On the German side, however, the problem of organizing a complex, multilayered attack on two targets, to be carried out at very different altitudes, and composed of aircraft flying at different speeds and gathered from more than a dozen airfields, was proving to be a more difficult task than anybody had anticipated. Despite the generally good weather there were clouds over the Calais area from about 6,000 to 10,000 feet, so inevitably some of the bomber formations missed each other and their fighter escorts were unable to find them. The attack was a brilliant piece of planning, but it depended on the perfect synchronization of its various elements, and this is hard to achieve in the air. Sixty of the German fighters were supposed to sweep over southern England from Dover to Kenley and Biggin Hill, a distance of about forty miles, and engage British fighters before the bomber formations appeared, while the remainder stuck close to the bombers to protect them. RAF Kenley was supposed to receive first a concentrated, precision dive-bombing attack on its vital buildings; then, immediately afterward, a conventional high-altitude bombing attack to destroy the runways; finally, as the coup de grâce, a daring and unexpected rooftop-level attack to destroy anything that remained undamaged. This whole rapid and carefully choreographed succession of separate attacks would be over in ten minutes, and was intended to leave Kenley a smoldering ruin. In the meantime, the force of sixty He 111s would attack Biggin Hill from a high altitude, putting it out of action, while the speed of the combined attacks, the fact that they were aimed at two separate targets, and the sheer number of German fighters overhead would overcome or distract the British fighter squadrons. On paper it seemed like a sure thing.
That it was not was shortly made apparent by the appearance of no fewer than nine squadrons of Spitfires and Hurricanes, nearly 100 British fighters—almost half Dowding’s total force, if you believed Beppo Schmidt’s numbers, as Göring evidently did. Park prudently kept half of them to the northeast of Kenley and Biggin Hill, to cover the Thames and Dover. Although the Germans had no way of knowing it, Park also had three more squadrons in reserve at RAF Tangmere and six more he could draw on if he needed them. Further evidence that the day was not going to go as smoothly as planned became rapidly obvious to the leader of the Ninth Staeffel of Do 17s, which had been sent on a different course from that of the main force, crossing the English coast farther east at Beachy Head to deliver the third, low-level attack on Kenley. The commander, Captain Joachim Roth, had led the aircraft in so low over the Channel that the wash of their propellers left a wake on the sea—in fact, as they approached England they were well below Beachy Head, looking up at the chalk cliff face, on top of which was an Observer Corps post! As it happened, a war photographer was with them, and shooting with an ordinary Leica, he was able to capture pictures of English civilians sprinting for cover in the small town of Lewes, north of Brighton, as the German planes flew over them (one man is running while carrying a shopping bag; another is looking up in amazement). The German fliers observed cyclists on the roads below them hastily abandon their bicycles and run for the nearest ditch. The startled observers on Beachy Head had been looking down on the German bombers, rather than up at them, and reported that they had crossed the coast at “zero altitude,” and indeed Roth maintained an altitude of about fifty feet as he followed the railway line from Southease to Blechingley, a brilliant piece of navigation, though from time to time he had to pull up a bit, to avoid hills and electricity lines. Flying a bomber at an altitude of fifty feet and a speed of 250 miles per hour requires intense concentration, so it was not until Roth passed over the village of Blechingley, less than six miles south of his target, that he became aware of what he was not seeing ahead of him: there was no huge column of smoke rising from the airfield.
Owing to a muddle and the scattered cloud cover over the French coast, Roth’s aircraft were the first to strike Kenley, instead of the last. Although, as the Germans had guessed, they were too low to be picked up by radar, thanks to the Observer Corps they were going to receive a warm welcome. Kenley, like all the Sector airfields, was strongly defended. Detachments of infantry were present at all of them—in the event of an invasion, it was recognized by everybody except Winston Churchill that RAF ground personnel would be no substitute for trained infantry—and in Kenley’s case they were from the Scots Guards, one of the five foot regiments of the Brigade of Guards, and one of the oldest and most prestigious regiments in the British Army. In addition, there were both heavy and rapid-fire antiaircraft guns (Bofors forty-millimeter quick-firing cannon), manned by the Royal Artillery; large numbers of machine guns; and the much maligned UP projectors, manned by airmen. Despite the short warning period, Kenley, Biggin Hill, and Croydon had all scrambled their remaining fighters, and also had time to broadcast the alert, warning everybody to take cover immediately. The personnel in the Kenley operations room, men and women, having donned their steel helmets, stayed at their posts, however, and watched as the plotters moved the air-raid markers across the map until they converged on their own airfield, then braced themselves for the bombs they knew were coming.
Roth’s low-level attack destroyed three hangars and many other buildings, and briefly severed the electricity cable to the operations room, but at a terrific cost to his own unit—he would lose almost half his aircraft, and he himself would be taken prisoner, after being badly burned along with his pilot, crash-landing in a field close to Kenley. Ironically, the UP projectiles helped bring Roth down—his pilot was so startled by the long rows of bright orange flashes ahead of him as the rockets were launched at the northwestern end of the airfield that he pulled the aircraft up to clear them, giving the Bofors gunners a perfect chance to hit him as he climbed. Another German bomber banked sharply to avoid whatever was ahead, with the result that one of the suspended wires snagged a wing, then slid off without the parachute opening, puzzling the crew. A third UP did exactly what it was supposed to do and pulled a Dornier out of the sky, bringing it down on a nearby house with an explosion that killed everyone on board, including a full colonel who had been flying as an observer. The UP had created consternation in the air and on the ground—to the German pilots it looked as if they were flying into an inexplicable, lavish daytime fireworks display; but to the British airmen, gunners, and infantrymen on the ground the sight of what seemed like a cloud of white parachutes in the sky led to the conclusion that German paratroopers were landing in what must be the first act of the invasion. One consequence was that throughout the day RAF fighter pilots who were shot down and landed by parachute found themselves being held at gunpoint by the Home Guard or by a farmer armed with a shotgun. Usually, a burst of angry swearing was sufficient proof of British identity, but this did not help Poles, Czechs, or, in one case, an enraged New Zealander.
The low-level raid was over in a couple of minutes. Ironically, Hauptmann Roth, his hands and face badly burned, and his pilot were brought to RAF Kenley as prisoners just in time to be bombed by what should have been the first wave of the attack. One WAAF described the scene as she took cover: “Beyond our trench—perhaps 50 yards away—the hangars were ablaze; everything seemed to be burning fiercely in a pall of black smoke blowing across to the right.” For a moment, the only noise heard was the crackling of burning hangars and the occasional explosion of an oxygen cylinder; then the antiaircraft guns opened up again as the twenty-seven Dorniers of the high-altitude force and their fighter escorts appeared over the airfield, subjecting Kenley—and the surrounding villages—to a heavy pasting. The Ju 88 twin-engine dive-bombers, which should have been the first to attack Kenley, did not turn up until the airfield, seen from the sky, seemed to have been demolished, and therefore flew on to their alternative target, at RAF West Malling. The entire attack had taken a grand total of eight minutes, and with the hangars and buildings on fire, the runways pockmarked with bomb craters, and so many fire engines responding to the blazing RAF station and the homes nearby hit by stray bombs that the surrounding roads were blocked, the Germans concluded they h
ad succeeded, albeit with heavy losses. In fact, Kenley would be ready for action again in two hours—the operations room was moved to the vacant butcher shop, a runway was marked out that avoided the bomb craters, and the fires were brought under control. Twelve airmen had been killed, and there were many RAF and army personnel and civilian wounded, but at the end of the day Kenley was still usable.
The high-altitude bombing of Biggin Hill by sixty He 111s was more conventional, but had even less effect. Most of the bombs missed the airfield, and exploded harmlessly in the woods and fields. From the air, the smoke and dust made it look to German aircrew as if the airfield was destroyed, but on the ground the RAF personnel and soldiers moved quickly to make the airfield usable as soon as the bombers had left. Perhaps the most memorable moment of the raid on Biggin Hill was the defusing of an unexploded German bomb by a WAAF sergeant, who would become the second airwoman in the Battle of Britain to be awarded the Military Medal for courage in action. (Another WAAF and two Wrens—members of the Women’s Royal Naval Service—would win awards for courage under fire on August 18, as did one army lieutenant and five NCOs and soldiers. It was a day when the ground personnel, men and women, acted with the same heroism as the fighter pilots.) As the Germans streamed back across Kent and Sussex toward the Channel, they were fiercely attacked by British fighters, and losses on both sides were high.
The day was not yet over—in fact, it had hardly begun. The aircraft of Luftflotte 2 had scarcely landed back at their bases (the survivors of the ill-fated low-level attack on Kenley were disbelieved and ridiculed when they described the mysterious fireworks display and the tangle of cables into which they had flown) when those of Field Marshal Sperrle’s Luftflotte 3 took off from their bases west of the Seine to attack Gosport, Ford, and Thorney Island, all clustered around Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.
This was the largest concentration of Ju 87 Stuka dive-bombers ever assembled for a single raid on Britain, and it was protected by no fewer than 157 fighters. The ambitious attack had several flaws, however. First, the Stukas had already demonstrated that they were sitting ducks for British fighters. Secondly, although the attack might have contributed to overwhelming No. 11 Group by sheer numbers had it been made at the same time as the attacks on Kenley and Biggin Hill, it would actually begin more than half an hour later. Consequently, Park had a slim opportunity (or as we would now say, a window of opportunity) in which to get his squadrons refueled and rearmed, while sending up whatever he had left to meet the new threat. Third, thanks to another failure of German intelligence, none of the three airfields being attacked was used by Fighter Command. Gosport and Thorney Island were both naval airfields (Thorney Island’s official name was HMS Peregrine, since all permanent shore bases belonging to the Royal Navy are named like ships, something which Beppo Schmidt’s staff could have discovered by looking at an AA road map); and RAF Ford was a Coastal Command airfield. All three targets were also well defended, and very close to RAF Tangmere and several other Fighter Command airfields. A look at the map should have warned Sperrle and his bomber commander, Major General Baron Wolfram von Richthofen (a cousin of the famous Red Baron of World War I), that Fighter Command would be able to dominate the sky above the targets.
The Stukas came over in perfect, massed formation, wingtip to wingtip as if they were flying at the annual Hendon Air Show, an enormous, tightly packed display of aircraft that impressed everybody who observed it. Each Stuka carried a 500-pound bomb under the fuselage and four 110-pound bombs under the wings, a powerful bomb load for a single-engine, two-seat aircraft, and one that a good dive-bomber pilot could aim with pinpoint accuracy. Since this area was to the south of England, Park could draw on the fighters of No. 10 Group to his west when he needed them. This option had an additional advantage: there was no bad blood or friction between Park and Air Vice-Marshal Sir Christopher Brand, as there was between Park and Air Vice-Marshal Leigh-Mallory of No. 12 Group. By the time the Stukas, now joined by their fighter escort (because of their greater speed, the fighters had taken off later), were approaching the coastline, Park had nearly seventy British fighters in the air. That still left him at odds of two to one with the German fighters, but it was not an insignificant number, and the German fighter pilots were once again faced by two insoluble problems—how to protect the slow, lumbering dive-bombers at low altitude in a plane that could fly almost 150 miles per hour faster and was at its best above 20,000 feet, and how to fight a prolonged battle with one eye on the fuel gauge or the “low fuel” warning light.
At two-fifteen that afternoon the Stukas split into four groups as they passed the Isle of Wight, one bound for Thorney Island, one for Gosport, one for Ford, and one for the radar station at Poling. The natural assumption on the ground, considering the persistent efforts the Germans had made in the past few days to destroy Tangmere, was that it would be once again the target, and given the short distances involved, it is not surprising that the real targets were caught by surprise. Nor is it surprising that the Stuka attacks were more deadly than those of the more conventional bombers at Biggin Hill and Kenley. Stuka pilots were still the elite of the Luftwaffe. They did not attack at low levels—instead, they climbed to 13,000 feet, and from that altitude went into a steep dive, of between seventy-five and ninety degrees, aiming directly at their target. The side panel of the pilot’s windscreen was etched with lines that allowed the pilot to check exactly the angle of his dive. Every variable had to be carefully calculated—the aircraft had to bomb directly into the prevailing wind, which of course determined for the pilot the direction of the attack. The speed and the angle of dive had to be held exactly, and a horn sounded automatically in the cockpit to warn the pilot four seconds before it was time to release the bomb load, usually at a height of 400 meters (just over 1,200 feet). This was a method of bombing with pinpoint accuracy that no other air force could match at the time.* However, one defect was that during the dive the Stuka’s only protection was from the wireless operator–rear gunner seated behind the pilot, who had only one machine gun with which to hold off fighters armed with eight guns. Another defect was that when the pilot pulled out of the dive and climbed away steeply, having released his bombs, his airspeed slowed to the point where he was an easy target for antiaircraft fire from the ground, or for British fighters. Although the Stuka had originally been equipped with an external siren that gave off a banshee wail when the aircraft dived, intended to strike terror into the hearts of those on the ground, by the time of the Battle of Britain these had mostly been removed, as one more object that increased drag and slowed the plane. Besides, the targets were no longer masses of terrified, traumatized refugees or fleeing troops on the roads, as had been the case in Poland and France, but military installations, in which discipline was likely to prevail over fear. At the Poling radar station the WAAF plotters kept on at their work even when they had plotted the enemy aircraft as right above them, and when they could hear the whistle of the descending bombs. (One of them, Corporal Joan Avis Hearn, would win the Military Medal for her courage under fire.) At Ford Naval Air Station, sailors fired back at the Stukas with World War I Lewis guns, and one officer used his revolver; and Wren stewards and cooks helped to rescue and tend to the wounded as bombs went off around them. Of the targets, Ford was hit worst, with twenty-eight killed and eighty-five wounded—it was a scene of “mutilated bodies and wrecked buildings,” over which a dense cloud of burning oil from the flaming fuel tanks hung ominously. Gosport and Thorney Island were the least badly damaged. The radar station at Poling was put out of commission—one of the wooden receiver towers had been damaged. The Stuka force lost sixteen aircraft, and eight of the escorting Bf 109s were destroyed, for a total loss of five British fighters.
The day was still not over. At five-forty-five Luftflotte 2 attacked again, flying up the Thames estuary, this time to attack Croydon, while Manston was attacked at ground level by fighters. Further raids took place during the night. In the meantime, each side c
ounted its losses. The RAF had lost twenty-seven fighters, with ten pilots killed; the Luftwaffe had lost a total of seventy-one aircraft, of which thirty-seven were bombers and eleven were Bf 110s. Forty-four civilians had been killed and 108 wounded. On no other day in the Battle of Britain did German and RAF losses mount so high, or in the case of the Luftwaffe ultimately serve so little purpose. It was not so much the number of aircraft that mattered—they could be replaced—but the irreparable loss of so many highly trained bomber crews. Even more important, although the fact was not yet clear to anybody in the Luftwaffe high command, at no point had the Germans in any way endangered RAF Fighter Command, or even tempted Dowding to make a tactical mistake. Certainly, the loss of twenty-seven fighters was worrisome, but thanks to Lord Beaverbrook’s efforts they could be replaced overnight; and although Dowding’s concern over the supply of fighter pilots was still intense, the immense effort the two German air fleets made on August 18 had merely put two of his major Sector airfields out of action for a few hours at most, and knocked out one radar station, which could be replaced with a mobile unit until repairs were made. Dowding could look at the day with a certain grim satisfaction. This was exactly how he had planned to fight and win the battle—the Germans were making huge efforts to destroy Fighter Command, at a great cost in life and machines, while Dowding, without ever revealing his real strength, was inflicting more and more casualties on them. Eventually, it would dawn on them that they were battering their heads against a brick wall, but in the meantime, as long as they continued to do so, there would be no invasion.
With Wings Like Eagles: A History of the Battle of Britain Page 21