Battle of Britain

battle_name=Battle of Britain

Phases of the Battle

The Battle can be roughly divided into four phases:

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• 10 July – 11 August: Kanalkampf, the Channel battles.
• 12 August – 23 August: Adlerangriff, the early assault against the coastal airfields.
• 24 August – 6 September: the Luftwaffe targets the airfields. The critical phase of the battle.
• 7 September onwards: the day attacks switch to London.

Kanalkampf

The Kanalkampf comprised a series of running fights above convoys of freighter vessels running through the English Channel. In general, these battles off the coast tended to favour the Germans whose bomber escorts massively outnumbered the convoy patrols. Eventually the number of ship-sinkings became so great that the British Admiralty cancelled all further convoys through the Channel. However, these early fights provided both sides with experience. They also gave the first indications that some of the aircraft, such as the RAF's Defiant turret-fighter and the Luftwaffe's Me 110, were not up to the intense dogfighting that would characterise the battle.

Related Topics:
Admiralty - Defiant

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Adlerangriff

The weather, which was to prove an important feature of the campaign, delayed Adlertag until 13 August. But on the 12th the first attempt was made to blind the Dowding system when aircraft from the specialist fighter-bomber unit Erprobungsgruppe 210 attacked four radar stations. Three stations were briefly taken off the air but were back working within six hours. The raids appeared to show that the British radars were difficult to knock out for any length of time. The Luftwaffe's failure to mount repeated attacks on them allowed the RAF to get the radar stations back on the air.

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Adlertag opened with a series of attacks on coastal airfields, used as forward landing grounds for the RAF fighters. As the week drew on, the airfield attacks moved further inland and repeated raids were made on the radar chain. 15 August saw "The Greatest Day" when the Luftwaffe mounted the largest number of sorties of the campaign. This day saw the one major intervention by Luftflotte 5 in the battle with an attack on the north of England. Believing the strength of Fighter Command to be concentrated away in the south, raiding forces from Denmark and Norway ran into strong resistance. Inadequately escorted by long-ranged Me 110 Zerstörers, the bombers were shot down in large numbers. As a result of the casualties Luftflotte 5 would not appear in strength again in the campaign.

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18 August, which saw the greatest number of casualties to both sides, has been dubbed "The Hardest Day". Following the grinding battles of the 18th, exhaustion and the weather reduced operations for most of a week, allowing the Luftwaffe to review their performance. The "Hardest Day" had sounded the end for the Ju 87 Stuka dive-bomber in the campaign. This veteran of the Blitzkrieg was simply too vulnerable to fighter attack over Great Britain and to preserve the Stuka force Göring withdrew it from the fighting. This removed the Luftwaffe's main precision-bombing weapon and shifted the burden of pin-point attacks on the already-stretched Erprobungsgruppe 210. But Göring was not finished: the Me 110 Zerstörer had proven itself too fragile for dogfighting with single-engined fighters and its participation would also be scaled back. It would only be used when range required it or when sufficient single-engined escort could be provided.

Related Topics:
18 August - Ju 87 Stuka

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Göring made yet another fateful decision: to order more bomber escorts at the expense of free-hunting sweeps. To achieve this the weight of the attack now fell on Luftflotte 2 and most of the Me 109 forces in Luftflotte 3 were transferred to Kesselring's command, reinforcing the fighter bases in the Pas de Calais. Stripped of its fighters, Luftflotte 3 would concentrate on the night bombing campaign.

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Finally, Göring ordered the attacks on the radar chain stopped. The attacks were seen as unsuccessful and neither the technically inept Reichsmarschall nor his subordinates realised how vital the Chain Home stations were to the defence. It was known that radar provided some early warning of raids, but the belief amongst fighter pilots was that anything that brought up the 'Tommies' to fight was to be encouraged.

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Luftwaffe targets RAF airfields

From 24 August onwards, the battle was essentially a slugging match between Kesselring's Luftflotte 2 and Keith Park's 11 Group. The Luftwaffe concentrated all their strength on knocking out Fighter Command and made repeated attacks on the airfields. Of the 33 heavy attacks in the next two weeks, 24 were against airfields. The key sector stations were hit repeatedly: Biggin Hill and Hornchurch four times each, Debden and North Weald twice each. Croydon, Gravesend, Rochford, Hawkinge and Manston were also attacked in strength. No less than seven attempts were made against Eastchurch, which was not a Fighter Command aerodrome but was believed to be by the intelligence-starved Germans. At times these raids knocked out the sector stations, threatening the integrity of the Dowding system. Emergency measures had to be taken to keep the sectors operating.

Related Topics:
24 August - Biggin Hill - Hornchurch - Debden - North Weald - Croydon - Gravesend - Rochford - Hawkinge - Manston - Eastchurch

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These were desperate times for the RAF, which was also taking many casualties in the air. Aircraft production could replace aircraft but replacement pilots were barely keeping place with losses, and novice flyers were being shot down in droves. Most replacements had as little as nine hours flying time and no combat training. The Luftwaffe referred to these pilots as "cannon fodder". At this point the multinational nature of the RAF came to the fore. With many pilots from the Dominions already serving in Fighter Command — Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders and Canadians — they were bolstered by the arrival of fresh Czechoslovakian and Polish squadrons. In addition there were other nationals, including Free French, Belgian and even a Palestinian pilot serving amongst the squadrons.

Related Topics:
Australia - South Africa - New Zealand - Canadians - Czechoslovakia - Polish - Free French - Belgian - Palestinian

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The RAF at least had the advantage of fighting over home territory. Pilots who bailed out of their shot-down aircraft could be back at their airfields within hours. For Luftwaffe aircrews, a bail out over England meant capture, while parachuting into the English Channel often meant drowning or death from exposure. Morale began to suffer and kanalkrankheit or 'Channel Sickness' — a form of combat fatigue — began to appear amongst the German pilots. The replacement problem was even worse than the British. Though the Luftwaffe always maintained its numerical superiority, the slow appearance of replacement aircraft and pilots put increasing strain on the resources of the remaining attackers.

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And yet, the Luftwaffe was winning this battle of the airfields. Another fortnight of this pounding and the RAF might have been forced to withdraw their squadrons from the south of England. This was not clear to the Luftwaffe command, which had watched its bomber force start to waste away and had grown desperate to deliver on the original timetable. They could not understand why the RAF hadn't yet collapsed, or how they were always able to get fighters to the place they were needed, no matter how many raids were sent. Something needed to be done to force the RAF into a decisive battle.

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On 4 September Hitler ordered to bomb London, following RAF raids on Berlin on the night of 25–26 August, itself a reprisal after London was bombed by accident. The Berlin raid had hurt Göring's pride, as he had previously claimed the British would never be allowed to bomb the city. Kesselring seized his chance and proposed a strategy change. In the face of Sperrle's arguments that attacks on the airfields should continue, Kesselring persuaded the Reichsmarschall to attack London. The raids would either panic the British population into submission, or it would force the "last fifty Spitfires" into the sky where they could be annihilated. This attack was no longer seen as a prerequisite for Seelöwe, but was meant to be decisive in itself.

Related Topics:
4 September - Berlin - 25 - 26 August

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Raids on London

On 7 September, the first London raid was launched, attacking docks in the East End of the city. Over the coming days massive raids were launched again and again: some targeting the docks but others bombing indiscriminately. The RAF did come up but in greater numbers than the Luftwaffe expected. The 12 Group Big Wing was deployed for the first time, giving the German pilots a fright. Over the coming days the attacks on London continued. The break from bombing the airfields gave the RAF critical breathing space. It was the turning point.

Related Topics:
7 September - East End

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Without a doubt the most damaging aspect of the switch to London was the longer range. The Me 109 escorts had a limited fuel capacity, and by the time they arrived over the city, they had only ten minutes of flying time before they had to turn for home. This left many raids completely undefended by fighter escorts.

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Both sides in the battle made exaggerated claims of numbers of enemy aircraft shot down. In general claims were two to three times the actual numbers, due to confusion in the whirling air battles. However, post-war analysis of records has shown that between July and September the RAF lost 1,023 fighter aircraft to all causes, while the Luftwaffe losses stood at 1,887, of which 873 were fighters. Polish pilots scored 201 out of that number. To the RAF figure should be added an additional 376 Bomber Command and 148 Coastal Command aircraft that conducted vital bombing, mining and reconnaissance operations in defence of the country.

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