The carnage in the Channel continued. Two more precious destroyers were attacked at Dover two days later. One was badly damaged, the other, HMS Codrington, sunk. The barracks at Dover were also hit, and from then on it was accepted that Dover should no longer be used as an advance base for destroyers. In fact, Dover was becoming so pummelled that the Air Ministry issued Fighter Command with instructions to send its fighters out to sea whenever possible to meet raids heading towards the port – a tactic Dowding disapproved of.
That same day, 609 Squadron had been scrambled to intercept another raid heading towards Portland. The pilots were getting fed up with this shipping war. No more men had been lost since Pip Barran and Gordon Mitchell had been killed, but convoy patrols were wearing; and when the Luftwaffe showed up, they always seemed to come out of the sun, with the advantage of both height and numbers. It was the same on this occasion. John Dundas could see the enemy fighter escort high above them, but the squadron was in no position to take them on. Neither he nor David Crook even saw the bombers. In fact, the Stukas were below them, hidden by cloud and attacking the destroyer HMS Delight, which had just completed a refit and was heading to Liverpool. She would not be reaching her destination, however, as bombs from fifteen Stukas hit her repeatedly. By the time rescue ships arrived, she was ablaze.
Above and oblivious to this, David and Johnny Curchin were in a vic with James Buchanan leading. Both David and Johnny were scanning the skies, keeping an eye on the 109s some distance away and above. Then David looked behind him and when he turned back saw that ‘Buck’ Buchanan had disappeared. Back down at Warmwell again, neither David nor Johnny could understand what had happened, although when Buck never showed up, they came to the conclusion that he must have spotted the Stukas down below through a gap in the cloud and gone after them. Perhaps he had had some mechanical failure; whatever the reason, Buck had said nothing over the R/T and nothing was ever seen of him again. For John Dundas, it was a particular blow. ‘It’s uncommon,’ he wrote to Margaret Rawlings that afternoon, ‘how my own best friends in the RAF seem to have been lost right and left.’
David Crook and Johnny Curchin took off again and searched for over an hour out to sea, looking for any sign of Buck. They spotted something, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a downed barrage balloon and not a parachute. That evening, the mood in the mess had been grim. Everyone felt depressed and discouraged by Buck’s loss. Like Günther Rall and the men in III/JG 52, they all felt these recent losses had been unnecessary and avoidable, and at the same time that they were not achieving very much. And, like Günther, they also believed it was their tactics that were at fault. Both John and David thought it was pointless chasing out to sea after the enemy when they were so outnumbered. David also realized that in an effort to try and hit the Stukas, they were never giving themselves enough height. Getting above the enemy, David now concluded, was the secret to successful air fighting.
Life was still quiet enough in the north of the country but in the south, and south-east especially, the air fighting had become quite intense. ‘The excitement grew slowly and progressively,’ says Pete Brothers, ‘but by the end of July it was definitely getting interesting.’ For every pilot in Fighter Command, each day was a long one. Most were up before dawn and ready to fly by first light. In the case of the 32 Squadron pilots, they would then fly to their advance airfield. Pete would regularly fly four sorties a day. On 25 July, during the massacre of the CW8 convoy, he flew six times. Four days later, he managed to shoot down another Me 109. On the last two days of the month he flew five times and then a further four, including six combat patrols. It was a lot of flying under any circumstances, but particularly when pilots were expected to operate from primitive airfields with minimal facilities, where food and beds and other comforts were in short supply.
Dowding was certainly worried. In addition to the combat losses, accidents were also mounting. In fact, they accounted for around a third of all losses that month. He now ordered that pilots should have at least eight hours’ rest a day and twenty-four hours’ leave a week.
There were no such concessions to the Luftwaffe pilots, who at least had the benefit of being able to choose when and where they flew. At the end of the month, their fighter tactics briefly changed. The fighter aircraft had been subordinated to new formations called Jagdfliegerführer – or Jafü as the Germans abbreviated them – which were effectively a fighter corps within each Luftflotte. Jafü 2, in Luftflotte 2, had been pressing hard to be allowed to carry out ‘free hunts’ rather than to be shackled to bomber escorts and, in the absence of any more convoys going through the Straits of Dover, had finally been given authority to do so. Dolfo Galland certainly thought this was the right way to use fighters, the idea being to lure British fighters into combat. So too did Günther Rall. And it seemed to work, although largely because Fighter Command was still flying patrols that were therefore already in the air when the Messerschmitts came over. Nonetheless, on 29 July, Günther flew three such free hunts. On the last, his 8th Staffel claimed three Hurricanes for no loss of their own.
Despite this success, however, III/JG 52 was about to become the first fighter unit to be withdrawn from the battle. The losses had been too great. On 1 August, it was posted to Zerbst to rest and refit. ‘The high price paid for the experience of our six days on the Channel coast,’ noted Günther, ‘is not something we could have budgeted for in advance.’ That was true enough; the fighting in July had been a warning shot to the Luftwaffe that the RAF was a better organized and more formidable opposition than it had been in France and the Low Countries.
The Luftwaffe had lost over 200 aircraft in July, Fighter Command half that, yet the battle had hardly begun. It soon would, however, for on 1 August Hitler finally gave his order for an all-out attack on Britain. ‘The German Air Force,’ he announced in his directive, ‘is to overpower the English Air Force with all the forces at its command, in the shortest possible time.’ This ‘intensification’ of the air war would begin on or after 5 August.
On 1 August, Dolfo Galland was awarded the Knight’s Cross. Feldmarschall Kesselring visited him at Caffiers and presented him with the medal himself. As he did so, two reconnaissance aircraft flew over high above.
‘What are those?’ Kesselring asked.
‘Spitfires, Herr Generalfeldmarschall,’ Dolfo replied.
Kesselring laughed. ‘The first to congratulate you.’
They may have been laughing that day, but they would soon have little time for such levity. On the shoulders of senior commanders like Kesselring and young fighter leaders like Dolfo Galland lay a huge responsibility: destroying Fighter Command and seizing the skies over Britain.
35
Bombs on Germany, Bomben auf England
AT BEAUMONT-LE-ROGER in Normandy, Siegfried Bethke was still flying very little – a few coastal patrols and just a couple of operations against Britain. For the rest of the time, the 1st Gruppe of JG 2 had largely been playing a defensive role, waiting to intercept forays by British reconnaissance planes and bombers. They had had some success too – a Blenheim on both 28 and 29 July, and another on 2 August. Siegfried even saw that one go down. ‘That was the first kill I saw from the ground,’ he noted.
It was the Gruppe adjutant, Oberleutnant Paul Temme, who had attacked the Blenheim. He had been flying in a Kette, or wide vic of three, circling over Le Havre, when he had seen the British plane suddenly appear out of the cloud base. It had immediately tried to dodge back into the cloud, but Paul had given chase, wondering whether it wasn’t a Ju 88 after all. He soon spotted it again, however, and the Blenheim’s gunner opened up, just as Paul opened fire too. Cloud hid it once more and then it emerged again and Paul fired again until, cursing, his cannon jammed. ‘But at that moment,’ noted Paul, ‘the Englishman’s right engine burst into flames.’ Cloud hid it once again, but then he spiralled out of the sky, on fire. Paul followed it down and watched as it crashed into the centre of Le Havre, exploding
and blazing fiercely; none of the three-man crew from 59 Squadron survived. Moments later, the bombs detonated, causing considerable damage.
At Beaumont-le-Roger, Siegfried had also heard that ten Blenheims had attacked Cherbourg and that five had been shot down. In fact, thirteen Blenheim bombers and ten Blenheim fighter escorts had attacked the airfield there, scoring hits on hangars and barrack blocks, with three failing to return. Attacks such as these were a real nuisance, and sometimes more than that. Almost daily, Blenheims were attacking airfields, coastal oil plants, and ports; an effort was also made to attack the Schnellboote bases, which had now been identified. It meant the Germans had to defend these targets, with fighter aircraft and flak, which was an annoying drain on resources. In any case, it was the Luftwaffe that was supposed to be doing the attacking, not the RAF. The raids by the Blenheims on the airmen waiting to assault Britain also had an important psychological effect. They helped underline the point that the RAF was a determined and defiant foe. ‘The war against England will be more difficult for us than against France,’ jotted Siegfried. ‘Can’t back down! Dedication!’
One of those Blenheim pilots causing so much irritation was Arthur Hughes, who had been passed fit for flying duties once more at the end of June. Immediately requesting a transfer to fighters, he’d been turned down and sent back to 18 Squadron, which was now part of 2 Group Bomber Command. It had been re-designated a medium-bomber squadron since he had been away, but he discovered he had missed little; most of the time the squadron had been rebuilding since being decimated in France. Still, there were a few familiar faces who had seemed genuinely pleased to see him back, and despite the isolation of the airfield – near the north Norfolk coast – he had been pleased to get back into the swing of things.
Poor weather over the Continent had hampered operations in the middle of July, most of which had been directed against Dutch barges and airfields in France. Despite the weather, however, there had still been a steady loss of pilots and crew. Then, at the end of the month, he received a great fillip when he and three others had all been awarded the DFC. ‘I shall at least have something to show,’ he noted, ‘and P/O A Hughes DFC will look much more imposing in the casualty lists!’ It was hard not to think of the dangers. Barely a mission went by without one of their Blenheims failing to make it back. There were now heavy flak concentrations over the enemy coast, and around any of the airfields, ports and industrial targets they visited as well the fighters held back to defend them. And they were still operating during daylight hours.
Arthur found his mood swung constantly. One moment he was feeling daring and excited at the thought of being able to hit back; the next, overcome by the steady erosion of odds. ‘The future stretches ahead in a dreary succession of nerve-wracking sorties,’ he jotted on 2 August, ‘from which there is no release save death or maiming – a future in which all the kindly gentle arts are subordinated to that one mad end: mutual destruction.’ Earlier that morning, he had bombed Rotterdam, and within five seconds of dropping his bombs was being hammered at by German flak. On that occasion, however, he made it back unscathed, but any shard of exploding flak could prove lethal. It was a question of luck and odds. And every time one survived, the odds shortened.
It was not just the Blenheims that were making daily forays over German occupied territories. The so-called heavy bombers were also flying over, albeit at night. The RAF had still not really sorted out its bombing strategy; bombing was still a new form of warfare and it took time to work out the best way to conduct operations. What was clear, however, was that the current system was not working. It was the Air Ministry that decided what and where was bombed, while Air Marshal Portal, C-in-C Bomber Command, was left to provide the means, when really Portal should have been left to get on with it without interference. One of Portal’s frustrations was that the Air Ministry kept changing its mind. One minute it wanted enemy ports and shipping to be attacked, then it decided it should be industrial targets once more. To its complaints that attacks had been too dispersed and ‘patchy’, Portal argued that inaccurate bombing was not wasted because of the ‘moral effect’ it had on Germany. The Air Ministry did not disagree but felt that specific material destruction still had to be the priority. Yet another directive was issued on 24 July, the third that month. ‘Recent reports and information,’ it ran, ‘have confirmed that oil is the weakest link in Germany’s war economy, and I am to say that the destruction of Germany’s oil resources remains the basis of the main offensive strategy.’ It clearly did not yet know about Germany’s oil deal with Romania.
The nub of the matter was that a gulf had developed between what the Air Ministry would like to achieve, and what Portal and his men in Bomber Command could in reality achieve. The Air Ministry wanted accurate, decisive, strategic bombing against specific and legitimate war targets. Portal, however, knew that he had neither the numbers nor the equipment with which to achieve that aim. It was hard enough to find a target in daylight, but it was incredibly difficult, with only primitive navigational aids, to hit a target at night, especially when there was cloud and plenty of flak bursting all around. Photographic and intelligence analysis of the bombers’ efforts consistently demonstrated the inaccuracy of their bombing. The solution was to adopt a more laissez-faire approach to targets. Of course, they should aim to hit specific targets, but if bombs were liberally splayed about, then the effort was not wasted because of the psychological effect it would have on the German people below.
‘Getting bombs onto the target was difficult,’ says Andrew Jackson, an observer with 115 Squadron. ‘We did have bomb sights but they were not controlled by the gyro compass and therefore you relied entirely on the pilot keeping the aircraft straight and steady for the run-up to the bombing.’ From Kippen, near Stirling in Scotland, Andrew had joined the Volunteer Reserve in early 1939. He had then been called up on 1 September, and had turned twenty-three two days after war had been declared. He had always been interested in flying, so the RAF was naturally his first choice. He had hoped to become a pilot, but as a trainee surveyor he had been singled out to become an observer, with the combined role of navigator and bomb aimer. During his training, he had managed to drop bombs at an average of 230 yards from the target, and his instructors had seemed really pleased with that. ‘But that was at 2,000 feet,’ says Andrew, ‘and you didn’t bomb at that height. You bombed at a minimum of 10,000 feet generally.’ And from that height, it was far, far harder to drop them even remotely accurately.
His training had been somewhat deficient in other areas too. By the time he reached RAF Marham in the middle of May, he had only done twenty-three hours’ night flying out of 155, and only three hours at his OTU. His first operation, admittedly, had been during the day, over St Valéry in support of 51st Highland Division, but thereafter every mission had been at night. And mostly to targets well inside Germany.
‘On the whole,’ he says, ‘I was a pretty good navigator.’ He needed to be, especially since dead reckoning was the main navigational tool. The navigator would plot a course between his airfield and the target and then, having calculated the speed of the aircraft and the effect of the wind, would lay off a course that would get them from base to target in a given time. The effect of wind had to be repeatedly and accurately taken into account and the course adjusted accordingly. Clearly, there were enormous opportunities for a plotted course to go wrong. Visual markers were always given, but these were obviously of no help at all when there was plenty of cloud about. Furthermore, the weather forecasts that the crews were given were often inaccurate. Nor did it help that they flew off on their own. At least when they flew together they could help one another.
The only other means of navigating was for the wireless operator to tune his radio receiver to any enemy or shipping beacons. Crews had been issued with a list of German frequencies so could, theoretically, tune into them and from that get a fix. Larry Donnelly had been promoted from tail-end Charlie to Wireless Operator/Air Gunner an
d on 24 July had set off for his first raid in his new role with his crew to bomb Hamburg. The weather had been terrible and with absolutely no visual fixes possible and with the weather worsening, Larry switched on the receiver and managed to get a good bearing from the Texel shipping beacon off the Dutch coast. Eventually, they had to abandon the mission, but Larry had managed to find two other German beacons, which had been perfect for making a cross-bearing to pinpoint their position. This he repeated as they droned over the Low Countries and finally headed back over the Channel. Larry was delighted when they landed safely. His radio navigation had proved far more effective than dead reckoning could ever have been.
Yet however inaccurate these night-time bombing missions were, there was no denying the effort. On 27 July, for example, Andrew Jackson and his Wellington crew bombed Hamburg; two days later, it was Mannheim. On 2 August, it was Hamburg again, and this time Andrew saw his bombs explode over the docks and fires raging where other bombers had already struck. Three days later, they hit Kiel, where the battleship Gneisenau was in dock. All this bombing – from the combined efforts of Bomber Command – was most definitely having an effect, not least upon the German High Command. Göring was incensed and urged Hitler to allow him to give the British ten bombs back for every one they dropped on Germany. Hitler, however, expressly forbade any such retaliation for the time being. Nonetheless, he referred to British bombing in his Reichstag speech. ‘About six weeks ago,’ he said of Churchill, ‘he began to fight in the sphere in which he seems to think he is particularly strong, namely the air war against the civilian population, though under the pretence that the targets are important for the war effort.’
The Battle of Britain Page 52