Fighter, p.21
Fighter, page 21
Another Gruppe of KG 54 were briefed for a feint attack at Portland, to draw the fighters. They were grounded by the postponement order but their Bf 110 fighter escort – the whole first Gruppe of ZG 2 – had not received the order, even though it was, by now, midday. They flew off without the bombers. Over Portland they found Hurricanes of 238 Squadron waiting for them. For although the radar at Ventnor was still out of action, the rest of the chain was working. The homeless airmen and airwomen were coaxing signals from damaged aerials and mobile generators.
By mid-afternoon, the weather had improved. The Air Fleet teleprinter clattered with new orders, and the aircraft took off for the official Adlerangriff. The plan was for heavy bombing raids on military targets over the whole of southern England, concentrating upon Fighter Command airfields. The major flaw in the plan was the fact that the Luftwaffe had no idea which airfields were Fighter Command airfields. Fink’s unescorted Dorniers had, that morning, delivered an accurate blow at Eastchurch airfield, where air reconnaissance photos had shown Spitfires. But it was a Coastal Command airfield and the Spitfires were there only temporarily. Other airfields attacked were similarly irrelevant to the Battle: the RAF research centre at Farnborough, and Odiham near to it.
Long-range Stuka units were in the forefront of the assault. A Gruppe of the elite LG 1, commanded by Hauptmann Berndt von Brauchitsch – the son of the army’s Commander in Chief – made a dive-bombing attack upon Detling airfield, near Maidstone.
The way had already been cleared for IV (Stuka)/LG 1 by the crack fighter unit JG 26. This was the Schlageter Geschwader of Galland and Priller, led this day by Major Gotthardt Handrick, the 1936 Olympic Pentathlon champion. They engaged Spitfires of 65 Squadron, and lured them into the upper air, while von Brauchitsch’s Ju 87s dived upon Detling. It was a few minutes after five o’clock in the afternoon, just as the Mess halls were filling with airmen. Sixty-seven of them were killed. The Operations Block was devastated, and twenty-two RAF aircraft were destroyed on the ground. All of IV (Stuka)/LG 1 got back safely. It was a well-planned operation, completed with textbook-like perfection. Twenty-two aircraft destroyed on the ground in one attack represents a telling blow to any air force, and so does the loss of so many trained men. But RAF Detling was not a part of Fighter Command and its fate could have no effect upon the outcome of the air battles.
The RAF Sector Controllers were learning the tricks, too, and when a fighter sweep by JG 53 – the Pik As Geschwader – tried to draw the fighters away west of the Isle of Wight, they did not go. In fact, the tactic worsened matters for the bombers that followed. The RAF, drawn into the air by the fighter sweep, now had altitude enough to attack the bombers. Nine Ju 87Rs – a Staffel of II/StG 2 – were spotted over Lyme Regis by Spitfires of 609 Squadron. Only three Stukas escaped destruction, and one of those was damaged.
As evening came, the Press Officers and propaganda pundits of both sides began their exaggerated claims. In fact, the Germans had lost forty-six aircraft and had shot down thirteen RAF fighters. Additionally one fighter had been destroyed on the airfield at Eastchurch.
It was clearly a British victory – or was it? No less than forty-seven RAF aircraft had been destroyed on the ground, and to add to that loss, there came from RAF Bomber Command the news that eleven Vickers Wellington bombers had been shot down over Germany.
And in an attack that had more effect upon morale than upon the Fiat and Caproni aircraft factories, thirty-six bombers of the RAF flew all the way to Milan and Turin and back.
The German night bombers were also active against the major cities of England, Scotland and Wales. Of all these attacks, two scored unusually accurate hits on aircraft factories: Shorts in Belfast and, far more important, the factory at Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, which had just begun producing the Spitfire Mk II. Both of these attacks were made by Heinkels of the specially trained Kampfgruppe 100, a unit that was to play an important part in future attacks.
The Air Fleets had mounted their greatest effort so far: 1,485 sorties. Fighter Command had responded with 700 sorties. Compared with July, when the Controllers had been using 600 sorties a day just to protect the convoys, this was nicely anticipated.
Like two men who have exchanged blows, both sides reeled back: surprised, pained and apprehensive. The next day’s air fighting was much reduced in scale. But now both air forces were locked in battle, and as the summer days shortened, the Luftwaffe had to force a quick, violent conclusion.
Both sides continued to overestimate the damage they were inflicting. This did not affect the British very much, because their strategy was simply to keep Fighter Command intact as a fighting force until the weather became too bad for an invasion attempt. They could never hope to destroy the German Air Fleets.
The Germans, on the other hand, had to destroy Fighter Command before moving on from RAF targets to invasion targets. So it was vital for Luftwaffe strategy that they maintained an up-to-date picture of the state of their enemy. But they did not do so. They gave too much credence to the air-combat reports, and they did not distinguish between targets that were essential to Fighter Command and those that were not. Even when the targets were the right ones, there was a tendency to – both figuratively and literally – tick off the targets attacked, as if they no longer existed.
German intelligence had formed a very accurate assessment of the number of fighter aircraft available in July. But they went wrong in calculating the rate of manufacture. And even more wrong in guessing what Beaverbrook’s repair units were doing.
Neither did the Germans accurately estimate the supply of pilots. The situation was grave but not so grave as the German planners hoped. They calculated that, by now, the RAF squadrons in 10 Group, 12 Group, and 13 Group had been stripped to reinforce those in 11 Group – the front line.
So it was decided to test Fighter Command’s overall strength by launching simultaneous attacks from all sides. Luftflotte 5, in Norway and Denmark, had gained considerable experience from isolated attacks and reconnaissance flights against Scotland and the north of England. Now it was to contribute a major part of the day’s carefully planned offensive.
15 August
The day began with another example of Luftwaffe staff muddle. The weather experts forecast heavy cloud. On the strength of that forecast, Göring decided that the great assault could not take place. Instead he would hold an inquest on Adlertag. It was typical of him that he should want to play host at Karinhall, his great house and hunting estate. So the Air Fleets’ senior staff journeyed all the way to Schorfheide, 40 miles outside Berlin.
By mid-morning the cloud had reduced to scattered patches in a clear blue sky, and the wind was a negligible 2 mph. German air reconnaissance reported that the same fine weather extended from central France across most of England.
The detailed orders for this massive air attack had long since been distributed to the Air Fleets. The spearhead of the attack was to come from Fliegerkorps II. Originally such units had been intended as mixed commands but gradually they had become more specialised. This one comprised two Dornier Do 17 bombing Geschwader – one of them Fink’s – and the Condor Legion Geschwader with Heinkel He 111s, plus three separate and self-contained Ju 87 Gruppen and the outstanding Jabos of ErprGr 210. All of this was under the command of General Bruno Loerzer, the First World War friend of Göring who had plucked him from the obscurity of an arthritic ward of a military hospital to a front-line flying unit. Needless to say, Loerzer was invited to this day’s great social event, Göring’s luncheon followed by a military discussion. It was a sort of day which Goring much enjoyed, from the lavish hospitality – champagne, excellent food, brandy and cigars – to the lecture, or tirade, that inevitably ended such occasions. And all that was taking place in distant Karinhall.
Bruno Loerzer was often to be seen at Göring’s elbow, enjoying his jokes, holding his maps and listening attentively. Some said he spent far too much time away from Fliegerkorps II HQ in Ghent, Belgium, and certainly his Chief of Staff, Oberst Paul Diechmann, was well able to handle the command in Loerzer’s absence. On this fateful day, Diechmann looked at the clear blue sky and decided to launch the whole assault on his initiative.
So at the HQ of IV (Stuka)/LG 1 the teleprinters came to life. Two Staffeln of von Brauchitsch’s Ju 87s were assigned to dive-bomb the RAF airfield at Hawkinge. More Ju 87s (from II/StG 1 in the Pas de Calais) were to attack Lympne. A Gruppe of Dornier Do 17s of KG 3 – the Blitz-Geschwader – were sent to Rochester airfield and another Gruppe headed for RAF Eastchurch. As the bombers finished forming up near the coast, a great umbrella of fighters – husbanding their fuel by last-minute take-offs – rose to escort them.
FIGURE 29. 15 August
The gigantic air assault was launched by the action of a comparatively junior officer (see above). For the first time, Air Fleet 5 joined in the attacks against Britain, using feints (broken line) by Heinkel float-planes.
The northern two Groups were not taken by surprise. Air Vice-Marshal Saul’s Controller was particularly bold in his use of fighters (top black dotted line). Leigh-Mallory (who was criticising Park for not deploying fighters boldly enough in countering attacks against the south coast) now reacted timidly, using only fighters from the sector that was attacked.
Having committed his units to one of the greatest air assaults in history, Diechmann went over to Kesselring’s ‘Holy Mountain’ to see how it developed. Kesselring was of course away at Karinhall but his Operations Officer, Major Hans-Jürgen Rieckhoff, was there. He had heard the aircraft, and wondered what was afoot. He was appalled to hear what Oberst Diechmann had done, in spite of Göring’s instructions.
Diechmann pointed out that Göring had not forbidden that the attack should start this day; he had simply called a conference based upon a weather forecast which had proved entirely wrong.
Rieckhoff reached for the phone to countermand the orders but Diechmann said it was too late, the bombers were on their way to England. Rieckhoff decided to phone Kesselring immediately. He placed a call with all possible priority but when he got through to Karinhall he was told that it was Göring’s instruction that the conference was not to be disturbed under any circumstances.
Fliegerkorps II’s decision to launch the attack committed to action units from Lannion in Brittany all the way to Stavanger in Norway. It was to be the most intensive day’s fighting of the entire Battle.
Artfully, Air Fleet 5 began by sending a formation of Heinkel He 115C reconnaissance float-planes – from Kustenfliegergruppe 506 – for a feint attack upon the Scottish coast. This was to draw 13 Group’s fighters far to the north of the real attacks.
The main force consisted of seventy-two Heinkel He 111 bombers of KG 26, Löwen-Geschwader, a unit famous as torpedo and anti-shipping specialists. Escorting them were twenty-one Messerschmitt Bf 110 twin-engined fighters: the second and third Staffeln of ZG 76. There was every reason to believe that they would provide adequate protection, for they had decimated an unescorted force of RAF Wellington bombers over Heligoland in December 1939. So confident were the commanders that to accommodate the weight of the extra fuel carried in the 1,000-litre ‘Dachshund bellies’ slung under them these special Bf 110D-1/R1 aircraft had left their gunners behind.
The day began badly for these long-range raiders. An error in navigation made their track so near to the feint attack that they were picked up on the British radar as one large formation. The defences were alerted.
The radar operators of this northern part of England’s chain, lacking the experience of their 11 Group colleagues, estimated the raid at about thirty aircraft. At 12:15 p.m. the Controller scrambled 72 Squadron at Acklington in Northumberland. Its leader was at 18,000 feet, far out over the sea, looking for thirty German raiders, when he made contact. As well as two Gruppen of KG 26 Heinkel He 111s, there was a whole Gruppe of Bf 110s: about a hundred ‘bandits’ in all.
The twelve RAF fighters were 3,000 feet higher than the raid, and the RAF formation leader continued out to sea, in order to turn and attack out of the sun. Over the radio-telephone one of his pilots asked him, ‘Haven’t you seen them?’
In a reply that was to become famous throughout the whole of Fighter Command, the leader said, ‘Of course I’ve seen the b-b-b-b-bastards. I’m trying to w-w-w-work out what to do.’
No. 72 Squadron split: one half to take the Bf 110 fighters and the other to attack the Heinkels. The Gruppenkommandeur of the Bf 110s was leading the fighter escort. He tried to jettison his long-range tank. These clumsy tanks were notoriously unreliable and this one did not fall away before a bullet touched off the vapour. His Bf 110 exploded like a bomb. Some of the Bf 110s formed a defensive circle, in which the tremendous forward-facing firepower could protect a neighbour’s defenceless tail. For this trip – made without gunners – the circle was the only expedient.
Some Heinkels jettisoned their bombs and changed course towards patches of cloud. But with dogged determination most of the bomber crews stuck to their briefing, closing on the coastal towns despite repeated fighter attacks.
Courage of another sort was shown by the 13 Group Controller, who judged (rightly) that this was the entire Luftwaffe effort against his Group. With unprecedented boldness – for the air war in the south had predictable lines of thrust – squadrons from as far north as Drem in Scotland and as far south as Catterick in Yorkshire were vectored on to the German raid. These daring tactics decimated Löwen-Geschwader and their escort. Fifteen German aircraft were shot down, for a loss of only one RAF fighter.
The southern prong of the attack across the North Sea was made by Junkers Ju 88 bombers of KG 30, the Adler-Geschwader. These were among the newest of the Luftwaffe’s aircraft. Their performance had persuaded Stumpff – commander of Air Fleet 5 – to let them go unescorted (and so give his Bf 110s to the Heinkels). To provide protection, a few of the Ju 88s had been specially modified with cannons on the nose.
This attack, from Aalborg, Denmark, made landfall in 12 Group, whose commander, Air Vice-Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory, the plump, neatly dressed protégé of Dowding, had spent most of his career in army-cooperation flying. He had been criticising the way Park, commander of 11 Group, was handling the Battle, arguing that larger RAF fighter formations would be far more effective against the German raids. More and more he blamed Dowding, too, for not ordering Park to adopt these ‘big-wing’ tactics.
So it is interesting to note that while Air Vice-Marshal Richard Saul, of 13 Group, had boldly flown squadrons from as far north as Drem, Air Vice-Marshal Leigh-Mallory was nothing less than timid in his reaction. There were no ‘big wings’ deployed here. The attacked sector used only its own squadrons. Twelve Spitfires of 616 Squadron and six Hurricanes of 73 Squadron intercepted the Ju 88s. The Adler-Geschwader pressed on bravely to bomb the RAF station at Driffield, Yorkshire. They destroyed ten Whitley bombers on the ground. However seven of the Junkers Ju 88s were shot down and three more made crash landings in Denmark, Germany and Holland.
Even considering the RAF bombers destroyed at Driffield, the Germans paid a heavy price. Of Air Fleet 5’s raiding force, nearly 20 per cent had been lost. It was a disappointment to the Luftwaffe strategists. Clearly the northern Fighter Groups had not been depleted to reinforce 11 Group. It also proved that German bomber formations could not operate without (single-seat) fighter escort.
The single-seat fighter achieved paramount importance after this day’s fighting. Gone were the theories of the Schnellbomber that outpaced its pursuit. From this day it was evident that any raid must be accompanied by aircraft as good as those that the defence used.
Now the Luftwaffe could go in strength only where their Bf 109s could go: and that meant a small segment of south-east England. This in turn provided Dowding with a possible last-ditch strategy of putting all his fighters on airfields beyond Bf 109 range. From there, if need be, they would still be able to fight the raiders from unbombed airfields.
And yet another tribute to the single-seat fighter was emerging from the statistics. The Luftwaffe bombing formations could only escape morale-shattering losses by providing two fighters for every bomber in its formations. On this day, for instance, the Germans flew 1,786 sorties, of which only 520 were bombing sorties. So nearly half the Air Fleet’s available bombers had remained unused because of the lack of fighter escort.
In the south, Air Fleets 2 and 3 used the Bf 109 as usual, but they could not prevent serious casualties among the more vulnerable aircraft types, for instance the Ju 87 and Bf 110. The raiders did considerable damage at the airfields, upon which their attacks concentrated. However, they were still attacking many airfields unconnected with Fighter Command, and tactically the most damage was done by some wild misses that severed power lines and thus put radar stations out of action.
In fighting that ranged from Scotland to Devon the RAF lost thirty-four fighters in the air, with another sixteen RAF aircraft lost on the airfields attacked. The Luftwaffe lost about seventy-five aircraft (although this is still disputed, and Hans Ring of the German Fighter Pilots’ Association says fifty-five would be more accurate). Whatever the true losses, soon the Luftwaffe began to refer to this day as der schwarze Donnerstag: black Thursday.
Meanwhile the propaganda services performed with gusto. The Germans claimed 101 victories and the RAF an epic 182.
It was at Göring’s top-level conference of Air Fleet and Fliegerkorps commanders that the most far-reaching events took place. Göring decreed that Luftwaffe officer aircrew casualties were now so severe that not more than one officer must fly in each aircraft, and the Stukas must have no less than three fighters each for protection. He added, ‘It is doubtful whether there is any point in continuing the attacks on radar sites, in view of the fact that not one of those attacked has so far been put out of action.’
