Part 103.

Part 4 of the official account of the Battle of Britain. Published in 1941.

Sorry it’s late – Office 2010 decided not to play, eventually the internet coughed up a missing registry key and all was well again …



THE GREATEST DAY

15th September, 1940

The foregoing is a summary, necessarily brief and incomplete—for the battle took place too recently for a full account to be written—of almost three months of nearly continuous air fighting. The better to comprehend its nature it is necessary to examine in greater detail an individual day's fighting. Sunday, 15th September, is as good a day as any other. It was one of " the great days," as they have come to be called and the actions then fought were described by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons as "the most brilliant and fruitful of any fought upon a large scale up to that date by the fighters of the Royal Air Force." The enemy lost one hundred and eighty-five aircraft. This is what happened.

Over the South-East of England the day of Sunday, 15th September, dawned a little misty, but cleared by eight o'clock and disclosed light cumulus cloud at 2,000 or 3,000 feet. The extent of this cloud varied, and in places it was heavy enough to produce light local showers. Visibility, however, was on the whole good throughout the day; the slight wind was from the west shifting to north-west as the day advanced.

The first enemy patrols arrived soon after 9 a.m. They were reported to be in the Straits, in the Thames Estuary, off Harwich, and between Lympne and Dungeness. About 11.30 Goring launched the first wave of the morning attack, consisting of a hundred or more aircraft, soon followed by one hundred and fifty more. These crossed the English coast at three main points, near Ramsgate, between Dover and Folkestone and a mile or two north of Dungeness. Their objective was London. This formidable force was composed of Dornier bomber 17's and 215's escorted by Me. 109's. They flew at various heights between 15,000 and 26,000 feet. From the ground the German aircraft looked like black dots at the head of long streamers of white vapour from the air like specks rapidly growing. They appeared first as model aeroplanes and then, as the range closed, as full-sized aircraft.

Battle was soon joined and raged for about three-quarters of an hour over East-Kent and London. Some hundred German bombers burst through our defence and reached the eastern and southern quarters of the capital. A number of them were intercepted above the centre of the city itself just as Big Ben was striking the hour of noon.

To understand the nature of the combat, it must be remembered that the aircraft engaged in it were flying at a speed of between 300 and 400 miles an hour. At that speed place names become almost meaningless. The enemy, for example, might have been intercepted over Maidstone, but not destroyed until within a few miles of Calais. "Place attack was delivered—Hammersmith to Dungeness" or "London to the French Coast." Such phrases in the Intelligence Patrol Reports forcibly illustrate the size of the area over which the battle was fought. That being so, it is better perhaps not to attempt to plot the place of attack too accurately—an almost hopeless task—but to refer to it simply as the Southern Marches of England.

The battle in fact took place roughly in a cube about 80 miles long, 38 broad and from 5 to 6 miles high. It was in this space between noon and half-past that between 150 and 200 individual combats took place. Many of these developed into stern chases which,were broken off within a mile or two of the French Coast.



"Achtung, Schpitfeuer!"

Sixteen squadrons of No. 11 Group, followed by five from Nos. 10 and 12, were sent up to engage the enemy. All but one of the Squadrons taking part in the battle were very soon face to face with him. Five Squadrons of Spitfires opened their attack against the oncoming Germans in the Maidstone-Canterbury-Dover-Dungeness area. These were in action slightly before the Hurricane Squadrons, which intercepted farther back, between Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells and South London.

The Germans were found to be flying in various types of formations. The bombers were usually some thousands of feet below the fighters but sometimes this position was reversed. The bombers flew either in Vics (a "V"-shaped formation) of from five to seven aircraft or in lines of five aircraft abreast or in a diamond formation.

The Me. 109's were usually in Vies. One pilot has described the attacking German aircraft as flying in little groups of nine arranged in threes like a sergeant's stripes. Each group of nine was in this case supported by a group of nine Me. 110 fighters with single-seater Me. 109's or He. 113's circling high above.

The enemy soon realised that our defence was awake and active, for the German pilots could be heard calling out to each other over their wireless 'phones "Achtung, Schpitfeuer!" They had need to keep alert. Our pilots opened fire at an average range of from 250 to 200 yards, closing when necessary to 50. Many of the enemy fighters belonged to the famous Yellow-Nose Squadrons, though some had white noses and even occasionally red.


"Justification for Our New Tactics"

Once the battle was joined, regular formation was frequently lost and each pilot chose an individual foe. The following account of one combat can be taken as typical of the rest.

A pilot, whose Squadron was attacking in echelon starboard, dived out of the sun on to an Me. 109 which blew up after receiving his first burst of fire. By this time he found that another Me. 109 was on his tail. He turned, got it in his sights and set it on fire with several bursts. He was now separated from his comrades and therefore returned to his base. As he was coming down he received a message saying that the enemy were above. He looked up, saw a group of Dorniers at 14,000 feet, climbed and attacked them. He got in a burst at a Dornier; other friendly fighters came up to help. The enemy aircraft crashed into a wood and exploded.

While the Spitfires and Hurricanes were in action over Kent, other Hurricanes were dealing with such of the enemy as had succeeded by sheer force of numbers in breaking through and reaching the outskirts of London. Fourteen Squadrons of Hurricanes, almost immediately reinforced by three more Squadrons of Spitfires, took up this task, all of them coming into action between noon and twenty past. There ensued a continuous and general engagement extending from London to the coast and beyond.

In it the tactics so carefully thought out, so assiduously practised, secured victory. Let a Squadron-Leader describe the results they achieved.

"The 15th of September," he says, "dawned bright and clear at Croydon. It never seemed to do anything else during those exciting weeks of August and September. But to us it was just another day. We weren't interested in Hitler's entry into London; most of us were wondering whether we should have time to finish breakfast before the first blitz started. We were lucky.

"It wasn't till 9.30 that the sirens started wailing and the order came through to rendezvous base at 20,000 feet. As we were climbing in a southerly direction at 15,000 feet we saw thirty Heinkels supported by fifty Me. 109's 4,000 feet above them, and twenty No. 110's to a flank, approaching us from above. We turned and climbed, flying in the same direction as the bombers with the whole Squadron stringed out in echelon to port up sun, so that each man had a view of the enemy.

" 'A’ flight timed their attack to perfection, coming down sun in a power dive on the enemy's left flank. As each was selecting his own man, the Me. 110 escort roared in to intercept with cannons blazing at 1,000 yards range, but they were two seconds too late—too late to engage our fighters, but just in time to make them hesitate long enough to miss the bomber leader. Two Heinkels heeled out of the formation.

"Meanwhile, the Me. 110's had flashed out of sight, leaving the way clear for ' B ' flight, as long as the Me. 109's stayed above. ‘B’ flight leader knew how to bide his time, but just as he was about to launch his attack the Heinkels did the unbelievable thing. They turned south; into the sun; and into him. With his first burst the leader destroyed the leading bomber which blew up with such force that it knocked a wing off the left-hand bomber. A little bank and a burst from his guns sent the right-hand Heinkel out of the formation with smoke pouring out of both engines. Before returning home he knocked down an Me. 109. Four aircraft destroyed for an expenditure of 1,200 rounds was the best justification for our new tactics."


Dropping Every Few Miles

It must be borne in mind that this great battle was made up of Squadron attacks followed by numbers of personal combats, all taking place more or less at the same time over this wide area. Squadrons flying in pairs or wings of three units went into action in formation against an enemy similarly disposed. After the first attack delivered as often as possible out of the sun, they broke up and individual duels took place all over the sky.

Certain of the more striking incidents may be briefly recorded.

There were the dive attacks carried out by one Squadron of Spitfires which twice passed through an enemy bomber formation, each time delivering beam attacks as they did so. These tactics threw the enemy into extreme confusion. The bombers turned almost blindly, it seemed, aircraft dropping in flames or in uncontrolled dives with every few miles of the return journey. One such aircraft, of which the cowling and cabin top blew off, shed its crew who baled out, all except the rear gunner, who was seen to be hanging from the lower escape hatch until the aircraft dived into a wood, ten miles east of Canterbury.

Then there was the pilot who twice attacked an Me. 109 which each time strove to escape in an almost vertical dive. The first of these from 20,000 feet was successful, for the German pilot straightened out, but only to find that the British pilot had followed him down and was close upon him. "By that time," said the British pilot," I was going faster than the enemy aircraft and I continued firing until I had to pull away to the right to avoid a collision." His burst of fire had taken effect, for the German never recovered, but plunged down until he entered cloud, about 6,000 ft; below when the British pilot had to recover from the dive as his aircraft was going at approximately four hundred and eighty miles an hour. "I then made my way through the cloud at a reasonable speed," he reported, " and saw the wreckage of the enemy aircraft burning furiously. . . . I climbed up through the cloud and narrowly missed colliding with a Ju. 88 which was on fire and being attacked by numerous Hurricanes."

There was also the Dornier which crashed just outside Victoria Station. Members of its crew landed by parachute on the Kennington Oval while the Hurricane pilot who had shot it down and whose aircraft had gone into an uncontrollable spin when the enemy blew up beneath him, landed safely in Chelsea. Nevertheless, the yellow-nosed squadrons, the elite of the German Air Force, acquitted themselves bravely and showed greater skill than their less well-trained comrades. It was observed that they usually attacked in pairs disposed in line astern some seventy-five yards apart.

Occasionally, fire at long range proved effective. Close range combat was the rule, but it is recorded that a Hurricane pilot fired at an enemy aircraft moving faster than his own and about to get out of range, and hit it at 800 yards. This caused it to slow up, and his second burst was fired from 500 yards. Eventually he finished it off at 25 yards. Another Hurricane pilot, who had broken off a fight because the cooling system of the engine of his aircraft was giving trouble, and who was therefore returning to base, encountered a lone Me. 109 which he stalked out of the sun and shot down from 500 yards.

At this stage in the fight it became clear that the enemy bomber pilots felt themselves to be no match for the British. It was generally observed that as soon as contact was established, they jettisoned their bombs then broke formation and turned at once for their base. Thus, twenty Dornier 215's were encountered over the London Docks flying in a diamond formation escorted by Me. 109's "stepped up" to 22,000 feet. The bombers were broken up by a level quarter attack and this enabled our intercepting Squadron to pursue them relentlessly and shoot most of them down.

Occasionally in this confused and struggling fight the British Squadrons found themselves temporarily outnumbering the enemy. Thus at 12.15 a mixed force of Hurricanes and Spitfires amounting to the greater part of five Squadrons was over the south of the Thames, somewhere near Hammersmith. Here they encountered an inferior number of the enemy and did terrible execution.

But it was seldom that we had the advantage in numbers. The enemy, however, seemed unable to profit by his numerical superiority. A single Hurricane, for example, encountered twelve yellow-nosed Messerschmitts flying straight at it. The pilot dived under them but swooped upwards and shot down the rear aircraft from directly underneath. As he still had plenty of speed the British pilot half rolled off the top of his loop and followed the enemy formation which had not apparently perceived the fate of their comrade in the rear rank. The British pilot accordingly destroyed another enemy aircraft from the rear and damaged a second before the Germans became aware of what was happening, and he was forced, being still in the numerically inferiority of nine to one, to break off the action.

The fight was all over by 12.30, and by the time the citizens of London and the South-East of England were sitting down to their Sunday dinner the enemy were in full flight to their bases in Northern France. One of those citizens had special cause to rejoice in the result of the fighting. The Prime Minister had spent the morning in one of the Operations Rooms of No. 11 Group. It was observed that for once his cigar remained unlit as he followed the swift changes of the battle depicted on the table map before him.

Some of the enemy had for a brief moment succeeded in penetrating into the centre of the capital but they dropped only a few bombs. The fire was too hot, the defence too strong. Seventy of the estimated two hundred and fifty aircraft in the attack, equalling twenty-eight per cent., were seen to crash that morning, ten more were considered probably to have been destroyed and twenty-eight were observed by our pilots to break off action in a damaged condition. These figures, compiled immediately after the fight and in accordance with the very strict rules applied by the Royal Air Force to pilots' reports, probably underestimate the casualties they inflicted. Even so the Luftwaffe lost slightly over forty-three per cent, of the aircraft used in this morning attack.


Second Wave of Afternoon Attackers

Despite the sound and fury of battle that sunny autumn day, the citizens of London had their Sunday dinner in peace. A lull ensued for about an hour and a half. Then, shortly after two, fresh enemy forces returned to the attack in about the same strength as had been employed that morning. German aircraft crossed the coast near Dover in two waves, the first of one hundred and fifty, the second of one hundred. These formations spread over the South-East and South-West of Kent and over Maidstone.

Before they could proceed farther they were intercepted by fighters of the Royal Air Force. Twenty-one Squadrons were sent into the air and twenty-one squadrons made contact with the enemy. This time the numbers on each side were fairly equal, and the fighting superiority of the British force was immediately established. Our fighters tore into the enemy's formations, ripping through them like a knife through calico. That was how it sounded from the ground. So determined was the British defence, so effective these tactics, that the "German formations were again instantly broken up. This was the opportunity for each pilot to single out an adversary, and in a few moments the sky was again a battlefield. In all that space from the Thames Estuary to Dover, from London to the coast, dog-fights were soon in furious progress. Squadrons were swiftly scattered so that two which took off together from their base might, fifteen minutes later, be fighting fifty miles apart.

There was nothing haphazard about this interception of the enemy. It was only possible oh such a scale and in so effective a manner because every detail had been planned and tested in the fighting of the previous months. So, as reports came through of the German approach, we were able to despatch from the correct tactical points enough Squadrons to achieve complete interception and the best results, without dissipating our forces. The general principle applied in coping with earlier assaults having proved so successful it was put into effect in this second great attack. Certain Squadrons were detailed to deal with the enemy screen of high-flying fighters halfway between London and the coast. This enabled the others to, attack the bomber, formations and their close escort before they reached the line of fighter aerodromes East and South of London. Those of the enemy who succeeded in penetrating these defences—-some seventy or so— were tackled by Squadrons of Hurricanes, mostly from Nos. 10 and 12 Groups, who came into action over the capital itself. They also pursued stragglers. As in the morning's fighting some two hundred individual combats took place and, although no two were quite alike, the general pattern was the same.

"I engaged the enemy in formation, causing them to scatter in all directions," ran the report of one pilot. "We sighted a strong formation of enemy aircraft," wrote another, " and carried out a head-on attack. The enemy scattered, jettisoned their bombs and turned for home. We encountered heavy cannon fire. . . ." The reports are laconic: " The whole of the nose, including the pilot's cockpit, was shot away. . . ." "I saw tracer flying past my left wing and saw an Me. 109 attack me. . . ." "I saw his perspex burst and the enemy aircraft spun down. . . ." "I did not consider it worth while to waste any more ammunition upon it. . . ." "I then looked for more trouble and saw an He. 111. I attacked and closed to about 10 feet..." "I gave him everything I had. . . ." "Aircraft became uncontrollable. I baled out, coming down with left arm paralysed (afterwards learned dislocated). ..."

As in the morning a single British aircraft, in this case a Hurricane, piloted by a Group Captain, encountered a large formation of German aircraft, both fighters and bombers, and went into the attack alone.

"There were," he said on his return, "no other British fighters in sight, so I made a head-on attack on the first section of the bombers, opening at 600 yards and closing to 200 yards." After describing how all alone he broke up the enemy formation the Group Captain adds, "I made further attacks on the retreating bombers, each attack from climbing beam. . . . One Dornier left the formation and lost height. With no ammunition left I could not finish it off. I last saw the bomber at 3,000 feet dropping slowly . . ."

So it appears that each pilot had his own swift decisions to make, his own problems to meet. He was not found wanting. While the fight lasted the Germans were destroyed at the rate of two aircraft a minute. That afternoon's attack cost them ninety-seven destroyed. In the entire day we lost twenty-five aircraft, but fourteen pilots were saved.

Such was a typical day's fighting in a battle which lasted for nearly three months over the South of England.


Hurricane prototype. Note retractable tail wheel, dropped on production models.


British searchlight – carbon arc 90cm, giving 210 million candlepower.


My 'Waiting for Clod' thread: http://tinyurl.com/bqxc9ee

Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Elie Wiesel. Romanian born Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, Holocaust survivor. 1928 - 2016.

Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. C.S. Lewis, 1898 - 1963.