by Norman Gelb
Generally, the squadron leader would lead the squadron in flight. But he had administrative duties as well and often a flight commander would take command of the squadron in the air. There were, however, countless times during the battle when squadrons had lost their senior flying officers in combat and made do with what was available, sometimes men very junior in rank.
There were three degrees of preparedness for pilots on duty at the airfields: ‘Standby’ — ready to be aloft within two minutes, with the pilots sometimes sitting in their cockpits on the ground waiting to be dispatched; ‘readiness’ — ready to go in five minutes, with pilots playing cards or reading or sitting in the sun beside their planes or in huts in the dispersal areas where the planes were parked; and ‘available’ — on twenty-minute alert, with the pilots getting some sleep or a meal, but remaining on the base.
Group Controllers, eyeing boards in their Ops Room listing the aircraft resources at their disposal at their Group’s airfields, would assign squadrons or parts of squadrons to different degrees of preparedness, scrambling them, bringing them forward or standing them down, depending on the needs of the moment. Men who had been on ‘standby’ and then reduced to ‘available’ were often yanked away from their meals in the mess a few minutes later and hastily scrambled because a German raid turned out to be more dangerous than had been thought when a squadron at a sister airfield had been scrambled to meet it, or because raiders had sneaked in undetected until spotted by an alert Observer Corps post. Controllers in 11 Group would also, when necessary, call for reinforcements from 10 and 12 Groups on the 11 Group flanks (which led to some controversy within Fighter Command later on).
The standard formation for a squadron in the air was four tight ‘Vies’ (V-shaped formations) of three planes each, the four Vies making a diamond pattern in the sky, its rear section of three slightly higher than the other three sections. But once the initial attack was made on the enemy raiders, or once the enemy had launched its attack on the British formations, each pilot was on his own, either zooming in to shoot up a bomber or engaged in a frantic dogfight with an enemy fighter. One of the most vivid recollections of almost all the Battle pilots was of one minute being in a sky full of swooping, sweeping, darting fighters trying to shoot each other down, and of being astonishingly, totally alone in a totally empty sky an instant later, their momentum in combat having carried them a great distance from the scene of the fighting.
The Luftwaffe unleashed sporadic bombing attacks on English targets in June and early July. But the Germans had not yet begun their concentrated assault on English targets. Hurrying to build up their post-Dunkirk strength and capabilities, the RAF fighter squadrons thus had time then for some intensive testing and training.
The situation remained ominous. But the reactions of the British varied greatly. Some, notably many of the young pilots and WAAFs, were not at all worried, their youthful exuberance overcoming the premonitions of hardship and worse which some of their countrymen and countrywomen entertained. For some fighter pilots, memories of the losses in France and over Dunkirk weighed heavily. For others, the most pronounced feeling was profound anger, and impatience to be locked in combat with the enemy.
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Pilot Officer Pat Hancock
We were under pressure. Tensions were there the whole time. We would drink far more than we should have done at times. We had parties. We’d sing silly songs at times, like all young fighting men do. But ‘devil-may-care’ — no. It was too serious. I wouldn’t say we were straight-faced, po-faced people. Far from it. But we were definitely under no illusions that if the Germans were able they would occupy our country the same way they had already occupied most of Europe. We were on our tod, very much alone. We didn’t know at the time that it was the Battle of Britain. The phrase hadn’t become commonly used. But we knew it was the battle for Britain.
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Pilot Officer Donald Stones
We were angry about France. It was humiliating coming out of there with our tails between our legs. We wanted to get at the Germans.
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Pilot Officer Bob Kings
Later in the war, I flew in the Middle East over desert. You’d look down and there was a lot of sand. It meant nothing to me. But flying over Kent and Surrey and the green fields of southern England and the Thames Estuary — that was home. The fact that someone was trying to take it away or break it up made you angry.
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Corporal Claire Legge
I don’t ever remember being terribly worried. Once, before everything started, dear old Trenchard [Air Chief Marshal and ‘Father of the Royal Air Force’] — he was retired by then — came down to visit us. We were lined up and he came along and said, ‘I don’t want you all to worry. You don’t have to worry. The chances of anything terrible happening to you are not as bad as you think. For instance,’ he said, ‘there are all those seagulls flying around over those hangars over there. There’s one flying towards us. What do you think the odds are that he will drop something on to one of you?’ That was his idea of boosting our morale. It certainly did.
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Anthony Weymouth, BBC Commentator
Journal, 2 June
The full force of Nazi brutality, oppression and savagery has been kept for us. What has happened in Germany itself, in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway and Holland will seem trifling compared to what Hitler will do to the hated English once he gets the chance ... I prophesy that Hitler’s immediate and future policy will be dictated solely by one factor — what will deliver us most speedily and thoroughly into his hands.
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Harold Nicolson, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Information
Diary, 15 June
The events crowd thick and fast and each one seems worse than the other. Yet a curious psychological effect is produced. Fear and sorrow seem to give way to anger and pride. It may be because I know that I shall kill myself and Vita [Sackville-West, his wife] will kill herself if the worst comes. Thus there comes a point where Hitler will cease to trouble either of us and meantime by every means in our power we will continue to worry him. Then there is another state of mind which I notice. I am able almost entirely to dismiss from my thoughts any consideration of the future. I did not even have such pangs about the past as I had when the situation was less catastrophic. My reason tells me that it will be almost impossible to beat the Germans, and that the probability is that we shall be bombed and invaded. I am quite lucidly aware that in three weeks from now, Sissinghurst [his magnificent country mansion with world famous gardens] may be a waste and Vita and I both dead. Yet these probabilities do not fill me with despair. I seem to be impervious both to pleasure and pain. For the moment we are all anaesthetized.
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Sir Alexander Cadogan, Permanent Under Secretary, Foreign Office Diary, 29 June
Everything is as gloomy as can be. Probability is that Hitler will attempt invasion in the next fortnight. As far as I can see, we are, after years of leisurely preparation, completely unprepared. We have simply got to die at our posts — a far better fate than capitulating to Hitler as these damned Frogs have done. But uncomfortable.
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Pilot Officer Paddy Barthropp
I am absolutely convinced that people my age hadn’t the faintest idea, not a bloody clue what was going on. It was just beer, women and Spitfires, a bunch of little John Waynes running about the place. When you were nineteen, you couldn’t give a monkey’s.
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Sergeant Jack Perkin
Looking back, I can’t think of anything more exciting than being scrambled. We’d been at readiness, sitting in deck chairs, playing games, always a bit on nerve ends. Then, when that call to scramble came, there was the fun and excitement of actually running to your aircraft — it wasn’t good enough to do anything else but run at full speed — perhaps a hundred yards to the plane. Usually there was a fitter already sitting in the aircraft and as soon as he heard the shout to scrambl
e — often accompanied by the shooting of a green Very pistol — he would start the engine immediately. So you’d have an airman on the battery ready to press the button and the fitter inside the cockpit ready to start the engine. He’d jump out and the pilot would jump in. Each squadron aimed at getting into the air in about two minutes. That meant jumping in, doing the straps up and opening the throttle.
I was nineteen years old. We were completely absorbed in this completely new life we were leading. Instead of sitting in offices — I had been an office boy in a timber merchant’s office in London and had hated every minute of it — suddenly we had this marvellous life of living with thirty or forty other men, flying aeroplanes all day long. We weren’t worried about the war. We had a lot of confidence that it would work out in the end.
At about the time France caved in, I remember some of the men saying, ‘That could be the end.’ We were very worried that the government would sue for peace. The idea that this very exciting life might suddenly come to an end, and that we might all find ourselves back doing office work, was alarming. We were tremendously relieved when Churchill gave his speeches about never giving in. That was tremendously relieving to all of us who, for purely selfish reasons, didn’t want to give in. We wanted to join the fight.
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Leonard Marsland Gander, Radio Correspondent of the Daily Telegraph
Diary, 6 July
We were awakened [at home at Angmering-on-Sea, Sussex] just before dawn by a savage fusillade of machine-gun and rifle fire. Was it invasion? Only a hundred yards away Brens were blazing away, the bullets whipping the sea. Hilda nudged me urgently and asked me what we should do. I couldn’t think of anything useful to do except to lie where we were and await developments. There was no artillery fire and no sound of aeroplanes so I concluded that it might after all be practice in the grey light.
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Keith Park, Air Vice Marshal, Commanding, 11 Group, Royal Air Force
TASKS OF GROUP 11 FIGHTERS These may be summarized as follows:
1. To avoid being attacked on the ground and when taking off;
2. To destroy bombers and fighters attacking fighter aerodromes;
3. To continue operating from inland aerodromes — sectors and satellites — whilst these are being attacked;
4. To destroy enemy aircraft in the following order of importance;
(i)Transport aircraft
(ii)Dive bombers
(iii)Reconnaissance aircraft and high bombers
(iv)Fighters which will be attacking our bombers and army co-operation aircraft.
All squadron and flight commanders must impress upon their pilots that to defeat an attempted invasion will demand the utmost physical and mental effort from all flying personnel. An attempted invasion will probably be defeated in twenty-four, or at most forty-eight hours and whilst an invasion is being attempted, all pilots must be prepared to do up to eight short patrols a day. It is anticipated that targets for fighters will be so plentiful that patrols will consist of very short flights, when patrols will be required to land and re-arm, probably not refuelling after every flight.
There was, of course, never any guarantee that the RAF would be able to beat back the Luftwaffe or that the Germans would wait until Fighter Command had been crippled before trying to invade. It was clear that once the Germans controlled the Channel coast in France, the invasion was conceivable at any time. Consequently, even before the Dunkirk evacuation, plans were being drawn up in London to meet this danger.
Pillars, poles, tank traps, barbed wire barriers and other obstructions were planted and dug to block German landings, either airborne or on the shore — and there were at least 500 miles of English coastline where a seaborne incursion was a real possibility. People were evacuated from coastal regions thought to be particularly vulnerable. Roadblocks were erected. (There were several incidents in which civilians were shot and killed for failing to stop and identify themselves.) Road signs were taken down and people were told that no directions were to be provided to strangers, all of whom were to be considered possible German agents.
Detailed instructions were issued to the populace on how to deal with the enemy should the invasion take place. The duties of the police in such a situation were outlined. Warnings were issued against despair and pessimism. In some cases, individuals heard to utter words of doom and gloom were jailed or fined. There were spy scares aplenty, some of which reached preposterous proportions. A man was reported to the police in Winchester as a suspected enemy agent because of his very un-English and highly suspicious failure to flush the toilet in the house in which he was staying — he was, in fact, a British officer billeted there. Thousands of aliens from Germany, Austria and Italy — which joined the war on Germany’s side in June — were interned, including, ironically, many who had fled to England to escape the fascists at home and some of whom later had to share their internment quarters with captured Nazis.
The regular British army at the time consisted of twenty-six divisions. Twelve of those divisions were made up of new recruits being hastily trained. Most of the others were still groggy from the pasting they had received from the Germans in Europe before being snatched back to safety in England. So much equipment had been left at Dunkirk that the army might have been very sorely tried if the Germans had been in a position to attempt to land then, even without mastery of the air. In key places along the coast, there was only a single machine-gun to cover each 5,000 feet of shore.
In such circumstances, a volunteer Home Guard was rapidly recruited. It was composed of men who, because they were too old or otherwise ineligible for regular military service, had remained in civilian life. It was the object of the Home Guard to fill the gaps left by the army, to guard the roads, bridges and coastal locations which the army was too stretched to monitor, and to serve as a reserve force for the army in combat, if needed. Also under-equipped and hardly up to military standards, this ‘Dad’s Army’ trained with patriotic dedication and patrolled with great vigilance, though it is unlikely that its members would have amounted to much of a deterrent if they had ever actually encountered German paratroopers or glider troops on English country roads.
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War Office, 15 May
The War Office announces that in order to supplement, from sources as yet untapped, the Home Defences of the country, it has been decided to create a new force to be known as ‘Local Defence Volunteers’ [this name was soon changed to ‘Home Guard’ by Winston Churchill who had a better understanding of the impact of words].
This force, which will be voluntary and unpaid, will be open to British subjects between the ages of seventeen and sixty-five years of age. The period of service will be for the duration of the war. Volunteers accepted will be provided with uniforms and will be armed.
Men of reasonable physical fitness and a knowledge of firearms should give in their names at their local police stations. The need is greatest in small towns, villages and less densely populated areas. The duties of the force can be undertaken in a volunteer’s spare time. Members of existing civil defence organizations should consult their officers before registering under this scheme.
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Assistant Section Leader Molly Wilkinson
After the evacuation of Dunkirk and after France fell, one took a deep breath and thought, ‘What happens now?’ I was worried, but in a young sort of way — really full of hope. I remember thinking how marvellous that people like my father who had fought in the First World War and were now too old for this war, were in the Home Guard, getting out their shotguns, anything, to train to defend the country against invasion.
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Les Linggard, Fire Warden
Some poor perishers who were with the Local Defence Volunteers had only pitchforks for weapons. Our troops were not as well equipped as they ought to have been. We hadn’t got as many aircraft as we ought to have had. We’d had the impression that everything was not as rosy as it might have been. But I didn’t realize that t
hings were going to get tough until they sacked Chamberlain and Churchill took over. We knew he was a tough one.
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Sylvia Yeatman
When my husband was at Detling Aerodrome, I did coding there. I had done coding at the Foreign Office before the war. The CO found it out. They were short of WAAFs at Detling then, so I did night and day duty.
In the hut where I worked there was a row of hockey sticks. I asked the CO what they were doing there. He said, ‘That’s in case the Germans come. They’re for the WAAFs. We haven’t got enough revolvers to go round.’ I didn’t want a hockey stick to hit a German with. I had a friend who worked in the small arms school at Hythe, so I got hold of a revolver. The chaps on the base used to look through the window at my revolver on my desk. I don’t think they liked that at all. It made them nervous.
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Charles Graves, Home Guard
In the early days, we had orders to stop everybody we saw after dusk on the Downs and ask for their identity cards. I wonder if in any other part of the country so many lovers were disturbed as in that real lovers’ paradise. On our first night, we came across a couple in a car — this was before the ban on pleasure motoring — and as they stole furtively away on the approach of our armed party, our leader held them up, demanded their identity cards, and said to the man, ‘Do you know that you have been in a prohibited area?’ ‘No, he hasn’t,’ snapped the girl.
A big shot from Hailsham came down one day to ginger us up. I was asked to pass on to the troops his somewhat bloodthirsty picture of what was to happen when the Germans came, explaining the roadblocks and tank traps — a sort of ‘general idea’ of the coming battle. We villagers were to ‘contain’ the Germans till the arrival of the real soldiers from the rear. ‘Of course, none of you chaps will probably be alive when they get here and drive the Huns back into the sea.’
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Winston Churchill
Should the invader come to Britain, there will be no placid lying down of the people in submission before him, as we have seen alas in other countries. We shall defend every village, every town and every city. The vast mass of London itself, fought street by street, could easily devour an entire hostile army, and we would rather see London laid in ruins and ashes than that it should be tamely and abjectly enslaved ... All depends now upon the life-strength of the British race ... and of all our associated peoples, and of all our well wishers in every land, doing their utmost night and day, giving all, daring all, enduring all to the utmost, to the end. This is no war of chieftains or of princes, of dynasties or national ambitions. This is a war of peoples and causes ... This is a war of the unknown warrior. But let us strive without failing in faith or in duty, and the dark cause of Hitler will be lifted from our age.