continued. German bombers attacked convoy WN 12. The steamer Lagosian was damaged thirteen miles east-south-east of Peterhead. Her survivors were rescued by anti-submarine trawler Southen Gem, steamer Ashby and the Dutch Delftdijk, both off Rattray Head. Destroyers Duncan and Holderness provided further anti-aircraft protection.

  And, after so many apparently pointless raids of the previous day, the Luftwaffe targeted the oil tanks at the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company refinery in Llandarcy near Swansea. Overnight, five tanks, each holding 10,000 tons of petroleum products, were hit. So intense were the fires that they were left to burn out. The refinery works were closed down because of unexploded bombs. Lt Bertram Archer of the Royal Engineers defused the most dangerous, despite explosions and blazing oil. He was later awarded the George Cross.20

  The bombe
rs also hit the town’s shopping centre in what was a major raid for the period. They killed thirty-three people and injured 115 in a blitz which lasted several hours. Some 251 bombs and over 1,000 incendiaries were dropped. The deadly mixture caused a red glare in the sky as a number of buildings burned to destruction. One shopping street in particular was badly damaged and other buildings were gutted. Parachute flares silently and menacingly hung in the area lighting the devastation for miles around. Rescue efforts were carried out using torchlight only to avoid further targeting. The new Great Western Railway station was seriously damaged, necessitating the diversion of traffic. Four wheat warehouses were damaged. Two were completely gutted with a loss of 8,000 tons of stock. Incendiary bombs also fell on the ICI factory at Upper Bank. Production was held up for twelve hours.

  As people found their way into work that day, they were confronted with broken or charred ruins instead of familiar places of business or pleasure. Debris and rubble cluttered the streets, broken furniture and damp and peeling wallpaper stared forlornly from the wrecks of houses. As the Llandarcy refinery spewed out a huge column of smoke by day and red flame by night, people became concerned that it would act as a beacon for further attacks. This led to a form of “public nervousness” known as trekking, the nightly migration from the centre of the town to nearby rural areas. The village of Mumbles and the rural Gower peninsular, visited for pleasure in pre-war days, now provided a place of refuge as people slept in tents or huts around Gower Bay and in parked cars or lorries on open land around Swansea.21

  As for the day as a whole, even the New York Times referred to a “familiar pattern” of attacks as it reviewed the activities, churning out the propaganda figures produced by the British Government. Fighter Command losses were put at thirteen instead of the actual twenty-three. Forty-two enemy were claimed downed, as opposed to the thirty actually lost by the Luftwaffe, a figure that included several accidents. Thus, the combat losses for each side were close. By the time the Swordfish and seven Bomber and Coastal Command losses – which included two expensive Sunderland flying boats – had been factored in, the Germans were actually ahead.

  DAY 56 – TUESDAY 3 SEPTEMBER 1940

  Overnight, the Luftwaffe visited Bristol, Cardiff, Monmouth, Birmingham and close by Castle Bromwich. Liverpool once again was hit, and so was Manchester and Sheffield. Bombs were dropped on Shilbottle, Ancroft, Blyth, South Newsham and Broomhill in Northumberland, Bishopton and Elwick in Co Durham and Hull in Yorkshire. Even then, air activity had finished relatively early, in the early hours of the morning. The Daily Mirror claimed that the anti-aircraft guns guarding London reached a “new high pitch of power and efficiency” overnight, “as they helped RAF fighters smash German mass raiders”. The Daily Express had a banner headline, proclaiming “Night fighters hunt raiders”, with roof-top watchers asserting that there seemed to be more RAF fighters up in the air than on any previous night alarms. This was Britain’s answer to the “nuisance” raiders.

  It was the first anniversary of the war. The Guardian thought the British people could look forward to a second year with “greater confidence than almost any of us could have thought possible two months ago”. Keitel issued a directive setting out the timetable for Sealion. The 20 September was now to become the earliest date for the departure of the transport fleet, which put the actual landing – S-day – on 21 September. The launch order would be given on S minus ten, probably on 11 September. The final order would follow at the latest by S minus three, at noon.22

  Meanwhile, British photographic intelligence was picking up “sudden and startling” increases in the number of barges in the Channel ports. And four Dutch spies landed in a boat from Dungeness with instructions to report to the Germans on British defensive measures and on army reserve formations. They were quickly picked up and under interrogation spoke of a concentration of mounted troops equipped with mules at Le Touquet. They also said they had been told that an invasion would take place before the middle of September. They had been given no contacts in this country and were singularly badly directed. To anybody with any knowledge of conditions in this country it should have been apparent that none of these people could hope to succeed.23

  Göring was in The Hague, meeting with his Air Fleet commanders, Kesselring and Sperrle, to discuss the air assault on London. In the absence of approval from Hitler to carry out “terror raids”, it was then that the decision was made to target the docklands.24 Albert Plesman, who was still pursuing the idea of a peace deal that had been initiated on 24 July, learned of the plan and tried to argue against it. He was informed that the matter was out of Göring’s hands as the Führer had made up his mind.25 For the moment, any idea of peace negotiations seemed to be on hold – although others were to emerge.

  George Orwell on this day recorded a conversation with a “Mrs C” who had recently come back from Cardiff. She had told him that air raids there had been “almost continuous”. To avoid disruption, therefore, it had been decided that work in the docks must continue, raids or no raids. Almost immediately afterwards, said Mrs C, a German aircraft had dropped a bomb straight into the hold of a ship. The remains of seven men working there “had to be brought up in pails”. Predictably, there had been a strike. The practice of taking cover had been restored.

  This, wrote Orwell, was the sort of thing that did not get into the papers – and indeed it did not. There were occasional reports of tension between employers who were losing production, and workers who were concerned with their own safety. But since strikes were theoretically illegal, they were rarely reported. Moreover, Orwell asserted that casualties in the most recent raids, e.g., at Ramsgate, had been officially minimized, a policy which was acknowledged by Home Intelligence. But it continued to incense locals, who did not like to read about “negligible damage” when large numbers of people had been killed. Such was the distrust of official figures that exaggerated accounts of air-raid deaths tended to circulate.26

  More pressing issues, perforce, were preoccupying Churchill. This day he had produced for his War Cabinet colleagues a detailed memorandum on “The munitions situation”.27 It opened:

  The Navy can lose us the war, but only the Air Force can win it. Therefore our supreme effort must be to gain overwhelming mastery in the air. The Fighters are our salvation but the Bombers alone provide the means of victory. We must therefore develop the power to carry an ever–increasing volume of explosives to Germany, so as to pulverize the entire industry and scientific structure on which the war effort and economic life of the enemy depend, while holding him at arm’s length from our Island. In no other way at present visible can we hope to overcome the immense military power of Germany.

  With this policy, the Air Staff was in complete agreement. Their only regret was that a more powerful bombing offensive against German industry was not already under way. But Churchill had much more to say. Tucked into the text was the view that a large-scale invasion was “unlikely”. To Sir John Anderson, he wrote an “action this day” minute telling him that “great effort” should be made to help people drain their Anderson shelters and to make floors for them against the winter rain. The Prime Minister took the time out to offer detailed instructions to the Home Secretary on how this could be done.28

  And despite the Plesman brush-off, the Chicago Daily News had peace rumours circulating. A prominent Swede had supposedly arrived in London with a new peace offer: independence for part of Poland; autonomy for Czechoslovakia under the Reich, independence for Norway and Holland; a bigger Belgium and a smaller France; and nothing from the British Empire. An offer seemed not only possible but highly probable, the London bureau ventured. London believed there was concern in Nazi circles over the failure to eliminate the RAF. A winter of warfare was not wanted by Berlin.

  The air war was again scrappy, but with a major raid on North Weald fighter station by a formation of Dorniers, which damaged hangars, messes and administrative buildings. The operations room was hit but not put
out of action. Fighter Command suffered twenty losses, including two Blenheim fighters shot down by Hurricanes of No. 46 Sqn. Two Blenheim bombers and a Whitley shot down brought RAF losses to twenty-three, compared with a Luftwaffe total of sixteen, a clear win for the “away team”.

  DAY 57 – WEDNESDAY 4 SEPTEMBER 1940

  The big news in Britain was the agreement between Britain and the USA on the exchange of 50 obsolete American destroyers for US bases on British territories in the Caribbean and elsewhere. Churchill had been obliged, as part of the deal, to give personal assurances to Roosevelt that, if the British Isles were overrun, the British Fleet would not be surrendered or sunk, but sent to other parts of the Empire for its defence.

  Many of the public saw in the transfer of the destroyers a sign that the USA might be about to join the war on the British side. Home Intelligence found the public “still in a comparatively cheerful state of mind”, largely accounted for by “the continued success of the RAF both at home and abroad”.

  The Daily Express had Hubert Knickerbocker replicating a report that had been published in New York the previous day. “Britain is bleeding, but unbowed,” he wrote. “Hitler’s air attacks on the south-east coast have been going on now for three weeks, and the German Press boasts that the Luftwaffe has utterly destroyed most of the cities and ports on this crucial stretch”. But, said Knickerbocker, the fate of this island and the decision of the war depends on whether enough destruction is wrought to mean blockade. Nowhere, he stated, could I find any important damage to any important ports. Ninety-eight percent of all the damage has been done to innocent civilians and their property. The Germans have failed to blockade.

  So to assert may have been premature. The blockade was a long-term option. Not so the invasion. In England, War Minister Anthony Eden had warned that it would be foolish to suppose that because the autumn approached, the threat of invasion was already past. “The contrary is the fact”, he had said, his words reported by the Daily Express. “There is no shred of evidence to show that Hitler has abandoned his declared intention to seek to subdue this country by invasion. There is plenty of evidence to cause us to be especially watchful during these next few weeks.”