Heinkel He 111 bombers cross the Straight of Dover
September 15th 1940
September 15th is remembered as Battle of Britain Day, commemorating the great aerial battle fought over southern England in 1940.
The Objective
On May 10th, 1940, Hitler unleased his armies against western Europe. France surrendered a few short weeks later on June 23rd, as Hitler completed his conquests of Norway, Denmark, Holland, Luxembourg, Belgium and France.
On July 2nd Hitler ordered preparations for Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of Britain. In order to enable an invasion fleet to cross the English Channel, Hitler needed to force the Royal Navy out of the Channel and the North Sea, and to do so he needed to establish air superiority over the Channel by forcing the RAF out of its airfields in southern England.
The objective of the Luftwaffe’s assault in the Battle of Britain, therefore, was to destroy the RAF’s 11 Group fighter stations so that a German invasion fleet could cross the Channel under German air cover.
The Forces
Hurricane versus Do 17
- Luftflotte 2 had 533 Messerschmitt 109 fighters, 107 Messerschmitt 110 heavy fighters, and a total of 484 bombers including Heinkel 111s, Dornier 17s, and Junkers 88s.
- RAF 11 Group had 92 Spitfires and 218 Hurricanes for a total of 310 fighters, including two Canadian, two Polish and one Czech squadron.
Thus Luftflotte 2 outnumbered 11 Group approximately 3 to 1.
The Battlefield
Strategies & Tactics
The Luftwaffe primary strategy was an attempt to overwhelm 11 Group’s defenses.
- Large formations of bombers, often in waves 50 or 100 strong, flew against two or three targets to split 11 Group forces
- Me 109 fighters, which were equally matched with Spitfires but generally superior to Hurricanes, flew above the bombers to swoop down on 11 Group fighters if they attacked the bomber streams
- Me 110 heavy fighters flew diversion missions and ground attacks to draw 11 Group squadrons away from the bombers
- In the period mid-August to mid-September the Luftwaffe could have up to 500 aircraft over southern England in a single morning or afternoon, never opposed by more than 250 fighters at the most.
In the first weeks of August the Luftwaffe concentrated its daylight attacks on the dozen or so primary 11 Group airfields in southern England, in a war of attrition Hitler and Goering and the German high command believed it was winning, although Luftwaffe 2 was sustaining heavy losses—almost 600 aircraft in August.
Then in an abrupt change of plan, in September the Luftwaffe began flying bombing raids against London and other cities, in what Londoners called ‘the blitz,’ in an attempt to crush the British will to resist.
The Blitz
The Luftwaffe’s last major daylight attacks on London, flown on September 15th, resulted in very heavy losses—60 aircraft in one day. It was clear to Hitler and Goering that the Luftwaffe could not establish the air superiority necessary for an invasion and Operation Sea Lion was suspended two days later. Luftflotte 2 switched to night bombing, against which the RAF had no effective defense since airborne radars, essential for nighttime defenses, had not yet been perfected.
The decision to switch from bombing 11 Group airfields to bombing London must go down as one of history’s most stupid mistakes.
- Goering forgot the plan was to drive 11 Group away from the Channel. 11 Group survived and was able to inflict heavy losses on the incoming bomber streams on their way to and from London.
- London had no military value in terms of an invasion plan. It was also at the extreme range of the Me 109s attempting to defend the bombers. They were forced to turn for France after only ten minutes over London, leaving the bombers to the mercy of the RAF.
Time was Critical
A fully loaded Luftwaffe bomber cruised at approximately 200 mph or a little over 3 miles per minute. Thus a Dornier 17 took 7 minutes to cross the Straits of Dover and 18 minutes more to reach London. Let us suppose a raid took place at 15,000 feet.
Let us suppose the Dornier was spotted by the Observer Corps as it crossed the English coast. There would be 18 minutes to intercept it before it released its bombs on London.
- Dowding System analysis and decision: 2 minutes, Dornier time to target remaining (TTT) 16 minutes
- Hurricane squadron time to scramble to wheels-up: 5 minutes, TTT 11 minutes
- Hurricane time to climb to 15,000 feet: 6 minutes, TTT 5 minutes
A Hurricane could fly at 340 mph or a mile every 11 seconds, and it now has 300 seconds to catch the Dornier before it bombs. If the Hurricane is more than 30 miles away, the Dornier will beat it to the target.
If, on the other hand, Chain Home spotted the Dornier as it crossed the French coast before flying across the Channel, then the Hurricane would have an extra 7 minutes to catch it—another 40 miles, making interception much more likely.
Goering never understood the full significance of the Chain Home stations and stopped trying to bomb them early in the battle.
Churchill
In his speech on June 18th, the speech now remembered as the ‘this was their finest hour’ speech, Churchill presaged the Battle of Britain by saying ‘Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war.’ I borrowed his words to create the title for my novel, Breaking Point.
Churchill was, by coincidence, at 11 Group Headquarters in Uxbridge on September 15th, Battle of Britain Day. In the history he wrote years later, The Second World War, he described the situation on that day as ‘the odds were great; our margins small; the stakes infinite.’ Again, I took his words for the title of my second novel, Infinite Stakes.
During the afternoon, at the height of the second Luftwaffe assault of the day, Churchill asked Keith Park, the 11 Group commander, what reserves he had available. Park replied, ‘There are none.’
The Afternoon of Battle of Britain Day
In my novel Infinite Stakes, my protagonist Eleanor Shaux is being interviewed about her recollections on the sixtieth anniversary of Battle of Britain Day. (Her future husband, Johnnie Shaux, callsign Shadow, was flying a Spitfire that day.) Here is an excerpt:
A: At about 1430 – half-past-two. The first formations reached the Thames at Gravesend and turned west toward the East End of London.
Q: Is it true that Churchill asked about reserves?
A: Yes. At that point Park had every squadron from 11 Group in the air, plus the Duxford Wing from 12 Group and two squadrons from 10 Group, although later he decided to order three squadrons to land, just in case they were needed as a reserve against a late afternoon raid.
Reports from the Observer Corps on the south coast, and from 339 high above them, put the total number of enemy aircraft in the five hundred range. If you consider that they were in a formation about five miles wide and twenty miles long, Kesselring had about one aircraft for every cubic mile they occupied— a very high density.
One can only imagine how terrifying it must have been for the people of northern Kent and East London to look up and catch glimpses of formation after formation of Dorniers and Heinkels through breaks in the clouds, bearing random death and destruction.
Q: What exactly did Churchill say when he asked about reserves?
Park put down a telephone.
“Everyone is now airborne,” he said. “Nineteen 11 Group squadrons, the Duxford Wing from 12 Group, and two squadrons from 10 Group.”
A WAAF pushed the leading enemy marker into the Thames estuary and edged it toward London. A long line of Luftflotte II markers followed in its train. A group of RAF markers awaited them over Hornchurch.
“We are still, however, outnumbered two-to-one,” Park added.
“What other reserves have we?” Churchill asked him, staring down at the map table.
“There are none.”
“None? Did you say ‘none,’ pray tell me?” Churchill asked, as if unwilling to believe it.
“None, Prime Minister.”
Q: In his account in his History of the Second World War, Churchill wrote that Park looked ‘grave.’
A: I don’t think that’s fair. Park looked calm, as he almost always did. He made up his mind, positioned his resources, and then awaited the outcome. One must remember that we’d been doing this day after day after day. His stomach might have been in knots, but you’d never know it.
Churchill, on the other hand, was not used to seeing the fate of England—the fate, if you will, of the British Empire, from his perspective—laid out on a map table in real time, about to be decided in the next twenty minutes. I think he saw, for the first time, the scale of the threat and how thin our margins truly were. I think he saw all those markers scattered across the map, and realized there really were far more of them than there were of us. It shocked him, I think. ‘The few’ was not just a finely turned phrase: it was a mathematical fact.
I think he had been judging Park, sitting back and observing him, weighing him in the balance, as it were. Now, all of a sudden, I think Churchill realized that the only thing saving him from being Adolf Hitler’s special guest in Spandau Prison in Berlin was Keith Park’s judgment.
Q: It was really that dramatic? I thought you said earlier that this did not feel like the decisive day in the battle.
A: I did. That was because we had had a month of decisive days and this, as I believe I said on a previous occasion, was just another bloody Sunday. But Churchill was not used to the knife edge. He wrote afterwards that: ‘The odds were great; our margins small; the stakes infinite.’ He was seeing it for the first time.
Q: The stakes were infinite?
A: Just everything that’s happened since 1940, just the entire modern world, as we know it—that’s all.
Churchill glowered.
“The bombers will reach London, sir,” Eleanor said to him, feeling a need to protect Park, although she wasn’t really sure of why. “They will hurt the East End, I’m afraid, once again, but they won’t do decisive damage. In the meantime Mr. Park has made sure they’ll pay a very high price.”
“Let us hope, Squadron Officer.”
Eleanor felt something snap inside her mind.
“Hope has nothing to do with it, sir,” she said.
Park had invented, out of thin air, a brilliant defense against overwhelming odds. Johnnie was grimly clinging to his sanity amidst the mayhem, somewhere among the clouds above, outnumbered two-to-one. Froggie Potter had died a few minutes ago, the promise of his life squandered and unfulfilled. Churchill must understand what all that sacrifice has achieved.
“They outnumber us two-to-one, as Mr. Park has said, but we are shooting down more than two of their aircraft for every one of ours.” She was surprised by the harshness in her voice. “That’s a simple, bounded, negative arithmetic series, sir, tending to zero, and it leads to inevitable Luftwaffe defeat.”
She waited for a sharp retort, but none came. Churchill simply stared at her. Park stared at her too, for a long second. Then a telephone rang, commanding his attention.
Q: ‘The odds were great; our margins small; the stakes infinite.’ That was Churchill’s description?
A: Yes. That’s what he wrote after the war, seven or eight years later, I suppose.
At 1430 that afternoon, when he asked Park about reserves, approximately two hundred bombers were approaching London. They had almost four hundred 109s to protect them, some in tight formation with them, some flying in free hunts. The cloud cover made it difficult to find the enemy aircraft, so the Dorniers and Heinkels were advancing successfully even though they were flying into a heavy headwind, and flying into scores of Spitfires and Hurricanes.
All we could do in Uxbridge was to wait for the reports. It was like watching the ball bouncing round a roulette wheel, waiting for it to settle. On the way in, the battle was very ragged because of the weather conditions, with lots of indecisive encounters. But as the bombers turned for home, the balance seemed to shift in our favor …
“Shadow, Lumba calling. Vector three-zero-zero at angels one-five.”
“Shadow.”
At long last, Sector was releasing 339 from sentry duty high above the fray, and directing them inland. Presumably, Shaux thought, the bombers and their escorts were now beginning to make their way home to France and Belgium, and 339 was being directed to intersect them as they sought safety. And presumably the radar screens were clear, so there were no more incoming bandits for Digby to spot.
As usual, Shaux knew virtually nothing about what was going on. He had seen large numbers of enemy aircraft flying northeast below him. The timing suggested they had hit London and were now returning. Without bomb loads, and now with a tailwind, they’d be much faster. The cloud would make it difficult to spot them from afar and plan a coordinated attack.
These were the right conditions for the sort of sudden random melee they had suffered this morning, in which chance could overcome discipline and training.
Perhaps Luftflotte II had finally broken through and scored a major victory. Perhaps Park had snookered them once more. Eleanor would know. In the meantime it didn’t matter who was winning or losing; only that 339 was on an intersection vector with the enemy.
In these conditions, with eight aircraft, it would be best to fly as two ‘finger-four’ formations, one behind the other. Shaux decided he had better lead Green Flight himself. Potter was gone; Jacko Welsh had great promise but lacked the experience to lead them in this unpredictable situation.
“Shadow, Green Flight leads,” Shaux said. “Follow me. Reform.”
“Shadow, Lumba calling,” said the Sector controller’s voice. “Advise?”
Shaux ignored him: he was not about to debate tactical formations with a new and inexperienced controller—clearly whoever the voice belonged to was new and inexperienced, because he didn’t have the good sense to leave the flying up to the pilots, and restrict himself to telling them where to go. Shaux debated sending a stinging response, wondering why he was so irked, until he realized he must be reacting to Potter’s death.
Shaux always accepted that shooting down enemy aircraft was a necessary part of the job, even though he felt no personal animosity to the Luftwaffe pilots, whom he considered to young men like himself, just doing their duty as best they could, and not as evil mass murderers, as Nazis, as some of the newspapers portrayed them, or as barbarian hordes of ‘Huns’ as some of his fellow pilots thought. But on this occasion Shaux found he was hoping to find the enemy, hoping to inflict some retribution. He felt ashamed of himself but could not shake it.
339 was still almost exactly overhead Hawkinge, between Folkestone and Dover. A vector of three hundred, approximately west-north-west, would bring them back to Ashford, where they had been jumped this morning. This was beginning to feel like déjà vu, just as Potter had said this morning. Damn! How many days or weeks or months would it take until Froggie Potter stopped erupting into his train of thought?
“Stay awake,” he said, to himself as much as anyone else. This was a perfect opportunity for a 109 or a 110 to come sneaking up behind them from the direction of France, just when they least expected it.
“Aircraft three o’clock low,” said Digby, his miraculous eyesight as all-seeing as ever. The aircraft were single-engined, Shaux saw, flying south toward France, at angels one-three. They must be 109s making a run for it. 339 could probably catch them if he made an immediate decision. He opened his mouth to speak.
“Aircraft are Hurricanes,” Digby said.
Shaux closed his mouth again. That was another mistake by the controller, he thought, who was supposed to tell them the whereabouts of all 11 Group aircraft, in order to avoid a ‘friendly fire’ accident. Shaux decided to make a stink about it when they got back to Hawkinge. It was ridiculous that …
“Bandits twelve o’clock low,” Digby said. Shaux’s attention had been wandering yet again. “Bandits are 17s and 109s.”
Here they came, two thousand feet below 339, three unmistakable Dorniers, in tight formation, with three unmistakable 109s behind them. Shaux estimated a closing speed of a mile every twenty seconds and a distance of four miles. Two thousand feet to shed.
Shaux considered his options. He needed a firing solution that maximized the chances of damaging the Dorniers while forcing the 109s out of the picture. He had ten seconds to decide.
The bandits were crossing in front of him from left to right. He needed to fly a quarter of the way round a circle with a two minute duration circumference, in order to intersect thirty seconds from now. Shaux often found it convenient to measure distances in time rather than yards or miles, a practice that baffled his fellow pilots who lacked his mathematical abilities.
“Follow me,” he said, banking right, and choosing what he hoped was the correct rate of turn. “Green Flight take the 109s, Red Flight take the Dorniers.”
If he was correct, the bandits would present themselves in the center his gunsight in thirty seconds. Mr. Finlay, his high school mathematics teacher, leapt into his head. ‘The proof of the pudding is in the eating,’ he would always say, a phrase Shaux had never really understood.
Shaux searched above and behind for other bandits, knowing Digby would be searching too; there was no need to look at the enemy as they approached if his calculations were correct. There were no other aircraft beyond 339 that he could see. Finally he looked forward, and there, in the center of his sights, were the 109s. Mr. Finlay would have nodded his approval—a proven pudding.
Shaux opened fire at the leading 109 and saw his tracer striking the right wing and engine cowling. He fired for two, perhaps three, seconds, as the guns barked and the Spitfire shuddered from the recoil, and eight lines of white hot ordinance converged on the 109 before he flashed over it and began a sharp right turn. In three seconds Shaux’s eight machine guns had delivered four hundred rounds, and he was confident that many of them had struck home.
Yes, the 109 was descending, streaming oil, as Shaux completed his turn behind it. The 109 was flying in a sort of awkward, crablike attitude and Shaux knew the pilot must be fighting serious structural damage, perhaps to the ailerons.
Shaux checked the horizons and the skies above and saw that Jacko had stayed with him, as all good wingmen should, a hundred feet or so behind him.
The 109 was forty or so miles from safety, and even so he might still have difficulty landing if his control surfaces were damaged, and it had slowed to a crawl, probably hobbled by whatever was losing that oil. Shaux calculated he could chase him down in two minutes or less, and the 109 had very little chance of escape. This would be for Froggie Potter, Shaux thought, a 109 for a Spitfire, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a pilot for a pilot.
No, Shaux thought, it is more fitting to turn away and hope that the pilot survives the war and lives a long and fruitful life worthy of Froggie. Who knew—perhaps he played the saxophone.
“Shadow, reform, reform,” he said. He turned north and climbed, and Jacko followed in his wake.
